Chapter 4
Enzo’s temper was still hot when he walked into Luca and Oliver’s house for dinner.
When he’d first turned around and seen the guy, he’d felt an immediate jolt.
First, attraction. That much was easy to understand. The guy was freaking gorgeous—built big and brawny, with messy blond hair a few weeks past needing a cut, piercing blue eyes, and a tan that tight white shirt accentuated to perfection.
Then, annoyance.
How could anyone believe that he, Enzo freaking Moretti, was painting graffiti? Enzo still didn’t understand how that misunderstanding had happened.
“You’ve been quiet all night,” Oliver said, nudging him.
Enzo had a feeling Oliver had been waiting to bring up his crap mood until his mom had ducked out for a Fourth of July planning meeting at Joy Billings’ B&B. Then Luca had followed, claiming he needed to deal with a problem at the restaurant.
“Yeah, you have,” Rocco agreed, as he leaned back in one of the teal blue Adirondack chairs dotting Luca and Oliver’s patio. “You kept glaring at the chicken piccata like it did something to insult you.”
“I just . . .”
“Hate being back here?” Oliver inserted with a raised eyebrow. “I know.” He gave Enzo a commiserating glance.
It was almost funny to remember a time when he’d had the world’s stupidest crush on Oliver Billings.
He’d been an ass back then. A mess of hormones and frustration with no outlet and then the one chance Oliver had given him had gone terribly and he hadn’t taken that well, either.
When Luca had come to town and he and Oliver had fallen in love, Enzo had begun to understand just how much all of that was his fault, and before he’d left for San Francisco, he’d apologized and began to mend the rift between them.
It hadn’t been easy or quick but slowly, they’d become friends.
Oliver would’ve been impossible to avoid as his cousin’s husband, especially after he and Luca had become close, but Enzo liked to think he and Oliver had a friendship entirely their own, in-law status notwithstanding.
“It’s not being back here, actually,” Enzo said. “I’ve been here less than twenty-four hours. Hard to be miserable, already.”
“Then what’s up?” Rocco asked, a frown creasing his tanned forehead. “It’s not Auntie, is it?”
Giana was not Rocco’s aunt, but he liked to call her that, and to Enzo’s surprise, Giana actually liked it, and even kept harassing Luca to join in. But Luca would only shoot Giana a look and pretend he hadn’t heard her teasing entreaties.
“No.” Enzo huffed out a frustrated sigh. “You two don’t know anything about the guy who owns the old hardware store, do you? I think it’s called Cherry’s?”
He’d wanted to ask his mother, because she was the one who’d arranged the mural in the first place, but Enzo knew her well enough to understand, even through his frustration and anger, that there had to be a reason why she hadn’t decided to inform—or even ask—Will about the mural.
He wasn’t going to head into that particular conversation without being forearmed with at least a guess why.
“You mean Will? Will Johnson?” Oliver looked confused. “Of course we know Will. He’s a great guy.”
“Hot, too,” Rocco teased.
Oliver shot his young cousin a fond glare. “He’s not interested, Rocco. You know that.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t fantasize,” Rocco insisted.
Oliver rolled his eyes.
Enzo didn’t need his cousin to tell him how hot Will Johnson was.
“Is it possible that neither of you know that Giana arranged for me to paint a mural on the side of his building?”
Enzo got his answer when Oliver looked surprised and Rocco downright shocked. “I know Luca mentioned it,” Oliver said slowly. “Not that you were painting Will’s building, but that you were going to paint one while you were here. I thought the location was still up in the air.”
“It’s not,” Enzo said. Though maybe after Will’s reaction—and then his reaction to Will’s reaction—it was now.
“Well, that’s surprising,” Oliver said bluntly. “I saw Will the other day and he didn’t say anything about it.”
“Because I don’t think Giana told him,” Enzo said.
Rocco laughed.
Maybe Enzo would’ve found it equally funny if he hadn’t been all butt hurt about Will’s graffiti accusations and then reverted back to his teenage form. Acting way too much like the stuck-up prick that he’d been before he’d ever left Indigo Bay.
“Ouch,” Oliver said softly. “Let me guess, you found out that info—both of you found out that info—in the worst possible way.”
Enzo nodded. “I knew on my way here for dinner I’d pass the building, so I thought I’d take a look at it. Test some paint on the brick. He caught me. Accused me of painting his building with graffiti.”
“Ouch,” Rocco said this time. “Were you your normal charming self?”
Enzo winced and figured that was enough of an answer.
“I know how hard he worked to get all the old graffiti off that building,” Oliver said slowly. “It took him a solid week. I told him it was a waste of time, but he refused to listen. Said he wasn’t going to let some punk kids win.”
“And then he thought you were one of those punk kids,” Rocco said, chuckling.
“Yeah.”
“Ouch,” Oliver said for the third time and when Enzo made a face, Oliver shot him an apologetic look. “I know I keep saying it, but it applies. Will’s really nice.”
“And hot, too,” Rocco added, again.
Enzo had been trying not to think about that particular fact, but it was hard when Rocco kept bringing it up.
“But I can see how that probably hit him the wrong way,” Oliver continued, only shooting Rocco a quick glare over his interruption.
“I bet you were pissed because you showed up all big shot artist and he accused you of vandalism,” Rocco said.
“It . . .it could’ve gone better,” Enzo agreed.
“What could’ve gone better?” Luca asked, pushing open the glass door between the house and the patio.
“Everything okay?” Oliver asked his husband as he leaned in, dropping a kiss on the top of his head.
“Yeah, I just had to grab another three-gallon bucket of vanilla bean from Oliver. Someone left it too close to the freezer door—you know the spot—and it got weird and crystallized. Thawed and then re-froze a few times.” Then Luca grinned, soft and earnest in a way he’d never been when he’d first come here.
“But the good news was I got Will to give us a few pints for dessert.” He set a paper bag, white and striped with the same bright cherry pink as the new awning over the old hardware store, on the table between their chairs.
“Speaking of Will,” Oliver said, “Enzo met him tonight.”
“Oh?” Luca opened the bag and began passing out little cardboard pints, all printed in that same distinctive pink and white stripe.
“You know how Giana told you Enzo’s painting a mural while he’s here? Apparently it’s Will’s building and she didn’t bother to ask him.”
Luca glanced over at Enzo as he handed him a container and a spoon. “I’d heard that,” he said carefully. “From Will himself. Ouch.”
“Can everyone stop saying that?” Enzo complained.
“And Will totally thought Enzo was painting graffiti on the side of his building,” Rocco added.
“Ouch,” Luca repeated, shooting Enzo an apologetic smile.
“Clearly I’m gonna have to apologize.” He didn’t sound happy about it, because he wasn’t happy about it.
“I kinda think that should be Auntie,” Rocco said.
“Oh, she will,” Enzo promised darkly. “But I will, too. I just want to know before I talk to her—before I talk to Will—why would she do that?”
Oliver shot him a commiserating glance as he popped the lid off his ice cream and made a satisfied noise.
“Rocco already told you why,” Oliver said, then turned to Luca.
“You got me the tuxedo,” he said, giving him the kind of gooey smile that would’ve made Enzo crazy with jealousy five years ago, but only made him glad his cousin had found someone so good to love now.
“Of course I did. The rest of us got a flavor Will says he’s trying out. Cherry Brown Butter Brickle. So feedback’s welcome.”
The cardboard was slippery and cold against his hand, but Enzo didn’t open it yet. “What do you mean?” he asked Oliver.
“He’s gorgeous,” Oliver said, words muffled by ice cream. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice while he was about to have you hauled off for vandalism and you got all up in your ego about it?”
“I noticed,” Enzo huffed.
“Right. Well. Think of why your mother might’ve neglected to inform both of you of your soon-to-be-cozy circumstances.”
Enzo groaned. “She’s trying to pair me up with Will.”
“From the moment she met him. She’s been salivating at the possibility of big, built blond grandchildren,” Luca said with a dark chuckle.
“I didn’t think I needed to explain how babies work to you, Luca,” Rocco inserted with a teasing glance towards Oliver.
“You know what I mean,” Luca said, waving away his cousin’s joke. “She wants Will for you, and you for Will. That’s the best guess I’ve got why she didn’t tell you. Why she didn’t tell Will? No idea.”
“Kate mentioned she’d been in a few times to the ice cream parlor, talking about Enzo to Will.
Who, of course, had no idea what the fuck to make of her pushiness.
She was probably worried he’d move out of town if he realized what she’d done.
Or maybe she was thinking she’d spring you on him like a gift, or something. ”
“Or something,” Enzo said morosely. “She was really doing that?”
“You can’t be that surprised,” Luca said. He gestured towards the softening cardboard in his hand. “Eat your ice cream. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t know that it will.” He was not only annoyed now, he was embarrassed.
“Will’s ice cream solves all problems,” Rocco promised.
Enzo almost said, if it was anyone but Will’s ice cream, it might, but he opened the container anyway and dug his spoon in.
The ice cream looked normal, like ice cream did. Under the strings of lights crisscrossing the patio, it shone a beautiful pale yellow, with bright red streaks through it. The cherries, Enzo assumed.