“No!” I rushed out. “I, um, don’t think this is anything Uncle Tito can help with. It’s the, ah, size of you…I think. My body needs to adjust.”
“You were made for me.” He said this as if it was the remedy to all my aches and pains.
He set me on the counter again. Then he left the bathroom and came back with a low-back chair that he sat me down on. He found my hairbrush and started to comb thought the knots in my hair. He was gentle, but he applied enough pressure to get through them. My eyes closed and I relaxed into the feel of it. After a second, when he stopped, I opened my eyes and found him holding a fine-tooth comb.
He gave me a suspicious look. I wanted to laugh but didn’t.
“Women use those too,” I said, taking it from him. I nodded to the seat. “Sit.”
He did. “Tell me, how do women use them.”
“After I curl my hair, I brush through it with this—” I lifted it up. “My hair is naturally wavy, but sometimes, depending on the weather, it can get frizzy. The comb helps tame it and give my waves more definition.”
As soon as I started combing through his hair, hisentire body relaxed, and I could have sworn he fell asleep. Until my stomach growled. Obnoxiously. Like it does when the room is quiet, and a test is being taken. His eyes flew open and he looked at my stomach, that same suspicious look falling over my hands, which were trying to shush the embarrassing noises.
“My lioness hunts for me, but she will not starve at my table.” He stood, and after slipping my pink silk robe—thank you, discount retail store that almost everyone has heard of—over my body, he carried me into the kitchen and set me down on the counter.
He opened the fridge, the meager light giving life to his gorgeous lines, and rooted through it.
“Ooh, I have leftover pasta!”
His face turned slowly toward mine, and his coloring had completely drained, as if he’d seen a ghost in my fridge.
Okay.
No pasta.
Noted.
“I have fruit too,” I whispered, finishing lamely.
He grabbed a container of grapes and set them next to me. He fed me almost the entire bowl, and I fed him a few, and when I said I was going to make him something to eat—not pasta—he dug through the cabinets and set the two focaccia pans on the counter.
“Oh,” I whispered, tucking a strand of almost dried hair behind my ear, smiling a bit. “You want more bread?”
He nodded. “Sì.”
It was such an…innocent response to something he didn’t want to ask me for. I hoped in time he would. He would love so many of my dishes, he’d request them from me. Nonna had always loved when I asked her for certain dishes. I didn’t get how it made her so happy, but I understood it then, even if I couldn’t exactly spinthe why of itinto words.
While I set the dough out to rise, Rocco leaned against the counter, and I pointed to the desk.
“Do you mind if I write for a minute?”
He pulled out my seat for me, then kissed me on top of the head and sat across from me on the sofa, Pisolino behind him on the backrest. Pisolino bopped him on the head a few times, but Rocco only scratched him behind the ears, earning himself a lifelong fan.
I’d realized something as I was mixing the dough. I’d never been writing a story for the world to read, but my own personal journal. I told Rocco this, and then, in the same style I had been, I wrote about our day, our night, and everything in between. I’d have this record for the rest of my life, and that thought put me at complete peace—that our love would live on eternally through my words.
Sighing, I closed the book and met his eyes.
“You look enthralled.” I smiled.
He bowed to me. “You are creating art. You are moving me, even though I do not see what that art is yet. You are the art, my Amora.”
Sighing again athismoving words, I thanked him, then went to the kitchen, decorated the bread, and stuck it in the oven. The oven in the apartment wasn’t just a regular oven. It reminded me of a pizza oven with doors. I loved it. It was romantic in an old-world way. While the bread baked, Rocco took my hand and led me out to the balcony. While he held me, my hands drifted across the stone in soft strokes, and he rested his chin on my head.
We were going to watch the sunrise together.
The oven had other plans. I must have heated it too much, and when the smell of burning bread made it outside, I went to rush inside.
