“I...” He pauses, and I can practically see him searching for an answer. “I don’t know.”
My heart does something painful in my chest. This man, this intense, mysterious, probably-dangerous man, doesn’t know what he does for fun.
“Okay, we’re going to fix that,” I declare. “Starting now. Quick, what’s your favorite color?”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t think. Just answer.”
“Green,” he says, and looks as surprised as I am. “Dark green. Like your sweater.”
Oh. Oh no. The butterflies are back and they’ve brought friends.
“Favorite food?”
“My mother’s carbonara.”
“Favorite season?”
“Fall.”
“Morning person or night person?”
“Night.”
“Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee.”
“Dogs or cats?”
“Dogs. Big ones.”
I’m grinning now, watching him relax incrementally with each answer. “See? You can do fun. You just need practice.”
“Is this what normal people do on dates?” He looks genuinely curious. “Rapid-fire questions?”
“This is what I do on dates. I find small talk boring. I want to know the real things. Like—” I grab a biscotti and point it at him. “If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?”
“My father.”
The answer comes quickly, and there’s something raw in his voice that makes me want to reach across the couch and take his hand.
“Past tense,” I say softly.
“He died when I was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He lived the life he chose.” There’s something complicated in his expression, grief, anger and something that might be pride. “Your turn. Who would you have dinner with?”
“My nonna. Without question.” I smile at the memory. “She was this tiny Italian woman with an iron will and the greenest thumb I’ve ever seen. She could make anything grow. And she made the best tiramisu in the world, don’t tell my mother I said that.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
We fall into an easier rhythm after that, trading questions and stories. I learn he’s an only child, that he speaks three languages (Italian, English, and Spanish), he’s never been married and has no children. He learns I’m terrible at math, that I once accidentally dyed all my white clothes pink in the laundry,I’m afraid of spiders but will relocate them outside rather than kill them because “they’re just doing their spider thing.”
He asks about my shop, and I light up talking about it, about the joy of creating arrangements, helping people mark important moments with flowers, the satisfaction of building something with my own hands.
