A Winter in New York(36)

Games have been fetched in my absence; Bella is setting up Monopoly and Pascal has cards.

I hesitate for a second, feeling like an outsider, and then Gio glances over and catches my eye.

“I think I’m going to call it a night,” I say, one foot tucked awkwardly behind my other ankle. “I’ve had a migraine threatening all day, I should probably get home to bed.”

It sounds stupid as I say it, and I’m certain they all know I’m lying.

“But I was going to let you be the top hat,” Bella says, holding the small silver playing piece on her outstretched palm.

“She always insists on being the top hat,” Gio tells me. “That’s quite something.”

I smile back. “I was always the boot.”

Gio throws his hands out. “That’s my piece.”

“What can I say? We can never play Monopoly,” I say, pulling my phone from the back pocket of my jeans. “I’m really sorry, Bella. Another time, I promise.”

Gio gets to his feet. “Come on, Bells, we’ll leave too—we’re going the same way, we can give Iris a ride.”

I see Bella’s face fall and feel terrible.

“Let Bella stay over,” Sophia interjects, lining up the banker’s money on the table. “It’s about time I beat her at this. Plus, if you go, I get to be the boot.”

Bella sits back down at the table and pushes the silver boot toward Sophia, then looks up again at Gio as an afterthought.

“Is that okay, Dad? Please?”

He looks at her, frowning, as if he’s unsure what to do.

“You stay too,” I say quickly. “I’m fine going on my own. I’ll just call a Lyft, it’ll be here in a jiffy.”

Maria laughs, resting her hands on Bella’s shoulders. “In a jiffy! I like that. Now, Gio, you see Iris safely home, and I’ll look forward to making pancakes for this one in the morning.”

Bella leans back against her grandmother. “With cherries?”

Gio looks at me and shrugs. “I guess that’s sorted, then,” he says. “I’ll grab our coats.”





13.


THERE’S AN INTIMACY TO THE back of a cab late at night, especially with alcohol warming our blood and the ballet of city lights blurring around us. Our mornings at Belotti’s, we have assigned roles. Here we are free of such constraints, we’re two people who have studiously ignored the spark between us in favor of getting on with the job at hand. I’m not even sure what that spark is. Gio draws out emotion in me, for sure. Frustrated rage on our first meeting in the bookstore, as it happened, but spending time with him at the gelateria has been like taking a deckchair outside and sitting in the sun. I’ve basked in his company. I like him so much. He laughed at something I said around the dinner table earlier and, honestly, it was as if he’d stuck a gold star on my chest. And now we’re thigh to thigh in the darkness in this cab, and I don’t know what the hell to say. Small talk has always been my nemesis.

“Thank you for coming tonight,” he says, saving me from saying something stupid. “I was worried about how it would be without Papa at the table, and you being there helped take everyone’s mind off of it.”

I wish I could comment on how crazy it is to realize his biological father and my mother were in the same band so we could marvel at the small world, but of course the truth is that it’s no coincidence. I’ve engineered this in a roundabout way. Not that I ever intended to become as involved with the Belottis as I have.

“I enjoyed it a lot, your family are great,” I say.

He glances away out of the window. “I’m sorry if it seems like they’re reading too much into our friendship.”

“Are they?”

He passes his hand over his jaw. “There just hasn’t been anyone since Penny, you know?”

“No one at all?” I say, thinking of the glamorous, sharp-eyed woman in the gelateria across the street from Belotti’s.

Gio shakes his head. “A couple of awkward lunches, a movie date. Nothing that ever mattered, because I didn’t want to open the door to all those feelings again. So now that they see us spending time together, they are jumping to all kinds of crazy conclusions.”

“Crazy,” I say, feeling as if it isn’t that crazy because I feel something between us that I can’t put a name to. I’m wondering if I’m brave enough to put my hand on his arm when the driver catches Gio’s eye in the mirror.

“Sorry, guys,” he huffs. “Emergency construction this end of Chrystie tonight, burst pipe. I can go round but it’s gonna take a while.”

“We could walk from here?” I say.

“You sure?” Gio looks at me, checking if I’m just being polite on this cold Halloween evening.

The driver looks as if that’s exactly what he hoped we’d say, already slowing at the curb to total the fare and tick the job off on his cell.



* * *



—

IT’S SEE-YOUR-BREATH COLD WHEN we clamber out on the street, frost glittering on the sidewalk.

“Now I wish I had my Converse,” I say, putting a steadying hand out as my heel slips.

Gio catches it and pulls me into his side, tucking my arm through his. “Here, hang on to me.”