Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
BIANCA
Giovanni looks poleaxed when Helen presents him with a shirt she made for him, retrieved from her room. But he changes into it without hesitation, stuffing the shirt he was wearing into the bottom of the bag with the s’mores fixings.
Helen’s shirt barely fits him, hugging his chest and his broad shoulders. The effect is unspeakably adorable.
A matching shirt is offered to me, and since Giovanni’s watching me with a grin, I pull it on over my orchard shirt.
It doesn’t take him long to fall into an easy rhythm of greeting the “Shirties.” He signs all kinds of ridiculous things that are handed to him, from napkins to paperback books written by other people.
He even signs the back side of some of their shirts with a sparkly gold Sharpie provided by Helen.
Giovanni’s a natural storyteller, and he always lights up when he’s talking to people.
Being in a crowd is his happy place as much as the kitchen, and I confess that I’m riveted by him.
I could watch him for hours, just like this—greeting people with a genuine smile that fills his eyes and every part of him. Listening to them.
I know he’s doing it, at least in part, for me.
Luanne rolls up to me in her wheelchair. “I see that look in your eyes, Bianca,” she says. “Don’t think that I don’t.”
“There’s no look in my eyes,” I insist, trying my best to banish the look I know must be there. “They’re just eyes, Luanne. I use them to see.”
“You don’t fool me. You’re wearing your heart in them, for the first time since I met you.”
That’s exactly what I was afraid of.
I’ve been warming toward Giovanni for a while now—ever since he slid that pie drawing under my door—but what he revealed to me today completely changed my perception of him.
He’s a man who cares deeply about family, love, and duty. In other words, he’s exactly the sort of man I’ve always hoped to meet some day.
But I know I won’t be able to keep him.
Of course, Luanne is still watching me like a hawk, waiting for more details.
“Giovanni and I are joining your book club,” I say, to change the subject.
“Both of you?” she asks excitedly. “You think he’d agree to read the spicy scenes out loud? He has a very nice voice.”
“Yeah,” I say, glancing at him as he signs what looks like a used napkin for Dorothy, who wears sunglasses indoors because of her light sensitivity. “I think he’d probably do it to make us happy.”
I’m learning that Giovanni will do just about anything to make the people he cares about happy.
“I’m not going to ask if you’ve wised up and started enjoying that feast of a man—”
“Good.”
She gives me a knowing, self-satisfied smile. “Because I can tell you have. I’ve always been able to tell when a woman has been well satisfied.”
I roll my eyes. “Maybe Theresa will give you a part-time job as an assistant psychic.”
But I don’t tell her that I haven’t enjoyed everything Giovanni has to offer. I’m not a good-enough liar, and I’m still basking in the afterglow of our morning.
“I knew it,” Luanne says, glowing as if she’s the one who’s had incredible sex. “What was it like? Where did you do it?” A knowing gleam fills her eyes. “It was in the kitchen, wasn’t it?”
I clap my hands, bringing everyone’s attention to me.
“You want to tell everyone?” Luanne asks in an undertone.
Ignoring her, I say, “We brought something for you. Giovanni and I want to win the s’mores bake-off tomorrow, and we were hoping y’all could help. We’re going to give out some samples, and we’d appreciate any feedback you have.”
“It’s lunchtime,” Helen says. “We’ll have lunch first. You’ll sit with us, of course.”
Giovanni glances at the clock mounted on the wall in a little cage, as if someone might be tempted to walk off with it otherwise.
“It’s eleven fifteen,” he says slowly, then checks the time on the clock against the time on his phone.
“Goodness,” Luanne says. “If we don’t get in there now, then all the best spots will be taken. You want to sit on my lap and roll, young man?”
“He’s just fine walking.” I reach down and give her hand a squeeze. “But save us a couple of spots, will you?”
I walk over to Giovanni, who’s still peering at the time on his phone with a furrow in his brow.
“Are you ready to have the worst meal of your life?” I ask under my breath.
He smiles up at me, his eyelashes fringing his eyes so perfectly I can’t help but stare. “The worst meal before noon. It’ll be a new record.”
He offers me his arm like we’re characters in a Regency miniseries. I take it, my heart swelling.
“The food here is terrible,” I tell him, still speaking in a near whisper. “It should be a crime.”
He pushes his lips out, his gaze far-off in thought as he follows Luanne and the other Shirties into the dining room. “I’ll be taking notes.”
We eat with Luanne and the Shirties, the lunch a gloppy tomato and rice soup that has four or five grains of rice in it, served with a wilted salad and dry rolls that probably endanger a few residents’ dentures.
Giovanni keeps the conversation lively, especially with Helen and Luanne, and asks plenty of questions about life at The Rotten Apple.
After we finish and dispose of our trash, Helen offers us the use of her kitchen so we can prepare the marshmallows. Before long, Giovanni and I are toasting marshmallows on sticks alongside Helen at her gas stovetop while the other Shirties gather in her apartment and in the hallway outside it.
“Am I toasting it correctly?” she asks Giovanni, as if she’s not well into her eighties and hasn’t been toasting marshmallows most of her life.
“You’re doing a beautiful job, Helen,” he says encouragingly. “You want it golden brown.”
I shoot him a look that tells him he’s a brownnoser, and he grins back at me as he methodically makes his marshmallow—golden and gooey—into a s’more with the graham crackers and cheap chocolate.
And yes, maybe I get a little lost in his eyes, because the next thing I know, he says, “Bianca, your marshmallow is on fire.”
Fuck. The flames are leaping high from the burning little glob of sugary heat.
I do the stupidest thing imaginable and drop the stick. It falls onto the small, multicolored area rug that Helen keeps in her kitchen, and the rug immediately whooshes into flames.
“Be careful, that’s flammable!” Helen exclaims unnecessarily as the flames lick at the fabric and the burned carcass of the marshmallow and rise up toward us like reaching fingers.
Adrenaline dances through my blood as I wrap an arm around her and guide her away from the blaze. My heart thumps violently in my chest. I can’t let anything happen to her. “The hallway…there’s a fire extinguisher in the hallway—”
“I’ll smother it,” Giovanni says as he turns away, whipping off his shirt. I stand there gaping as he drenches the shirt in the small sink next to the burner. Then he hurls the soaked shirt over the small fire.
At first, I’m certain the flamed will only leap higher, but the fire fizzles out as if it has no choice but to cave to the demand of such an impressive specimen.
The air smells charred, slightly sweet, and a tiny bit like chemicals from the burned rug and shirt.
“The Shirtless Chef saved us with his shirt!” Helen exclaims.
“You should never wear a shirt again,” someone calls out.
Luanne rolls forward in her chair, her expression full of worry. “Helen, I warned you about ordering one of those discount rugs. Not a single natural fiber in the bunch.”
Giovanni looks embarrassed. He’s also half naked, and I realize that a couple of the Shirties near the door have their phones out and likely recorded the whole thing. I pull his original shirt out of the bag and hand it to him, my fingers brushing his warm, firm chest.
“Thank you,” I say. “Thank you.” I’m disconcerted to feel tears welling in my eyes. I couldn’t say why except that he didn’t want to come here, but he did, and he went out of his way to protect people I care about.
To protect me.
“I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done,” he insists.
But I’m not convinced that’s true. Rhett would have probably run and left the Shirties to fend for themselves. Another man might have gone for the known quantity of the fire extinguisher—but Giovanni put himself in harm’s way to keep us safe. He didn’t hesitate for even half a second.
He pulls on the shirt I gave him, his biceps rippling as he does so. I’m not the only one watching, because someone in the hallway murmurs, “It’s probably bad luck for him to wear a shirt.”
I smile at Giovanni. “She might have a point.”
“Why, Mrs. October,” he says with an answering smile as the fire alarm finally blips to life in the hallway outside the room. “I might start thinking you like seeing me without a shirt on.”
“It’s a logical assumption.”