“I bought butter flavor and Cheddar.”
I hold up the popcorn bags and realize how Baby Houseman felt when she said she carried a watermelon.
Gio looks from the popcorn to me and nods, leading me through the gelateria to the door at the back of the kitchens marked PRIVATE. I haven’t been upstairs to Gio’s home before, and it feels strange after so many mornings spent around the kitchen workbench. I glance over my shoulder toward my gelato machine sitting forlornly in the darkness, and then follow him up the stairs.
“Have you always lived here?” I wish I could suck the question back in when his face falls.
“No. Bella and I moved up here after Penny died. Too many reminders in our old apartment, you know?”
I nod, not trusting myself to reply. I moved continents to get away from reminders of Adam.
“You look nice,” he says, taking my coat.
I did that classic thing earlier, pulled out the entire contents of my wardrobe before settling for jeans and the black sweater Bobby and Robin gave me for my birthday. It’s the kind of expensive that clings in all the right places and slides off my shoulder. I’ve not had occasion to wear it before tonight, as it’s definitely not something to toss noodles in.
Gio looks uncharacteristically nervous. “I wasn’t sure whether I should cook?”
“Oh. No, I’ve eaten,” I lie, because I was too nervous to face food earlier. “Is Bella here?”
He shakes his head. “Mamma’s making far too much of a fuss over her for her to bother coming home tonight. My guess is she’ll be there three days, at least. Maybe even a week.”
“Those pancakes did sound amazing.”
He digs in a kitchen cupboard for a popcorn bowl. “It’s a win-win. Mamma gets someone to feed while Papa’s away, and Bella’s more than happy to be waited on hand and foot.”
“Sounds like a good gig, to be fair.”
We’re doing that thing again, avoiding the elephant in the room. But even though I hate terrible small talk, I’m okay with it right now because unreasonable things happen in my head and body whenever he touches me.
“This place is super cool,” I say, looking around, taking in his home. I don’t know what I expected—more of what’s downstairs, I suppose. Classic, traditional, a mini version of Maria and Santo’s Brooklyn brownstone. It’s not like that at all. Gio’s apartment would probably be described on Zillow as rustic-luxe, bare brick walls and exposed beams, stripped floors and industrial furniture softened with battered leather sofas and warm-toned rugs. For all of that, it still feels welcoming and unpretentious, scattered with the hallmarks of a family home—Bella’s sneakers by the door, schoolbooks on the coffee table, photos pinned to the fridge. Gio suits his home. He has the same established, comfortable-in-his-own-skin vibe about him tonight. Worn-in jeans, dark T-shirt with faded band graphics, yet another new version of him from the guy who works downstairs and the guy attending his family dinner. I would imagine this is as close to who he really is as it gets.
“It’s an ongoing labor of love,” he says. “Keeps me busy, anyway. Less time to think about stuff when you’re sanding floors or knocking down walls.”
An unbidden image of Gio in overalls saunters through my head, and I turn the mental hose on him and scoosh him away.
“So this movie,” he says, reaching two wineglasses down from a shelf. “Tell me what I’m in for.”
I shake my head. “Uh-uh. The joy is in not knowing. Besides, I wouldn’t do it justice.”
He cracks the wine seal. “You did a pretty good Nicolas Cage impression earlier.”
“You’ll know just how good when you see it,” I laugh.
I follow him to the sofa and perch on one end, accepting the glass of wine he hands me. He takes the other end, puts the popcorn on the empty seat between us, then clicks the TV remote.
“Already cued up,” I say as the movie graphic fills the screen. “Impressive.”
“Did you think I’d try to get out of it?”
“The movie or…” I trail off, unsure whether to call this a date.
“The movie,” he says. “Not this.” He indicates between us with his hand. “Popcorn?”
“I have a no-popcorn-until-the-first-word’s-been-spoken rule,” I say. It was my mother’s rule, and I find it impossible to break even now.
He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t speak as he presses PLAY and dims the lights. He doesn’t eat the popcorn either, which I like. Such is the excellence of the movie that I’m pulled straight into the story I already know so well, and surreptitious glances at Gio tell me he’s engrossed too. It’s a fast-talking, tempestuous, wise-cracking ensemble piece you have to really pay attention to, and I feel my nerves dissolving as the familiar faces fill the screen and the wine loosens my limbs. Gio moves to fetch the wine bottle halfway through, and when he returns he sits nearer to my end than before. I excuse myself to the loo a few minutes later, and when I come back I sit closer to the middle too, almost shoulder to shoulder beside him as if we’re at the cinema. I take a gulp of wine, knowing that we’re coming up to the Nicolas Cage line I quoted earlier. My hand collides with his when we both reach into the popcorn bowl wedged between us.
“You go,” he says.
“No, you,” I say.
On screen, Nicolas Cage tells Loretta he wants her in his bed, and I try to flick a look at Gio without making it obvious and find him turned toward me, watching me watch the movie.
“You’ll miss the best bit,” I say.
“You are the best bit,” he says, and then he leans forward and touches his mouth to mine, the unhurried kind of at-last kiss made for slow dances and late nights on vacation. I turn my body into him and his arm slides around my shoulders, and there’s that moment where you wonder if you’re going to fit together or jar on each other’s angles and curves. We don’t jar. We meld.
“For the record, that was a really corny line,” I say.
“I’m old,” he says.
“You’re thirty-nine.”
“Watch the rest of your movie,” he says, resting his fingers on the back of my neck. “Then I’ve got something to show you.”
I throw him a look. “That isn’t as suggestive as it sounds, is it?”
He reaches for some popcorn. “I think you’ll like it.”
I’m glad I’ve seen the film before, because however brilliant it is, I can’t take the words in while he’s drawing slow circles on my neck with his fingertip and it’s so insanely sexual that I feel as if he’s actually drawing circles on my cervix.
For the love of God, Cher, just get in Nic’s bed already, will you? Gio Belotti has something to show me and I cannot wait to see what it is.
* * *
—
“UP HERE.”
Gio handed me a blanket just now, and when he opens the door at the top of a skinny staircase I see why.
“You have a roof terrace?”
He shrugs. “Kind of. It’s a roof, at least.”
Cold night air hits me as I step outside, but I’m too dazzled to let it bother me. It’s a tight space, just enough room for a garden sofa on a patterned outdoor rug, a few big planters dotted around to add a relaxed vibe. The main event, though, is definitely the breathtaking view.