Chapter 6 #2
“It’s my tuxedo milkshake,” Will said proudly.
“Oh, that’s a good one,” Joy said. “Even though I’m very partial to the coffee bean flavor.”
“Tell me,” Enzo demanded as he picked up the long silver spoon, not sure where he should start. Where the bliss should begin.
“Dark chocolate swirl, vanilla bean milkshake, topped with a tuxedo brownie and whipped cream. And of course, a cherry.”
“Love the little bow tie. It’s adorable.”
“The best part,” Joy agreed. “It’s all in the details, and you get that, Will.”
Will flushed, making him look even more attractive. Or maybe that was the decadent ice cream masterpiece he’d just brought Enzo. “Thanks. It is called the tuxedo,” he said.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Enzo said, his spoon hesitating over the top of the whipped cream swirl.
“How do you start a mural?” Will answered Enzo’s question with one of his own. “I’m gonna assume you just have to start. Doesn’t really matter where.”
Enzo dug his spoon into the whipped cream and then lower, digging out some of the melty-vanilla-ice-cream goodness, and groaned a little when he put it in his mouth.
For anyone who felt like vanilla was overrated, clearly they’d never had really good vanilla bean ice cream, with the little flecks of seed, the taste rich and nutty on his tongue.
And then there was the deep, dark chocolate ganache ribboning the edge of the glass.
“This is fucking delicious,” Enzo said, through a mouthful of ice cream. He plucked out the brownie, his teeth sinking into the perfect chewy texture, flecked with chunks of chocolate.
Will smiled, looked very pleased. “Glad you like it.”
“I love it. Please tell me all your ice cream is this good.”
Will didn’t need to tell him, because Enzo already knew it had to be.
“It is,” Joy said.
But Will only shrugged, flushing again in a very cute, self-deprecating way. “I do pretty well,” he said.
But from the number of people streaming in and out of his shop, it was clear he did more than “pretty well.”
“As for the murals . . .I usually start with an idea. In this case, your idea.”
Did he actually want to paint the de facto Indigo Bay story?
He’d have said before today that there was no way.
And yet, doubt had begun to wiggle in. He’d stood there, in front of the wall, and he couldn’t deny it had talked to him, the way blank walls tended to do before he created something really special.
Who was he to ignore the call of inspiration?
“What happens after that?” Will sounded genuinely interested, which was surprising. Most people were only interested in the beginning and the end.
“Then I do a loose sketch, make sure the layout works for the wall, and then, depending on the project, a more detailed sketch. But for this? I’ll probably keep it simple.” Enzo finished the brownie in two delectable bites. “Did you bake this? Or do you get these from Oliver?”
A bright wash of pink crept up Will’s neck and cheeks but this time he didn’t look adorable, he looked perturbed. “No, no. Of course not.”
“Oh. Well, I didn’t know you were a baking genius as well as an ice cream prodigy. My apologies.” Enzo grinned at him, hoping that it would smooth things over.
“Oliver actually told him he wanted his recipe,” Joy said.
She was glancing between the two of them, and Enzo was afraid that when this evening was over and she reported back to Giana—because there was no question she’d demand to know about this visit—his mom would be more determined than ever to see them paired up.
“You should put make that your slogan,” Enzo advised. “This town worships Oliver’s baked goods.”
“For good reason,” Will said.
Joy nodded, agreeing. “It’s a family tradition.”
“Share another one with me,” Enzo said, forcing himself to turn away from Will’s beautiful flush, towards Joy. “Tell me the story.”
“You’re sure?” Joy asked.
“I’m sure,” Enzo said.
A hundred Enzo Morettis sauntered through Will’s brain, uninvited, but not unwanted.
Enzo smiling.
Enzo teasing.
Enzo, his dark eyes serious and intent.
Enzo, moaning with the taste of Will in his mouth.
It was . . .well, it was not surprising, exactly, because Will was attracted to him.
Anyone with a pulse would be, because Enzo Moretti was plain fucking gorgeous.
But it was disconcerting. Especially with how tightly his brain was hanging on to even the thought of the guy.
All day, he’d been trying to get a respite, even as he’d known he’d be seeing him tonight.
Not just any vision of him either, but an Enzo Moretti eating his ice cream.
He was having difficulty even focusing, as Enzo slowly demolished his milkshake, bliss blooming across his handsome face.
“Well, Will, how does it begin?” Joy teased. “Since it’s your favorite.”
When he’d first come to Indigo Bay, scouting for the right location for his ice cream parlor, he hadn’t been convinced it was the right place for him.
Then one morning, over coffee and the best scones he’d ever tasted, Joy had told him the story of her ancestors, the story that made Indigo Bay so special, and he’d never wanted to leave.
“It has to begin with Eliza,” Will said. “She was born in the early 1800s to one of the first families of this town.”
Joy nodded, giving him a soft smile. “Right. She grew up with Nathaniel Billings. To hear it told, they were childhood playmates, always close. But when they grew up, he decided to go to sea.”
“But first, he fell in love.” Will sighed.
“And not with Eliza,” Joy confirmed. “With a woman named Betsy. They pledged their love to each other, before he left for a long sea voyage. When he came back, they were to be married. But he didn’t come back. Not for years. For so many years, Betsy married someone else.”
“Betsy’s the real villain in this story,” Enzo inserted casually.
Will had gotten momentarily distracted by Kate and Mari having a quick discussion, and when he glanced back, he realized that Enzo had finished his milkshake and after pushing it away, he’d laid his sketchbook out in front of him.
He was sketching quickly, pencil flying over the page.
Like he couldn’t even keep up with his own inspiration.
With scenes from the story? Will wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know if she’s a villain,” Joy said. “What other choice did she have but to move on? There’d been no sight of him, or word either, for years. She wasn’t supposed to wait forever.”
“Eliza did,” Will reminded.
It was the thing he loved most about the story. The hope that lived in Eliza that had never died—even when it didn’t make logical sense for her to hang on to it.
“It was a question I did consider at length, when I wrote their story,” Joy said. “Was Betsy right to move on and marry someone else? Was Eliza right to wait so long?”
“I think it’s romantic,” Will said.
Enzo shot him a teasing look. “Of course you do.”
“She knew he wasn’t dead. She knew it, which was why she waited.
Why she climbed up to the high point every single day.
She knew he’d come back home; she knew it deep down, in her heart, that he’d come back,” Joy said.
“That’s why she waited. Ultimately that’s why I decided she waited.
There’s a certain kind of enchantment to it, an unshakable faith that you have to buy into. ”
The way she glanced over at Enzo, who didn’t even notice, with his eyes glued to his sketchpad, pencil flying over the surface, made it clear what side he came down on.
But could anyone not believe and be so into illustrating each scene?
From his vantage point, Will could see the quick lines he’d drawn, building up the vantage point—this was South Carolina so none of the cliffs were particularly high, but it was the highest point on the coast—and the figure on the top, long hair curling in the breeze.
“Ten years she waited. Even when her family began to say she was crazy. She still climbed the high point every day. Watching and waiting,” Will said.
Joy nodded. “They tried to send her away. To relatives in Boston. To a sanitorium in Georgia. But she refused. Kept saying she needed to be here, for when Nathaniel returned.”
“I don’t know how anyone would believe, how anyone could believe, when all the evidence pointed to the fact he was dead,” Enzo mused. But he no longer seemed as convinced as maybe he’d once been. When he looked up, Will could see the questions in his dark eyes.
“Love is funny like that. It’s part hope and part magic, in the face of uncertainty,” Joy added.
“Then the storm blew in. It was the worst hurricane anyone could remember for a hundred years. They said it was like the hand of God, reaching out and touching the space between the land and the sea. When the weather finally cleared, the residents of the town could see a ship that had hit the rocks. And floating on a timber, in the wreckage, was a man with long dark hair and a thick beard that obscured almost all of his features.”
“With blue eyes everyone recognized,” Will said.
Joy nodded. “Everyone knew it was Nathaniel. Knew it had to be him. But Betsy hadn’t waited for him, of course.
She was married now, with three children.
There was no room for him there. But Eliza took him in, despite the town’s protests that it wasn’t right, wasn’t proper, and she nursed him back to health, physically and mentally.
Winter turned to spring, and her love was so steadfast, he realized he’d fallen in love with her as well.
They married a year later, and had five children. ”
“And one of them is your ancestor,” Will said, smiling.