Leo shoots me a wicked grin. “Oh, I’ve got banter,” he says. “Don’t you worry about that.”
“You do?” I say, grinning back.
I decide to leave the hard seat and join him on the bed. I sit at the foot of it, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, the small glass goblet cupped between my fingers.
Leo watches my every move. We are close, and when we head to sleep, we will beveryclose indeed. I wonder how the hell I’m going to relax.
“So if not uni, you must have gone to culinary school, then?” I say.
“’Fraid not,” he says, stretching out his free hand to examine a fine scar on the back of it, before dropping it onto the bed, close to my ankle. It’s centimeters away and yet I can feel the heat radiating off it.
Leo takes a deep breath. “My mum died of breast cancer when I was eighteen. When she got really sick, she wanted to be back in Tuscany with her sister and our extended family. We were in England because my nonevent of a father was British.” He adds this with a degree of disdain, and it gives more context for his night out with Rocco and, in fact, his close relationship with Dad.
“Right,” I say, nodding, feeling my body wilt with compassion.
Leo reaches down and tugs up the short sleeve of his shirt and shows me his tattoo.
“It wasn’t a drunken mistake,” he admits as I read the wordMammain script that runs under his arm.
I feel the prickle of tears in my eyes, but Leo tugs his shirtsleeve down quickly and moves on. “I’d finished school, and I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Though we didn’t have a lot, Mum was into food, being Italian,” Leo says, laughing. “I went down a rabbit hole when I was in Tuscany. Nothing to do but care for Mum and hang out talking to the tomatoes. I got really into cooking shows. Heston Blumenthal, Jamie Oliver,Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.Boiling Point.”
“Aha!” I say, recalling our first conversation at the bar. “Okay.”
“And then I saw your dad’s show.”
“Nooooo,” I say.
“Nicolo’s Mediterranean Adventures,” he says in the same voice-over as the show.
“No. Way!” I reply, gasping.
“After Mum died, I went back to London and I looked up his restaurant. I went straight to Nicky’s, knocked on the back door, and wouldn’t leave until he gave me a job. He did. Washing dishes for almost two years. The bastard.”
“It’s where everyone starts,” I say, laughing.
“It wasn’t until much later I learned that the show was axed after one run,” Leo says.
“It was a shame,” I say.
“It was the hot-air-balloon gimmick,” Leo says. “It never really took off.”
I cackle. I’d heard my dad make this joke before.
“Sucha silly idea,” Leo says, shaking his head. “Your dad deserved better.”
I nod, smoothing out the stiff industrial cotton of the bedsheets,as Leo fills both our glasses. “His glory days were when I was, like, eleven and twelve. The restaurant was packed all the time. We had a few minor celebrities come by.”
“I’ve seen the photos,” says Leo, laughing. “The one with the Wiggles is my personal favorite.”
“By far the most exciting was when the footballers came in,” I say.
“GUNNERS EAT FREE,” says Leo, laughing. “Your dad had to take that sign down, you know. It was basically bankrupting him.”
“Jesus,” I say, making a show of rolling my eyes. Leo shakes his head slowly.
“He never had the head for it,” he says grimly.
