She turns to look at me, and I nod as my eyes well with tears at her kindness. She’s referring to Adam, of course, but I feel her sentiment about the profound loss of my mother.
“What was he like?”
My insides go very still. “He…it…our relationship was complicated,” I say. “I…I was frightened of him sometimes.” The words leave me before I have a chance to think about them, because Sophia’s arm around my shoulders has lowered my defenses.
Sophia’s eyes scour my face, her brows low. “Shit, did he hurt you?”
I close my eyes and look away, wishing I could unburden the whole truth. “Not physically,” I say, and she squeezes my shoulder, her grip firm and reassuring, “but he made me realize there are a lot of other ways a person can hurt you.”
“Fuck,” she says, under her breath.
I dash the back of my hand over my eyes. “Yeah,” I say. “Like I say, complicated.”
“Maybe stubborn isn’t the worst thing Gio could be,” she says after a few moments, and I lean into her and laugh softly, because the tension is broken.
“Definitely not the worst thing,” I say. “Will you be okay if I go on through?”
She looks around the empty gelateria. “I think I can cope with things out here.”
* * *
—
I FIND GIO STACKING ingredients on the kitchen workbench, tension emanating from his precise movements and set jaw.
“Are you okay?” I say, trying to meet his eyes.
“Absolutely fine,” he says, turning to get something from a drawer behind him.
Not absolutely fine at all, then. I wait for him to stop busying himself and look at me.
“Shall we begin?” he says, clipped.
This is awful. Not like our usual mornings at all, and I don’t know if it’s what happened between us last night or what happened with Sophia just now. Either way, it’s not what I expected and I’m on the backfoot as to how to handle it.
“Can we talk first?”
He lays his palms flat on the table and breathes out slowly. “I think it’s clear from what happened out there just now that talking is not my strong point.”
I sit on one of the tall stools beside the workbench, and after a few beats he sits too, his knee brushing mine.
“I don’t know about that. You were pretty chatty last night,” I say, remembering our rambling conversations as he walked me home.
He nods slowly, his gaze locked somewhere down by my boots.
“About last night,” he says, and his sigh is lead heavy.
“You regret it,” I say, trying to read him.
He lifts his eyes at last and looks at me. “Yes. And no. No, because how can I regret a kiss that made me feel like a teenager again? It reminded me that my heart still beats, Iris, that I’m not just a son and a father and a gelato maker. But yes too, because being a son and a father and a gelato maker is who I am now. It’s enough for me.”
“Gio, I understand,” I say. “I’ve purposely filled my life up with everything so there’s no room for romcom worthy kisses or big family dinners or singing in the park, but then I met you and those things are happening to me anyway and it honestly scares me shitless.”
I’ve just spilled my metaphorical book bag at his feet, and now I wait to see if he picks the books up or acts like a jerk and leaves me scrabbling on the floor. It’s a moment he doesn’t even know is happening.
He puts his hands on my knees. “Romcom worthy, eh?”
“It was very Mark Darcy to fold me inside your coat,” I say, letting my fingertips touch his.
“I won’t pretend to know what you’re talking about,” he says, stroking his thumb over my knuckles.
I curl my fingers and catch his hands in mine, and the look in his eyes slides from frustration to something so hot it sucker-punches me. “We could just not overthink things and see what happens?” I say, my voice quiet in the cavernous kitchen.
His eyes scan my face. “My family can be a lot,” he says. “And Bell’s at this weird age, she takes everything to heart. I can’t handle her getting too invested in something that might come to nothing, you know?”
“Are you asking me to be your dirty secret?” I tease.
“No.” He laughs low in his throat. “Yes?”
“I think we’ve just veered away from romcoms toward the adult channel,” I say.
He looks at me, really looks at me. “I can’t make you any promises,” he says.
“Me neither,” I say. My knees are between his now, our bodies closer than when we first sat down.
I want to kiss him, and because I’m not overthinking things and letting what happens happen, I lean into the space between us and close my eyes. His mouth meets mine, gentle and full of longing, my fingers gripping his as lust lands heavy in my gut. Jeez, I genuinely don’t know how the hell we’ve worked together over the last however many weeks without tearing each other’s clothes off, because this is off-the-scale, take-me-now-or-lose-me-forever sexy. Finally he pulls back, and we stare at each other, like two drunks who just downed a bottle of vodka.
“That was…” I can’t even finish my sentence and I know my cheeks are burning.
“Let’s not do that in here again,” he mutters, his eyes moving to the door, his breath coming in shallow bursts.
“But we’ll do it again, right?” I say, because this need is suddenly so heavy in me I’ll probably die if he says no.
He holds my jaw and drags his thumb across my lips. “My head wants to say let’s take it slow and the rest of me wants to drag you upstairs to my bed, Iris, so yes, I think we should do it again.”
“Gio,” I gasp-laugh, wide-eyed, my hand over my heart. “I feel like I’m on drugs.”
“I can’t stand up for at least the next five minutes,” he says.
We eye each other warily, and then I laugh again because this is crazy.
“Have you ever seen Moonstruck?” I say.
He shakes his head. I’m not surprised.
“Cher plays this straight-laced accountant and Nicolas Cage is her fiancé’s brother, but there’s this explosive chemistry between them, and at one point he yells, ‘Loretta, come upstairs and Get. In. My. Bed.’？” I deliver the line in the growly, unhinged, urgent way Nicolas Cage does and Gio starts to laugh, slightly alarmed.
“You reminded me of that movie just then,” I say.
“And does she do as he asks?”
I don’t blink. “Yes.”
“I’ll watch it sometime.”
“Can I watch it with you?”
“It sounds like you’ve seen it already,” he says.
“But not with you,” I say.
“Fine,” he says, sighing. “You can watch it with me.”
“I work every night but Mondays,” I say.
“I work every day there is,” he says.
“Monday night, then?”
“That’s tonight, Iris.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll bring popcorn.”
16.
I DUCK INTO A BODEGA ON Mulberry Street to grab popcorn and red wine en route to Belotti’s. I’ve spent the afternoon alone, some much needed me-time to drink tea and keep my own counsel. How can something feel so right and so wrong all in the same breath? I lay on the couch this afternoon and considered cancelling, but my fingers refused to type the message. I submerged myself under bathwater and willed myself to float away to a new, easier version of my life, but then found myself relieved when I broke the surface and saw the cat sitting on the sink observing me in my cubbyhole bathroom. I pored over my mother’s scrapbook at my small kitchen table, wondering what advice she’d offer me. It saddened me greatly that I couldn’t find her voice in my head. The only advice I have to draw on is Bobby’s, so I’m making my way to the closed-up gelateria to drink wine with Gio Belotti and let what happens happen.