Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
BIANCA
I lie on my bed the next morning, my eyes wide open, not even doomscrolling on my phone, although I did glance at the screen when I first woke up and saw I have a horrific number of notifications.
If I go down to the kitchen, I know Giovanni will be there. I already smell something delicious coming to life downstairs—apples and cinnamon and butter.
Maybe he’s practicing for our pie, already.
It would be simple enough to find out. I could go down there and ask to sample whatever genius creation he’s making.
But I’m not so sure I know how to act around Giovanni anymore. Fucking your fake boyfriend once can be written off as an understandable mistake. Twice on the same day? Still very understandable if you’re fake dating Giovanni Cafiero, but it has all the hallmarks of a pattern.
What’s more, the nonnas arrived home soon after we got dressed last night, and Giovanni came downstairs to greet them—Mr. Geniality—and suggested a game of pinochle.
I’d be lying if I said pinochle is just an old-lady game and that I don’t know how to play. After all, I’ve spent my whole career working primarily with the elderly. But I was surprised he knew how to play.
Turns out it’s a game he used to play with his nonno, which touched my heart. Obviously, I had to agree to a round or two. My willpower is only so strong.
Giovanni made us all spiced cider and thoughtfully spiked mine with the old whiskey, clearly intuiting that I needed it after the day I’d had.
Not that it was a bad day.
Yes, I almost burned down my place of employment, and I am now hated by several strangers on the internet, but it was a good day. Maybe even a really good day.
I couldn’t seem to stop smiling as we played the game with the nonnas, even though my grandmother kept asking pointed questions about the fire and if I was going to get fired for almost burning down the building.
Nonna Francesca, it must be said, didn’t seem to give a shit about the fire.
She kept giving Giovanni and me satisfied glances, as if she knew we’d spent half the day fornicating.
Admittedly, that knowledge wouldn’t please her unless she thought we were also picking out names for her future great-grandchildren or selecting colors for our wedding.
So, yeah, it was a great night. And once I was tucked into my bed, I pressed my hand to the wall, thinking of Giovanni there on the other side, lying with his head cradled by a pillow. Thinking of him lying underneath me, letting me take control.
Before I closed my eyes, I sent him a text:
Read the book.
Immediately, three dots appeared, and I smiled as I waited for them to become words.
Are you that eager to get to the book club book?
Spoiler alert: whatever the book is, we know the ending. They’ll end up together.
I pressed my palm against the wall again before I wrote my response:
That’s why people read romance. They like to know there’s a happy ending. In life, there are no happily-ever-afters.
Because we all get old and end up in a nursing home before we die, isn’t that right? ;-)
That’s mostly true, but that’s not WHY. It’s because nothing is so simple in real life.
Sometimes we need an escape that is simple. Something sweet, where we know that whatever happens, it’s going to be all right.
Fuck, the Smut Slut hat got to you too, didn’t it?
Goodnight, Giovanni.
Sleep tight, bella ragazza. I’ll be dreaming of you. After I start this boring book, of course.
I tapped the side of the phone for a moment before responding with the full truth:
I’ll be dreaming about you too.
And I really did. Which makes it even more absurd that I can’t bring myself to go downstairs now.
“You’re being a coward,” I murmur to myself, sniffing the apple-scented air.
I don’t like the thought of my own cowardice. So I take a quick shower, apply copious amounts of concealer to my throat to hide the love bites Giovanni gave me, change into a black dress, throw my hair into a bun, and finally head downstairs.
I pause in the threshold of the kitchen, my hand rising to my throat.
Dean Martin is playing on the Bluetooth speaker we keep in here, and Giovanni is dancing my laughing nonna around the kitchen while Nonna Francesca beams at them.
He’s wearing one of those stupid Sir Gala-Head shirts that were heaped on him by Rhett, but not even Sir Gala-Head can make him less irresistible.
The sight is so unexpected, so dear, that I feel tears pooling in my eyes. God, it’s been good for her, having them here.
After Great-Uncle Ted died and Miles ran off again, I could tell her spirit was withering—she was shrinking, the way Giovanni told me he’d witnessed his grandparents becoming lesser versions of themselves.
But now her spirit is waxing as bright as the moon.
She’s happy, and the sight of her dancing like this with Giovanni is almost too much for me.
I’m overwhelmed by him. He has so much beauty of spirit it filters into everyone around him.
Then Nonna Rose catches sight of me, and her eyes light up with mischief—with love. “Bianca. You should be dancing with our boy. The two young people need to dance together. Please.”
“Yes,” Nonna Francesca says, clapping her hands like she’s demanding a show.
My nonna pulls away from Giovanni and joins Francesca at the table, wrapping her arm around her old friend, and Giovanni holds his hand out to me. His eyes are dancing, and I feel a lurch of awful yearning.
I’m letting him get too close, and I know it, but the only true choice is to take his hand. He’s mine, for the time he’s here, and one autumn of him will have to be enough. I know he would never break that promise he made. There’s nothing with greater hold than a deathbed promise.
He whirls me around as my nonna’s favorite singer croons, his deep voice filling the corners of the kitchen with vibrancy—and my heart leaps as Giovanni pulls me back to him and holds me, briefly, to his chest.
“You look beautiful this morning,” he murmurs, before he spins me away from him again.
Our nonnas look as happy as if they were standing at our wedding, a thought that makes me smile even though I know there will be no wedding for us. No happily ever after. No simple, kick-your-feet ending.
“Can I spin you?” I ask, the next time we’re pressed close.
Giovanni laughs softly. “You can try.”
I do, but he’s much too tall, and Nonna Francesca calls out, “No, you must let Giovanni lead. You will fall.”
And I very nearly do, but Giovanni catches me in his arms. We’re both laughing, our eyes locked, and he slowly releases me. “You’re just in time for breakfast.”
“And what did you make for us today, Oh Shirted Chef?” I can see a stack of golden brown waffles on a plate behind him, but I want to hear him tell me.
He shakes his head slightly, but his mouth is quirking into a smile. “You claim you don’t like pancakes—”
“I just said that to torment you. Everyone likes pancakes.”
“Well, too bad,” he says, tapping me on the nose. “Now you’re stuck with waffles. I made them with cinnamon apple compote. I’m practicing the seasoning of the apples, but I’ll need to go in to talk to Luanne before we start workshopping the recipe. I was thinking of stopping by tomorrow.”
“You’re going to come to The Rotten Apple while I’m working?” I ask, a little alarmed by the thought, probably because the last time he was there, I got so distracted I caused a literal fire.
“If you don’t mind.” He says it so humbly that I’d feel like a monster to deny him.
“Of course not.”
He claps his hands. “Good. People will probably have some questions for us at the festival this afternoon. Already someone from the local paper came by the house this morning, and Nonna had to send them away.”
And here I’d let myself hope we’d be spared since we decided to keep the pumpkin patch closed today. Most people will be at the fall festival this afternoon, and Evergreens & Apples will have a stand there instead.
Francesca shakes her head mournfully. “Young people have no respect anymore. I had to shake my spoon at the boy.”
“They came this early?” I ask, feeling a little heartbroken. Anyone who shows up at our house is trespassing, so it’s not like we’ll be bombarded with people, but I don’t like the thought of anyone bursting into our little bubble. Home is supposed to be safe.
“They won’t be coming back anytime soon,” Giovanni says, giving his grandmother a fond look.
“Maybe they will,” I groan. “They think I tried to burn down the nursing home. They’re probably trying to convince the sheriff to throw me in prison.”
My nonna sniffs. “I’d like to see him try. It took that boy almost two years to learn how to walk.”
That’s how it is around here. The sheriff is a middle-aged man, but everyone who grew up in Apple Ridge knows people around here like to remind you of what you were like at two—even after you turn forty.
“I gave Rhett a reason to fire me,” I groan. “He might still do it.”
Giovanni snorts. “He won’t. Because we’ve given him the one thing he cares about—more people than ever will be at his little festival.
But if there’s any press there, I’m going to set the record straight, cara mia,” he says gently, running his finger over the back of my hand.
“No need to wait until the interview tomorrow. Will you help me?”
I bite my lip, hesitating. But here’s the thing that really frightens me: I trust him. I one hundred percent, unequivocally believe he will do the right thing by me, my family, and this town that I reluctantly love.
I nod, and the next thing I know, Nonna Francesca is all but shoving me into a chair at the kitchen table. “You eat. You’re much too thin. All that running around—”
“Causing fires,” Giovanni interjects with a grin as he retrieves a plate from the cabinet and piles it high with waffles and apple compote. It smells delicious, and suddenly I’m starving.
TEXT CONVERSATION WITH EMILY
Can you ask Giovanni to wear the hat to the fall festival? I’m going to sell them at the Little Apple Books table.