Chapter 12 #2
“Just don’t let it go to your head,” Luca murmured, tucking his head closer to Oliver’s. Wondering if he could get away with just one more kiss.
“I won’t,” Oliver promised, “as long as you give me my goodbye kiss.”
Luca almost asked if they were doing that now, but he wanted to give it just as much as Oliver wanted to receive it, so it seemed very stupid to prevaricate.
He dipped his head and they were just in the middle of a kiss he was trying to keep PG when the door to the kitchen swung open and there was a distinctly male oath uttered behind them.
Well, I guess Enzo caught us anyway.
As Luca lifted his head, he couldn’t even say he was sorry.
At least until he saw the punched-out look in Enzo’s eyes. Like he’d just been hit in the stomach with a two by four.
Maybe Oliver didn’t want that second date, but I know now that Enzo did.
He hadn’t meant to be an ass about it, and if he’d known that this was more than just wounded pride, he’d have made sure not to kiss Oliver where Enzo could’ve caught them.
He could be autocratic and arrogant, but he wasn’t an asshole.
At least he tried not to be.
Oliver glanced back over his shoulder. Saw the fury in Enzo’s eyes. “I’d better go,” he said, and with a last peck to Luca’s cheek, had slipped out the door before Luca started toward Enzo.
“Really?” Enzo sneered. “You’re really just going to—”
But before he could finish his sentence, Luca said, “I’m sorry,” and that took every bit of the wind out of his sails.
The disdain slid right off Enzo’s face, to be replaced by hurt.
“It’s bad enough that I don’t want to be here, and I am,” Enzo said quietly. “Do you have to make it worse by hooking up with Oliver?”
“I can tell you honestly that you weren’t a consideration when Oliver and I started dating.
” Because that was what they were doing; regardless of the timeframe, regardless that he couldn’t stick around.
It was still dating, because there was no way with his entire heart filling with so much affection it was just sex.
“Maybe I should have, but I care about him, and I’m not sure if that would’ve stopped me, because I think .
. .” Luca hesitated. “Because I think he feels the same as I do.”
And he probably did.
Oliver had a sweet and open face, but Luca had a feeling even if he could hide it, he wouldn’t.
Maybe it would be better if they didn’t feel the same, because it was only going to suck in the end, but Luca was trying to believe just because something ended didn’t mean it wasn’t worth enjoying in the moment.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Enzo demanded.
Luca sighed. “No. But it’s the truth.”
“So you’re just going to mess with his head while you’re here and then leave, huh? How is that any better?”
Here was the thing: Enzo didn’t have any right to ask that question. None of this was his goddamned business at all.
But that just happened to be the same question Luca couldn’t stop asking himself.
“I’m not messing with his head,” Luca said gruffly. “Oliver’s an adult. He knows the situation. Better than you do, anyway.”
“Okay.” Enzo didn’t sound convinced at all.
Not surprising, considering Luca wasn’t even quite convinced.
Luca decided it was high time to change the subject. “You made the menu board, didn’t you?”
Enzo nodded stiffly.
“You don’t need me to tell you it’s really good.”
“No, I sure as hell don’t.” Enzo crossed his arms over his chest.
“But you do need me to ask why the hell you don’t do more of them.”
Enzo glowered. “I do?”
“You’re really talented. This is gorgeous. My sister, Chiara, you know her, right? She . . .well, she went to school for design, and she loved it.”
“She the one who made the design plan my mom showed me?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
“Then you saw she wanted to know if you could make some more pieces. Maybe even do a mural for the back wall.”
“I’m not trained, you know. I just. . .I just like it. Making things.”
“And I’m not a trained chef, but I can still hold down the line when they need me to.
School isn’t everything.” Luca had a feeling he’d finally uncovered the real reason Enzo was so sullen all the time.
He’d wanted to go to art school and Giana had made him stay at home, with her, preparing to take over a business he had zero interest in.
Enzo looked at him suspiciously. “You really want me to paint a mural?”
“You saw the plans. Not just me, but Chiara thinks it would transform this place.”
She’d also told him personally, in an email he hadn’t forwarded, she thought he had real talent that was totally being wasted here in Indigo Bay. At the very least, she’d written, why didn’t he set up his own thing, creating art pieces for other businesses in the area?
Luca hadn’t been able to answer the question, though he’d suspected the truth: because Giana had kept him so tied to her apron strings, she’d sucked all the confidence out of him.
He didn’t do it because he didn’t think he was capable of doing it.
“Well, I guess I could put together some sketches.”
“You saw Chiara’s ideas,” Luca suggested, more gently than he’d have believed himself capable of only a few weeks ago. “But if you have something else in mind, let’s see it.”
“I think . . .” Enzo glanced at the back wall. “I’ve got some ideas.”
“Alright. Can’t wait to see what you come up with,” Luca said.
“You mean that.” Enzo glanced back at Luca, eyeing him suspiciously.
“Lying to people isn’t really my kinda thing,” Luca said. “Being painfully blunt usually is.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Enzo grumbled. “I can see that. So you’re gonna break Oliver’s heart, then?”
Luca sighed. “It’s none of your business, but no, I’m not going to do anything. It’s just . . .”
What was it?
He didn’t even know.
Could he break Oliver’s heart?
He sure as hell hoped not.
But his own traitorous heart leapt at the possibility.
Because breaking it would mean Oliver loved him.
And oh God, wouldn’t that be a thing?
A bad, bad thing, Luca reminded himself.
“Right,” Enzo said self-righteously before Luca could even decide how he felt about that—good and bad and everything in between, apparently. “Don’t do it, okay? He’s a good guy. Nice.”
“I know.” Luca took a breath. Tried to rediscover his grip on sanity. “While we’re at it, though, maybe you could stop bad-mouthing Oliver, because he is a good guy. Your words. Not mine.”
“You don’t—”
But Luca didn’t let him finish. “I do believe he’s not just a good guy—he’s a great guy, which is why I’m sick to death of you saying shit about him. Just quit it, okay? Some things aren’t meant to be.”
“I bet you don’t even know what that’s like,” Enzo complained.
“Better than you realize,” Luca retorted. “You take over three restaurants, add a fourth and start a line of ready-made sauces and dips while wrangling six younger siblings and get back to me.”
Enzo didn’t have anything to say to that. Which, was that even surprising?
Still, he said as he turned to leave, “I’ll do some sketches today. Send them over.”
“Good. Keep your mom in the loop, too. And cc my sister, okay?”
“Chiara?”
“That’s the one.”
Finally, Enzo slunk out and Luca let out an enormous sigh.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he realized he had two texts.
The first was from Gabe.
Enjoy your break, and let them take care of shit for once, was all it said. Guess he’d talked to Matteo, and it seemed everyone was on the same page with this plan.
The second, just arrived, was from Oliver.
Don’t kill him, okay? I want to take you on a picnic tomorrow, not bury a body.
First, he replied to Gabe: I’m trying.
Then to Oliver: That all you want to do?
Gabe replied almost immediately with Try harder.
Luca rolled his eyes. His brother was never going to not drive him crazy. But maybe they could keep heaping dirt on this hatchet between them.
Then Gabe sent a second text. Ren says maybe you should ask your friend Oliver to distract you.
Luca laughed then, out loud, unable to contain his amusement.
Tell Ren I’m touched by his interest in my love life.
Luca stared at the screen, at the words he’d typed, before he sent it.
It wasn’t a lie. It was his love life. How could it be anything else, how could it be just fun, or just fucking around, when he felt like this?
When he couldn’t imagine flying away in a week and a half and leaving Oliver here? When he couldn’t imagine not seeing his smile every single day?
Maybe he should broach the idea they could do this long-distance.
But the moment Luca thought it, he discarded the idea almost immediately.
That would be almost harder than not having him at all.
The problem with Luca was he didn’t do half-measures.
He knew it, didn’t necessarily like it, but it was a cornerstone of who he was. He committed. All-in or nothing.
And all-in was not an option here.
All in would mean abandoning his family, who were managing for now, but he knew wouldn’t be able to handle things long-term. Not with his parents growing older, Gabe down in Los Angeles with his own life, and Marco so committed to the steakhouse.
They needed help. Help he gave, freely.
He’d never resented it, but could he continue to say that, if he had to leave Oliver back here? Leave the amorphous outlines of a relationship that could’ve been, if he wasn’t committed elsewhere?
Luca didn’t know.
But what he did know was that he didn’t have a choice.
This was his life.
It had been set in stone the moment he’d been born first.
He should go to the kitchen and walk Giana through the new bread, show her the panini he was adding to the menu, but before he could, his phone dinged again.
It wasn’t Gabe this time, but Oliver instead.
Oh, Oliver wrote, I’ve got plans. Plans not including burying a body. BIG PLANS for you.
Luca was torn between chuckling and shoving his phone in his pocket and heading to the bakery, to tease out of him just exactly what those big plans were.
That was the problem with Oliver; he made him want to do the impossible.