Their grass-covered yard was huge, and when Ava started walking she’d have a ball running back and forth. I leaned on the railing, shutting my eyes as the warm breeze wafted over me.
This could’ve been me in a year or two. I couldn’t deny the touch of envy being in Joe and Caterina’s perfect house brought on, but I’d never pictured this kind of life with Adam, even though that was the path we were supposed to be on.
When I did dream about it, it wasn’t with Adam and had been a distant fantasy at the time, but I still mourned the loss of it.
“I never saw anyone so entranced by our little trees before.” Caterina chuckled behind me. “And my apologies for sending you out here without a cork screw.” She held one up in her hand. “Feel free to dig into the pizza box while I pour.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I slid into a wicker seat at the glass patio table, placing a slice on each plate as I waited for her to sit down.
“I’m glad you decided to come by.” She settled next to me and raised her glass. “To new friendships and sleeping babies.”
“I’ll drink to that.” Our glasses clinked, and we both took a sip, mine a bit longer than hers.
“I heard the walls are almost done. That’s quick, we only signed the lease what, three weeks ago?” She took a bite, holding my gaze.
I nodded. “All the contractors have a timeline, which they probably won’t meet exactly, but we’re on track, so far. My boss is pleased.”
“Is something wrong with the space? I only ask because when I mentioned the walls your face fell.”
I put down the pizza and rested my elbows onto the table, folding my hands under my chin.
“Nothing is wrong with the space. Dominic has been a huge help keeping everything on schedule and on budget.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m also finding it harder and harder to stay away from him, and it’s actually making me a little crazy. But you don’t need to hear about that.”
“Hey, remember what I said? Vault. I honestly don’t know much about you guys, at all. Only that you broke up after his mother died, and he came out here to help Joe.” She leaned back in the chair. “And since you arrived, he’s extremely preoccupied. I’m guessing it wasn’t an amiable split?”
“That’s the thing.” I frayed the edge of my paper napkin. “He just wanted to be alone. It wasn’t as if there was someone else or we stopped loving each other. There were arguments but no screaming matches. How could I yell at a man who was losing his mother?”
Caterina didn’t react, only listened. The great thing about unloading to her was that she hadn’t known us as a couple and hadn’t witnessed how I’d crashed and burned when he’d left. If I told Sue or any of my other friends, about my softening feelings toward Dominic, she’d list out every detail of how he’d left me until they were re-ingrained in my head.
“You still had feelings. It’s okay to be upset with him for hurting you—no matter what state of mind he was in. Joe told me he took her death pretty badly, and when he reached out to you when he felt better, you wouldn’t answer.”
“And I should have, but I couldn’t…” I rubbed at my temples, the memory of the stab I felt across my sore abdomen each time Dominic’s name appeared on my phone screen. I’d wanted to answer his call every time, but my entire body had frozen.
“I don’t know if I would have answered, either. I’m also a stubborn Italian girl. Grudges are the song of my people.”
It felt good to laugh. “We Irish girls are about the same. It was more hurt than a grudge. He was everything to me.” I felt silly sayingwas, since everything I was still feeling mapped back to Dominic. “And until I found out he wasn’t coming back, I hadn’t accepted us as over. I thought if I kept my distance now, it would help but—”
“Dominic has a magnetic kind of charm.” She chuckled. “He’s hard to ignore and endears himself pretty easily, but there was always something about him that seemed off-limits.” Her brow furrowed as she leaned in closer. “He’s more open with Joe, but even he says Dominic isn’t as open as he seems.”
Even before his mother passed away, there was a vulnerable, serious part of Dominic that he liked to mask with jokes, but his eyes always gave him away. I still caught a glimpse of it when we’d talk about old times, or this morning when I’d taken his hand without realizing it, my yearning to comfort him never having subsided. His troubled soul called out to me like it always had.
“You’re both right. I always felt the weird need to protect him, and when I tried to take care of him before his mother died, I pushed him away.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “He pushed himself away from what it sounds like. It’s obvious how the regret is weighing on him. Do you ever catch how he looks at you? Or realize how you look at him?”
“I do,” I whispered. Time still stood still when we were in the same room, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
“I had lunch with my ex-fiancé, today. And all I could think was how easy life would have been if I loved him. An aunt used to tell me the secret to a happy life was finding a husband who loved you a lot more than you loved him.”
I turned to Caterina’s amused grin. “I can’t see that as a happy life at all. Falling in love with Joe was inconvenient as hell at the time, but I can’t picture life without him.” Caterina’s eyes danced whenever Joe’s name came up. “Joe and I fell fast, like two weeks fast. I came here on vacation and…” She trailed off with a shrug.
“He became your souvenir.” I raised a brow over my wine glass.
“Something like that.” She giggled as she refilled our glasses. “It didn’t stand to reason, but nothing without him made sense after that. I’d had relationships out of necessity that looked good on paper, but I didn’t come alive until I met Joe. That story makes me sad for your aunt.” She grimaced as she picked up her pizza for another bite.
I nodded with a laugh. “She’d tell me how I’d have the power, and he couldn’t make me crazy. A man you were in love with could only bring you trouble, she said. And quite honestly,” I took a large bite of pizza and washed it down with another mouthful of Pinot Grigio, “she’s right. The entire time I was with Adam, I didn’t worry about a thing. It was easy, if a bit boring. My heart was never in any kind of danger.”
“But you couldn’t go through with it?” she asked, a wry grin curving her lips.
