Eighteen #3
With a pair of broad grins, Benji and Nico slunk out of the kitchen still licking chocolate off their fingers. “You should get that far in slams more often,” Benji said as he passed. “Dad has pulled out all the stops on that cake.”
“It’s not because Mat played well!” Mum said, looking up from the book she was reading – one of those straight romances with the windswept cover models I wouldn’t be caught dead reading. “We just wanted to make it special. Since we have to celebrate his birthday early this year.”
“Then have early birthdays more often?”
They walked off toward their rooms, laughing and shoving each other all the way.
“It really isn’t because of how you played,” Mum said when they’d gone, looking over her glasses a little warily. “We just wanted it to be special since you’re not here for long.”
“I know,” I said. “And I’m sorry I won’t be here for it like usual. Feels weird.”
She slid a hand onto my knee, pressing out a wry smile. “I’m sure it does, but maybe it’s for the best. Being here for your birthday means being here for the anniversary of your accident, and maybe that’s just not what you need right now, hmm? Not now you’re alive again.”
“Alive?” I laughed, trying to ignore the way her words plucked at my chest. “Haven’t I been alive this whole time?”
“Surviving isn’t the same as living, love,” she said. “It’s been hard watching you walk around like a shadow of yourself. And even harder knowing you were out on tour like that and we couldn’t help. It’s a relief to have our Matteo back.”
Dad appeared in the kitchen door, wiping his hands on a chocolate-stained tea towel. “We hoped you’d find your way back sooner or later. Thought maybe you just needed a good run at a tournament. Something to remind you who you are.”
A lump swelled in my throat, the discovery that they’d been worried about me more surprising than it ought to have been.
“It . . . it wasn’t the tournament.” The words were out before I thought to say them, the admission leaping so readily to my tongue like I needed it to escape, to release the pressure valve. “I met someone.”
“Tell us something we don’t know!” Dad laughed from the doorway. “You spend half the day smiling all goofy at your phone. Who is he?”
“Is he another player?” Mum asked, putting down her book and fixing me with a piercing stare. “Or maybe a . . . tournament physio! No, a fan who asked for your autograph in a very sweet meet-cute!”
I couldn’t help but grin at their enthusiasm, misplaced though it was. “Just a guy I met in our apartment building,” I said. “I don’t think anything will come of it, but we spent a lot of time together and it was nice.”
“Well, if you like him then I hope you’re wrong,” Dad said.
“Is he good looking?” Mum asked.
Dad threw up his hands in mock outrage. “Mel!”
“Yeah,” I said as Mum laughed. “He’s gorgeous. But I’m not telling you a single other thing about him, so don’t ask.”
This earned a theatrical sigh from Mum as she pointedly reopened her book. Dad just smiled, but before returning to the kitchen, said, “Sure, but I think maybe he likes chocolate mousse cake.”
IT WAS A very good cake. Nonna came over and my family sang and I blew out candles, and as an early birthday, the only thing that could have improved it was the presence of a certain gorgeous American.
I’d been good to my word and said nothing more about him, yet as we were all shoving cake into our mouths, he found his way into the small lounge room all the same.
Nonna had just finished telling me what she’d been doing instead of stressing herself out watching my matches—a tradition almost as long as the conversation about my carrot cake—when she turned to my brother and said, “And what about you, carino? Have you decided if you’ll play like Matteo?”
“I don’t know,” Nico said with a sigh. “I like it and I think I’m pretty good, but what Mat does looks so hard. Have you seen his damn gym routines?”
“Language,” Nonna said calmly.
“Have you seen his fucking gym routines,” Nico corrected. “He likes working out. I don’t.”
I shrugged, lounged back in the armchair with a plate perched on my stomach, its cake reduced to some crumbs and a smear of mousse.
“I don’t think I did when I was your age.
And I don’t think you have to like the gym.
I know at least one player who doesn’t. He just likes winning, so does whatever is necessary to do the winning. ”
“Who’s that?” Mum asked, her tennis interest piqued.
My heart thudded. “Miles Callahan.”
“Well, there you go,” she said to Nico. “You can become the world number four—no, three now after Wimbledon, isn’t he—without liking the gym.”
“Sure,” Nico huffed. “If you’re six foot six.”
“Five,” I said.
“Six foot five.” Nico rolled his eyes. “Taller than you, anyway.”
“Only by a couple of inches!”
Nonna patted my arm with her signature little smirk. “Ma sei tanto alto.”
“Grazie, Nonna,” I said.
“Prego, nipotino.”
From the couch, Benji held up his empty plate like a demand for more. “Damn good cake, Dad,” he said, his mouth full.
Nonna shook her head. “Language!”
“Fucking amazing cake, Dad!”