Chapter Eight
Enzo expected his mom to return to the scene of the crime sooner rather than later, but to his surprise, she didn’t.
When he finally finished up the scaffolding, it was nearly full dark—and she’d still not stopped by.
Gathering his phone and the basket, he rounded the corner and discovered a whole crush of people inside Cherry’s. He’d been planning to stop in and maybe re-configure the plan, but Will looked run off his feet, and happy, and so Enzo left him alone, trudging the few blocks back to his mom’s house.
Unlike Cherry’s, her house was dark. Unexpectedly. Where was she? Enzo paused in front of her door, considering texting and asking, but a shower and his bed were calling, and he was honestly too tired to deal with this tonight.
He’d find her in the morning, and this time, he had a feeling she wouldn’t be so intent on avoiding him. After all, she’d want to know all the details of their romantic rendezvous in Cherry’s back room.
He took a long, cold shower, and when he was finally clean, slumped down on the futon that doubled as his couch.
Discovered he was too tired to even flip on the TV.
But not too tired to glance over at his phone, especially when he realized Will had texted him while he’d been thoroughly scrubbing himself down.
How did it go?
Didn’t see her actually. She’s not home, either. He omitted that it was weird for him not to find his mother absent at nearly eight PM on a weeknight. Don’t tell me you’re that eager to fake date me? The artichoke spread is good but not that good.
My tastebuds beg to differ.
Enzo laughed, head slumping back against the edge of the futon. He should really drag his exhausted ass to bed.
You guys looked busy tonight.
Busier every night, Will texted back. I’m gonna need to hire some more help.
You thought about asking Rocco? I know he works at Rudy’s but only during the weeknights. I think his weekends are free.
Great minds. I’ve already called him up. But I think I’m gonna need another more permanent employee. I know Rocco’s not planning on sticking around.
He wasn’t. Eventually he’d find a business he wanted to buy in another small town, and leave.
I wish I knew someone to suggest, Enzo replied.
It’s alright. Part of being a business owner.
Let me guess. One of the worst parts.
Right up there with being the person everyone calls when something goes wrong.
Luca likes to say everyone who starts their own business secretly has a savior complex, Enzo texted back.
He’s not wrong.
Is that why you’re trying to bail me out with my mom?
Enzo regretted the text the moment he sent it. It sounded needy and desperate like, tell me instead that you liked me too much to resist.
But they both knew that wasn’t true.
Maybe I’m trying to bail us both out.
Enzo relaxed against the futon cushions again. How did Will always know the right thing to say?
You’re annoyingly perfect.
If you were my fake boyfriend, you wouldn’t find my perfection annoying :)
True. I’m gonna talk to her tomorrow.
Good luck. And good night.
When Enzo fell asleep ten minutes later, still on the futon, it was Will’s face, bright smile, and those irresistible dimples swimming in front of his eyelids.
At least before he’d fallen asleep at nine, like a freaking old man, Enzo had remembered to set an alarm so he was up bright and early. A little sore, but a lot rested.
He threw some of his work clothes—a worn-out pair of loose shorts, and a paint-stained tank that had once been white—and ducked into his mom’s house, the back door open, before he headed out to Will’s building.
And sure enough, there was his mother, enjoying her coffee at her little nook table.
“Oh, Enzo, I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” she exclaimed as she looked up.
Enzo knew his way around his mom’s kitchen as well as anyone’s and grabbed coffee and popped a bagel in the toaster.
“Why not?” he questioned innocently.
“Well, you and Will had that very romantic date yesterday. Thought maybe he might’ve crashed here last night. Or maybe you spent the night at his room in the Inn?”
“Mom,” Enzo said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest, “you need to stop.”
“Stop what?” She sounded so baffled, so innocent, he almost believed it.
“Stop trying to push Will and me together.”
“Why?” Her eyes were wide and surprised. “You two are so cute together, just like I knew you’d be.”
“Mom,” Enzo chided. Took a long sip of coffee. “Even if I liked him like that—”
“Enzo,” she interrupted, “I wasn’t born yesterday. I heard about you two flirting the other night at Cherry’s. And then earlier, at Oliver’s. You two aren’t being very subtle. I’m just trying to help your relationship along. There’s no law against that.”
Enzo opened his mouth and snapped it shut again. There was no reasoning with her, especially not when she’d already decided they were in a relationship. Maybe Will was right, and the only way to convince her to stop was to convince her all this was unnecessary.
Enzo took a deep breath. Ignored his bagel that just popped up in the toaster. “Mom, it doesn’t need help. It’s . . .uh . . .already going just fine.”
He wasn’t stupid, despite popular belief. He knew what he was saying and what he wasn’t saying and also how his mother would undeniably take it.
“Oh, oh,” Giana exclaimed, looking happy enough that she might burst.
“If you keep interfering, you might screw it up,” Enzo cautioned, shoving that hot burst of guilt down hard. He shouldn’t be feeling it, but he was anyway. He wasn’t lying to her, but apparently that didn’t matter to his conscience.
“I definitely do not want that. Neither of us do,” she agreed. “I knew the moment I met him he’d be perfect for you. And right here in Indigo Bay!”
“What a coincidence,” Enzo said dryly, turning to get his bagel because he wasn’t sure he could keep a straight face much longer.
“The very best kind.” Giana clapped her hands. “Are you going out again, soon? And not to his back room, with you sweaty and disheveled, Enzo, darling. He needs to see you at your best. You are very handsome. I’m sure he agrees.”
“So handsome you have to work hard to get me a date?” Enzo decided it was a positive development that he could at least joke about this now.
Maybe Will had been right, and this had been the way to do this to begin with.
After all, he genuinely liked the guy. How hard would it be to spend some extra time with him while he was here?
Not that hard.
Or really fucking hard.
“You know it was for you,” Giana reminded him after he’d buttered his bagel and sat across from her. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I know I keep saying this, but I am,” he said.
“Well, you are now,” Giana agreed, smiling.
Ugh. Enzo had never felt a kinship more viscerally than he did right now. Was this what women felt like, when they were constantly reduced to and defined by their relationship status?
“What are your plans today?” she asked. Enzo already knew she was forcibly returning the subject to the question he hadn’t answered yet. When is your next date with Will? When will you get married? How about that picket fence? And babies? Those big blond babies I want so badly?
Maybe it was unfair since she hadn’t specifically mentioned marriage and children—that had been Luca as, Enzo hoped, a joke—but he had a feeling it was only a matter of time.
“I’m working, Mom,” he said.
She made a frustrated noise as he sipped his coffee and ate his bagel. “I mean, your plans with Will.”
“I know I’m working, and he’s working.” He flashed her a conciliatory grin. “But good news, we’ll almost certainly see each other, as we’ll be basically in the same place.”
She relaxed then. “Oh, right. Yes, of course. Well, I trust that you know how to treat a man right.”
Enzo made a face and told himself she was not referring to his disaster of a date with Oliver, years before this.
“I do,” he countered and decided he was done with this assumption once and for all.
He didn’t know when Will’s next free evening was, but he intended to take him out, very publicly, and make sure the whole town was aware of what a goddamn brilliant date-r he was now.
That he was a catch. That men actually liked him.
Will likes you.
Well, he’d better, because Enzo intended to romance the hell out of him, in front of everyone.
“Of course you do,” Giana said. She gave him a small proud smile, and he couldn’t deny the delight in her eyes as she gazed at him.
It made it hard for him to be too angry or frustrated with her.
“You’re a fine man, Enzo. I don’t know how you managed it, because I’m afraid I was not the mother you needed, for far too long, but you did it. All by yourself.”
“Oh, I think you had something to do with it,” Enzo said softly. It was the truth, and he was handsomely rewarded for it with another of her beaming smiles.
“Thank you,” she said. “For being understanding even when you didn’t want to be.”
“It was always just us, against the world,” Enzo reminded her.
It had always been hard to be angry with her when she’d been loved and then abandoned, almost certainly in death, by Enzo’s father. They’d never found his body and Enzo had a feeling they never would, if his mom’s stories about his profession and associates were true.
It hadn’t been fair that the world had been cruel and left her saddled with a child and no way of making a living. He knew it had been harder on her than she’d ever let on.
“Always,” she agreed, and this time he didn’t see the shadow of bitterness, the fleeting sadness he usually saw cross her face whenever the past came up.
Maybe she’d finally made her peace with it. Enzo hoped so.
He pulled out his sketches from his back pocket as he finished his bagel and his coffee.
“Oh,” his mother said, inhaling sharply as she leaned over the table, “is that the mural?”
Enzo nodded.