Robin appears in the kitchen doorway. “Coffee or G&T?”
I’ve had enough alcohol already tonight. “Coffee. Def coffee. I’m freezing.”
Bobby takes my coat and I crash in the corner of their huge leather sofa, feeling my muscles finally untense for the first time tonight. Bobby puts a chunky knitted blanket over my legs and Robin hands me coffee that smells decidedly of rum, then they sit and stare at me expectantly.
“So…” Bobby says, when I say nothing.
“Rum fell into your coffee.” Robin scratches his cheek. “High shelf. It was unexpected.”
“Accidents happen,” I say, not grumbling because it’s hot and calming.
We lapse into silence again, aside from Bobby fast-tapping one finger on the arm of his chair. They both know the uncomfortable silence will get me talking faster than anything.
“Okay,” I say. “So, dinner was overwhelming. They’re a big, noisy family, everyone talks at once. Food was excellent. House a Zillow addict’s wet dream. Serious chandeliers.” I motion with my arms stretched wide to demonstrate the size. “Cute babies and scraggy dogs.”
“It sounds like a Sandra Bullock movie,” Robin says.
“Love me some Sandy B,” Bobby murmurs.
I nod. Speed earned a regular spot on my mother’s movie-night list—it didn’t strictly fit our romcom diet, but Sandra and Keanu? Off the chemistry scale.
Bobby makes move-it-on gestures, impatient because he knows there’s juicier stuff than chandeliers and babies to come.
“And then —” I stop, because it feels disloyal to Gio to say more.
“Oh, come on.” Bobby rolls his eyes. “We saw you through the window with your tongue down his throat, it’s not like it’s a secret.”
I sigh, still kiss-drunk. “There isn’t much more to tell. We caught a cab home together, got out and walked the last bit because of roadworks, and then we…well, you saw the rest.”
Bobby shakes his head. “Oh no. No, no. You’re not doing that.” He turns toward Robin. “I told you she’d be coy. Didn’t I predict she’d be coy right before she came up here?”
I look at Robin and he knocks his rum back before getting up to throw another log on the fire. “Don’t involve me.” He laughs as he takes Bobby’s empty glass and heads for the kitchen, tapping the top of my head as he goes. “Everything I need to see is written all over your face,” he says, smiling at me. “I’m heading up to bed.” He frowns at his watch. “Alarm in five hours.”
“I’ll tell you everything later,” Bobby says, sliding from his chair to the floor beside my sofa.
Robin sighs. “Oh, I know it.”
Bobby watches him leave and I shake my head, quietly loving their double act.
“I’m not asking for the mechanics, although feel free to give me the blow-by-blow if you want,” he says, turning his attention back to me. “Just give me the feels.” He makes a heart shape with his fingers and winks to make me laugh.
I finish my coffee and lean forward to slide the empty mug onto the coffee table.
“It was…Gio was…” I cast around for words that feel like they do what happened out there justice. “He was just so different tonight. Light-hearted. Funny. His family love him so much, and he them.”
Bobby pats my blanket-covered leg and waits for me to articulate my jumbled thoughts.
“I’m scared, Bob. We talked and we messed around, and that kiss out there was the most full-on, brain-melting kiss of my entire life. What am I supposed to do with that?”
He raises his eyebrows. “Do it again tomorrow?”
I rub my hands over my face, bone-tired. “That’s just it, though. I want to. I really want to trust it, and even that is unexpected and out of the blue. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever be able to trust these feelings again after Adam.”
Sometimes at night I imagine taking a black marker pen and crossing him out of the story of my life, like a redacted police file. The relief would be immense.
“Not all men are assholes,” Bobby says, leaning his head against my legs.
“Thank God.” I shudder as Adam’s face jack-in-the-boxes up in my head. It’s a mental effort to force him back down again. “I know, because you and Robin prove it every day.”
“Of all the noodle joints in all the towns in all the world…” he says.
“I’m glad I walked into yours,” I finish. It’s a comforting routine we regularly fall into, and I watch the fire as I search for the words to express myself.
“You and I both know that Gio Belotti is the one person I shouldn’t go there with. I told him Adam died, for God’s sake.” I shuffle down until I’m lying on my side facing the fire, my head on one of Robin’s fabulous fur pillows. “And now I’m lying to him again every damn day about the recipe, and about my mother, who incidentally was in the same bloody band as my father, Charlie, and Gio’s real father, Felipe. That must have been how she met Santo in the first place.”
Confusion crosses Bobby’s face, and I explain about the photograph of my mother in the Belottis’ album.
“For what it’s worth, I’m proud of you,” he says. “I know how hard it is for you to put yourself out there again. Don’t overthink stuff, what happens happens.”
I smooth his hair. “That’s worth a lot to me, actually.”
After a few moments he gets to his feet. “Stay here tonight?”
I’m more comfortable than I’ve been in as long as I can remember. Rum-warm and fire-drowsy. “Robin has to be up early,” I say.
“You won’t be in his way, he’s up and out. Besides, he threw a log on to keep you warm, we’d already talked about it. Seriously, even Smirnoff thinks it’s a good idea.”
I contemplate my cold apartment below and can’t find one reason to move a muscle.
“You guys are the best brothers I never had,” I say, meaning Bobby and Robin, even though the cat takes it as invitation to join me on the sofa.
“I’ll leave you to deal with him,” Bobby says, clicking off the side lamp and pulling the blanket up to my shoulders. “Get some sleep now.”
I lie and watch the fire for a while, the cat curled up behind my knees. Don’t overthink stuff, what happens happens. It’s as good a bit of advice as any right now.
15.
I DRAG MY FEET AS I near Belotti’s familiar green-and-white awnings. I slept the sleep of the dead on Bobby’s sofa last night, but right now I feel as if I have a tennis ball bouncing around my internal organs, and I consider turning back and running for home. I could, there’s still time. No one has seen me yet.
“Morning!” Sophia comes barreling out of the gelateria, dark curls jumping around her shoulders, her apron sticking out beneath her puffa jacket. “Milk delivery didn’t come. I’m on the hunt to find some, we don’t have enough to make it through the day.”
So sloping off isn’t an option. That’s okay. I’m not a slope-off kind of gal. I’m here trying not to overthink it, tennis ball or no tennis ball.