Chapter 14 Nova
NOVA
THE MAIN COURSE
Lincoln made reservations at La Tavola Italian, a cute little restaurant at the base of the mountains on the edge of town. Inside, the dining room’s three glass walls offer a perfect view of stars flickering in the night sky.
Of all the restaurants in our small, seasonally touristy town, La Tavola’s is one of the fanciest. Linen napkins await diners, and several knives and forks frame each plate.
Like the true gentleman he pretends to be, Lincoln holds my hand and leads me through the heavy front doors until we’re greeted by Alessio, the owner’s seventeen-year-old son, who wears a crisp white apron around his too-narrow hips.
He gestures for us to follow him, but he’s still a kid, and curiosity is an instinct even adults struggle to control, so despite knowing better, his eyes stray to the side of my neck and the stitches still marking my skin.
“We’ve got it from here.” Irritated, Lincoln stops by our table and tugs me around behind his back.
He faces the boy, towering over him and glowering until the kid’s cheeks pale.
“We’d like a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, please.
” Then, turning back to me, he pulls out my chair and gifts me with a small smile.
I firm my lips.
“What?” He glances around, clueless. “What’s wrong?”
“Intimidating a child?” I peel my hand from his and seat myself. “Really? Did it make you feel tough?”
He backs up and sits opposite me. “That wasn’t intimidation, Nova.
It was ‘stop staring, you little punk, and go do your job before I call your parents out here.’” He flashes a wolfish grin.
“Intimidation is trapping a man’s cock between a pair of pliers and encouraging him to answer my questions.
” He snags his napkin and lays it across his lap.
“Depending on the circumstances, of course.”
“Of course.” I follow suit and smooth my napkin across my thighs. Not that I care if I drop marinara sauce on my dress.
This is why we wear black. Duh.
“It almost sounds like you have experience torturing a man.” I glance up at a server—not Alessio—as she stops by our table and silently fills our water glasses.
When she’s done and wanders away, I bring my gaze back to Lincoln’s.
“I understand war is war, and bad things happen. But I always took comfort in knowing my brother was in the motor pool. While his comrades killed other soldiers and ducked to avoid losing their heads—or the scarier stuff, like interrogating the enemy—Ry messed with engines and cleansed his skin with motor oil. Which is still, ya know, same-same in the end, since he was still at war and still making the tanks operational. But…” I take a slow sip of my water, wetting my throat and following the slide of cool liquid all the way to my belly.
“It was adjacent enough to help me sleep at night. And then there’s you…
” I search his face. “I would have worried about you, too, if I’d known you existed.
Maybe that was Ry’s intention. Maintaining that boundary and saving me from the emotional turmoil of getting to know his friends, only for something awful to happen to them.
But now I know you, and I find myself immensely glad you’re retired, and the most action you saw was smashing your fingers with a socket wrench. ”
“Yeah…” He looks across as Alessio’s father stops by with a bottle of wine. Lincoln holds the stem of his glass and waits for Elio to pour a little in, then taking a sip and nodding his approval, he gestures for my glass to be filled.
Once Elio leaves, he settles back in his chair and stares across at me like I’m the only other human in this entire room. “Tell me something about yourself. Something fun. Something that makes you smile.”
“Um…” I swap my water for wine and grin at the man trying so hard to be decent. “So, I brought this guy home one time. And his penis was—”
“Nova!” He slams his elbows on the table and growls. “Move on from that one.”
“But you make it so easy.” I sip and snicker, careful not to make a mess with the sweet liquid. “Okay. So, when Ry and I were nine, back when life was a little less…” I consider my options, only to land on, “shitty, we wondered why we couldn’t read each other’s thoughts.”
Stunned, Linc’s brows furrow. “What?”
“Twins,” I explain. “It was science, so it must be true that we possessed some kind of telepathic connection, right? We’d shared a womb, and until we were thirteen, we even shared a room.”
“Thirteen? Babe, he needed out of that room by his teens. Men have impulses. Men have desires.”
“Oh, God.” I plug my ears and la-la-la-la until his lips stop moving. “Fine. We’re even. I won’t talk about Justin’s small penis anymore.”
His eyes flitter between amusement and exasperation, until finally, he tilts his glass my way. “Glad we have an understanding. So, telepathy?”
“Well, we were trying to figure it out. I threw rocks as hard as I could at the backs of his legs. Ya know, to see if I’d feel the pain.”
His chest and shoulders bounce with mirth. “Did it work?”
“No. But Ry got pretty grouchy about the welts over the next few days. He encouraged me to hold my hand over an open flame and see how long I could stand it.” I study my palm.
“I lasted about two seconds before yelping and pulling away. He didn’t feel a thing.
We tried thinking of something really, really hard.
Like, something that was the center of our worlds, and the only thing we could ever wish for or hope for.
Then, to really drive those thoughts home, we wrote them down in notebooks and tried to guess what the other was thinking. ”
His bottom lip trembles with a smile. “Did it work?”
“Not consistently. We had a few lucky guesses, since sometimes things are just that obvious. Like when Larissa Cameron was begging for Ry’s attention in seventh grade.
She’d just discovered she had boobs, and he’d just realized he really liked that kind of thing.
” I cross my legs beneath the table and wrinkle my nose at the memory.
“That was an easy one to guess. Another time, it was nearly Christmas, and we were on the very edge of believing and non-believing. Mom and Dad never confirmed when we asked if it was fake, but they didn’t deny it either.
It was one of those things where we were allowed to think whatever we wanted.
So, Ryan, being Ryan, wanted to know my thoughts.
Real or not? We agreed we’d write our answers on a sheet of paper and try to guess what the other said.
I knew from the outset he would say no, because he was always the practical one of the two of us, and he knew I’d say yes, because even if I knew better, I erred on the side of magic.
” Shrugging, I bring my wine up and enjoy the delicious flavors on my tongue.
“Even when I was younger, I felt life was more tolerable when I could believe in the best about something, even if it was unlikely. And now that I’m older,” I stare down into my glass, pensive, “even though I know magic doesn’t exist, and life seems pretty intent on showing me the worst, I cling to my hope, even in the darkest days.
If I don’t,” I bring my eyes up again, “I might cry.”
Alessio pops up on my right, startling me, and says nothing of the way my eyes glitter with unshed tears. “Would you like to order appetizers?”
“Yeah.” I snatch the menu from the poor kid’s hands, flip to the pasta page, and stab a finger directly on top of the white wine and parmesan penne. “I’d love my main, actually. I’m starving.”