“Those the ones you want?”
“Ah.” He put the book down. “Can we,Papà? It is not Carnival season.”
“It doesn’t matter. Go ahead and start making the batter. We’ll do the eggs last. Those take the least time. I’ll handle the bacon. The coffee won’t take long either.”
“Juice?”
“Mamma has some fresh-squeezed stuff in the fridge—” I waved the spatula toward the area. The hiss and pop of bacon had started, and the thick smell penetrated the cool air, almost thickening it.
He frowned as he looked around at our setup. Before I could say anything, he moved past me, going to the stereo system in the corner—most of the rooms had a connecting speaker. Fidgeting with it for a moment, he finally pressed play. One of Scarlett’s favorites started to sing through the speakers. Bocelli. The music wasn’t loud, just enough for us to hear.
“I will turn it louder when it is time to wake the house.”
“Good idea,” I said, hiding my grin.
We worked side by side. Quiet at first. His mouth moved silently as he read the ingredients to himself, then it moved in time to the music. Sometimes, when Bocelli hit an especially beautiful note, he’d close his eyes and hold a hand over his heart—something his mamma and Luca did. Couldn’t blame him for that one.
“You really like this music, ah?”
He continued to stir the ingredients as he answered. “Of course.” Then he looked at the mixture like it had asked the question and was crazy. “It is…romantico.” Waving the whisk, he glanced at the cookbook before adding cinnamon. “Chloe agrees. Solid proof. Ours is the language of love.”
I slapped at a drop of grease that had popped onto my arm. “Who’s Chloe?”
“Ah, she is,ah, a girl.”
“Older, same age, or younger?”
“Older.”
“You sang to this Chloe?”
“Ovviamente.” He put down the measuring cup and picked up a mixing spoon, then put it down, going for the tool he had before. “Kai dared me to.”
“You did it.”
He looked over at me, a serious expression on his face. The same expression he gave his brother when the latter refused to believe a story.
“That takes balls,” I said. Big ones. An older girl, too. If his mamma knew about this, I would have already heard about it.
“That is what started it. Kai said I did not have big enough—” he pointed to his balls “—to sing to her. Ishowedhim.”
“You showed him your balls?”
“Theyarebig,” he said, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. Then I did the thing he said I could not do.” He shrugged.
“You didn’t show Chloe your balls, did you?”
He almost gasped, and a glob of the mixture fell on his arm. He was so aghast that he didn’t even wipe it off. “I did not!”
“I didn’t say you did, ah? But I wanted to be sure.”
“I am respectful,Papà!”
“Bene,” I said. “Now continue. What did Chloe say after you serenaded her?”
At this point, he had me enthralled.
“She told all of her friends that we will marry someday. I told her this is not possible.”
