10. Mario
Mario
The first fat raindrop hit the window of Sage & Bloom with a splat that made me look up from the terra cotta monster I was wrestling through the door.
Outside, the October sky had turned the color of an old bruise—purple-green and angry—and the wind was picking up fallen leaves, swirling them in mini cyclones that looked personal and vindictive.
“Thank you,” Lily said from somewhere behind a massive fern that had apparently decided to shed half its fronds during the move.
She had potting soil smudged across her left cheek and a leaf tangled in her hair that she hadn’t noticed yet.
“My back was already staging a formal protest after yesterday’s festival setup. ”
“No problem.” I hefted the last planter inside just as the sky opened up like someone had turned on a faucet. The rain didn’t build gradually—it went from scattered drops to biblical flood in about three seconds, turning the shop windows into underwater paintings.
The sudden drumming on the roof was loud enough that Lily had to raise her voice.
“The weather app said twenty percent chance of light showers!”
“Weather apps lie.” I watched the street turn into a river. “Almost as much as June’s Facebook posts.”
That got a laugh out of her—the real kind, not the polite one she used for customers. “Speaking of June, she cornered me at the grocery store this morning. Wanted to know if we’d picked out china patterns yet.”
“China patterns?”
“Mm-hmm. Apparently, someone saw you looking in the jewelry store window yesterday, and now there’s a whole spreadsheet of engagement predictions circulating through her book club.”
I groaned, running a hand through my hair. It came away wet even though I’d been inside for five minutes. The humidity from the storm was already curling Lily’s hair at the ends.
“I was checking the time. They have that huge clock?—”
“Oh, I know. But try explaining that to June’s imagination.” She moved past me to check the lock on the door, and I caught her scent—vanilla and something floral that was probably just from being surrounded by flowers all day, but on her, it seemed intentional. Personal.
Thunder rumbled overhead, rattling the glass jars she used for storing ribbon. The overhead lights flickered once, twice, then held.
“Great,” Lily muttered. “If we lose power, I’ve got three wedding arrangements to finish by tomorrow, and Margaret Hoffman will absolutely blame the rain on my inability to plan ahead.”
“They’ll wait.”
“You’ve never met Margaret Hoffman. She once called me at midnight because she dreamed the roses were the wrong shade of pink.”
The lights flickered again, and this time they went out completely. The shop plunged into a grey twilight, lit only by the watery light filtering through the storm-darkened windows.
“Fantastic,” Lily sighed.
Emergency lighting kicked on a second later—just enough to navigate by, casting everything in a greenish glow that made the flowers look otherworldly.
“Back room might have more light,” I suggested, already moving toward it. “The window faces south.”
She followed me into her workspace, and I was right—marginally.
The window was bigger here, though the rain streaming down it turned everything outside into an impressionist painting.
The room smelled stronger back here, more concentrated—roses and eucalyptus and that green smell of cut stems. Ribbons hung from wooden dowels like silk waterfalls, and mason jars full of tools lined the shelves with military precision.
“At least it’s cozy,” Lily said, but she was rubbing her arms. The temperature had dropped with the storm.
“Here.” I shrugged out of my jacket without thinking, draping it over her shoulders.
“Oh, you don’t have to?—”
“I’m fine.” And I was. The cold felt good, actually. Cleared my head from the fog I’d been walking around in lately.
She pulled the jacket tighter, and something in my chest did a weird flip seeing her wrapped in something of mine. The jacket swallowed her, sleeves hanging past her fingertips.
Thunder crashed directly overhead, loud enough that Lily jumped, bumping into me. I steadied her automatically, hands on her upper arms, and suddenly we were standing very close in the dim light.
“Sorry,” she said, not moving away. “I’m not great with storms.”
“Since when?”
“Since I was seven and lightning hit the tree outside my bedroom window. Split it right in half.” She was talking faster now, nervous. “The sound was incredible. Like the world cracking open.”
Her hands were still pressed against my chest from when she’d bumped into me, and I could feel them trembling slightly. Without thinking, I covered them with mine.
“You’re safe,” I said quietly.
“I know that. Logically. But my body has other opinions.” She laughed, shaky. “This is embarrassing.”
“It’s not.”
The rain was coming down so hard now it sounded like static, white noise that made the rest of the world disappear. It was just us in this green-tinted bubble, surrounded by flowers and ribbon and the smell of approaching winter.
“Can I ask you something?” Lily’s voice was soft.
“Yeah.”
“Why did you come back here? Really? Ben said you had options. Other places you could have gone after...” She trailed off.
After the crash. After my career ended. After everything I’d built fell apart in two point three seconds of twisted metal and screaming tires.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Ben offered, and I just... didn’t have the energy to say no to anything.”
“And now?”
“Now?” I looked down at her, still wrapped in my jacket, still letting me hold her hands against my chest. “Now I’m starting to think it wasn’t about energy at all.”
“What was it about?”
The words came without permission, pulled out by the storm and the strange intimacy of being trapped together. “My father called yesterday. First time since the crash.”
Her fingers curled against my chest. “Mario...”
“Eight months of silence. Then yesterday, out of nowhere, he calls. You know why?”
She shook her head.
“He heard about a technical director position opening up in Milan. Wanted to know if I was going to smettere di giocare e tornare a casa. Stop playing games and come home. Those were his exact words. Playing games.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That’s Alessandro Marrone.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. “He had me on a kart track by the time I was five. Every weekend, every holiday, every spare minute. I Marrone sono vincitori, Mario. Vincitori o niente. Marrones are winners. Winners or nothing. ”
I let go of her hands, needing to move. The back room was small, barely ten feet across, but I paced across it, back and forth, anyway.
“When I won, I was his son. His greatest accomplishment. He told everyone—the grocer, the mailman, complete strangers—about Mario, the future champion.”
“And when you crashed?”
“Radio silence. Like I died in that car.” I laughed, but it came out wrong. “Maybe I did.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true. Everything I was, everything I knew how to be, ended on that track.” I stopped pacing, stared out at the rain.
“I wake up every morning and for a second, I forget. I think I need to check my training schedule, review track data. Then I remember, and it’s like... What’s the point? What am I if I’m not racing?”
“You’re you,” Lily said fiercely.
I turned to look at her, and she’d moved closer, my jacket still draped over her shoulders like armor.
“You’re the man who fixed my disaster of a cash register three times without being asked. Who spent four hours helping Olivia understand why her cardboard car needed better weight distribution. Who carries heavy planters for local florists when it’s about to storm.”
“That’s not a life. That’s just... existing.”
“No.” She grabbed my hands this time, her fingers warm and slightly sticky with plant sap. “Existing is what you do when you’re too scared to try. Living is what you do when you’re brave enough to be more than your achievements.”
“Brave?” I laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “I’m hiding in a town where the biggest news is whose pumpkin won the decorating contest.”
“You’re not hiding. You’re healing. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her green eyes, the way her lashes were slightly damp from the humidity. “Mario, your worth isn’t tied to a car or a track or your father’s approval. You have to know that.”
“Do I?”
The question hung between us. She reached up, her fingers barely grazing my jaw, and I forgot how to breathe.
“You’re worth so much more than winning,” she whispered. “You’re worth?—”
The back door burst open with a crash that made us both jump apart.
“MOM!”
Olivia stood in the doorway wearing what appeared to be a garbage bag with holes cut for her head and arms, water streaming off her in rivers. Her hair was plastered to her head, and she was grinning like she’d just won the lottery.
“Olivia Rose Sage!” Lily rushed to her daughter. “You’re soaked to the bone!”
“I know! Isn’t it AMAZING?” She spun in a circle, sending water flying.
“Grandma dropped me off for my after-school shift, but then she said the rain was very romantic and I should come inside immediately and see if you two were having a moment!”
“We weren’t having a moment,” Lily said quickly, her face turning pink.
“Your faces say otherwise,” Olivia announced with seven-year-old certainty.
“Also, Mario’s jacket looks better on you than him. You should keep it.”
“Olivia—”
“What? It’s true! June says you two have chemistry. I don’t know what that means exactly, but I think it has to do with how Mario looks at you when you’re not looking, like you’re made of chocolate cake.”
“I do not—” I started.
“You totally do. It’s the same way Mom looks at the expensive cheese at Whole Foods. Like she wants it but thinks she shouldn’t have it.”
“OLIVIA.”
“Also, Grandma gave me five dollars to come in here and tell you to kiss in the rain like in her movies. She says it’s very important for your relationship development.”
Lily’s face had gone from pink to red. “Your grandmother paid you to?—”
“Five dollars is five dollars,” Olivia said pragmatically. “That’s halfway to a new glitter pen set.”
Thunder boomed again, and this time the emergency lights flickered.
“Ooh, are we having an adventure?” Olivia asked, bouncing on her toes and sending more water flying.
“We’re having a power outage,” Lily corrected, grabbing a towel from a shelf and wrapping it around her daughter.
“That’s basically an adventure. Mario, don’t you think this is an adventure?”
I looked at them—Lily trying to dry her daughter’s hair while muttering about meddling grandmothers, Olivia chattering about the romantic potential of thunderstorms, both of them lit by the greenish emergency lights like something out of a fairy tale—and felt something shift in my chest.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “It’s an adventure.”
“See?” Olivia beamed. “Mario gets it. Hey, can we light candles? Candles are very atmospheric. June says atmosphere is important for romance.”
“June needs a hobby,” Lily muttered.
“June HAS a hobby,” Olivia corrected. “It’s you two. She has a whole spreadsheet about your interactions. She showed me. There are color-coded columns and everything.”
“Of course there are.”
But Lily was smiling now, the tension from our almost-moment dissolving into something warmer, easier. She glanced at me over Olivia’s head, and there was a promise in her eyes—later, that look said. We’ll finish this conversation later.
The rain continued to pound against the windows, and somewhere in Italy, my father was probably still fuming about his disappointment of a son.
But here, in this flower shop that smelled like roses and possibilities, with these two Sage women who made me feel like maybe I could be more than my achievements or failures, I felt something I hadn’t in eight months.
Hope.
It was terrifying.
It was perfect.