I needn’t have worried. Torre could hold his own, and to his credit, he didn’t let the question faze him. “CUNY.” He drank some of his beer, and I wondered why I’d wanted to wildcat to his defense.
“So how do you two know each other?” Nate asked.
“Don’t you have a boyfriend to get home to?” I asked irritably, wanting Nate to go away so I could continue to seduce Torre. I finished off half of my drink. “I’m sure Press will be wondering where you are. Run home like a good fiancé and give him a kiss for me. Go on.” I made shooing motions with my hands.
Nate chuckled. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were trying to get rid of me.”
“You do know me well enough to know exactly that.” I quirked a brow. “Nice to see you again, Ethan. Good night, Nate.”
A slow smile spread across Nate’s face. “I see. So that’s how it goes. Good night. Nice to meet you, Torre.”
They walked away, and I finished my drink as silence rose between us. This dinner was out of my realm of comfort. I didn’t do dates and conversation over candlelight.
“Nate seems nice. How did he and Presley meet?”
“At a group therapy session. Nate’s father died, and Press was having trouble getting over the death of this bastard he dated. They clicked, and boom, here we are, a year later, and they’re planning their wedding.”
The waitress placed our main courses in front of us, and I had to admit the food was delicious. The meat was soft and pink, the side onions crispy, and the truffled whipped potatoes melted in my mouth. Almost as good as sex.
“Why was the guy a bastard?” Torre ignored his steak and propped his chin in his hand.
“Because he was married. And I told Press not to get involved with a married guy, but he ignored me. It ruined him for years and almost broke our friendship.”
“Why would it have done that? It’s his choice who to fall in love with.”
Sourness rose in my throat. “So you think it’s okay to fuck a married man?”
“No,” Torre replied immediately, and relief swept through me. “Of course not. But you should always be there for your friends, no matter how badly they act, unless they do something to hurt you personally. How could Presley’s affair directly affect you?”
This wasn’t how I’d planned the evening to go. I was interested in his bared body, not in baring my soul. Some light conversation, heavy flirting, and then coaxing Torre home so we could get naked. This delving into my feelings felt…too much. I knew I was a shit person. I’d left Press alone to deal with Jared because ofmyemotional inability to deal with cheaters. I’d hurt my best friend, the nicest person in the world and the only one to stand by me no matter what, and left when he needed me most. I’d never do that again. But Torre didn’t know that and never would, so he couldn’t possibly understand. Even I didn’t, and it was my own fucking life. But I had no interest in peeling back the layers of hurt and resentment to expose the ugliness of my center. That was one thing I did know for certain.
“I’d rather not talk about it. It’s not important anymore. Press is with Nate, and he’s happy.”
Finally, Torre cut into his steak, but then his eyes returned to me. “You have a strange sense of honor. You’ll sleep with someone you barely know as long as they’re not married.”
Anger bubbled up inside me. “Why is that strange? You take a vow to be with someone else. Honor it. It’s pretty fucking simple.” I stabbed at my filet.
“Oh, I agree. I just thought you didn’t care. Free love and all that.”
“There’s no such thing as free love,” I said with bitterness. “It sucks the life out of you and costs more than you can ever recoup.” I forked some potatoes in my mouth without tasting them. “Can we drop this, please?” Panic seized my chest, and it hurt to breathe. I set my fork down and gulped my water.
Looking contrite, Torre reached across the table and touched my hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so personal or upset you.”
“It’s…it’s fine. I just don’t want to talk about it.” Was that weak voice mine? I hated that all these years later, the events of that night still had the power to control me.
“Okay, then we won’t. You went to culinary school in France and in Italy, you said. I’ve never been to either, or Europe at all. It’s always been my dream to go. Tell me your worst mistake in the kitchen, and I’ll tell you mine.”
I waited for my breathing to stabilize and the whorls of black spots to stop spinning before my eyes. My hand shook slightly, and abhorring weakness as I did, I grabbed the fork and shoved it into the pile of onions.
“How do you know so much about working in a professional kitchen anyway?” I assumed it was from waiting tables but he had picked up some cooking skills.
Torre stared into his plate. “My Pops was in the catering business, and I’ve helped Mike since he started Mangia. There’s something satisfying about creating delicious food that I love.”
I knew what Torre was trying to do. Talking about his father still hurt, but he did so anyway to ease my pain, and I appreciated him more than I could say. “I have plenty of stories. I once grated butter, thinking it was cheese.”
Torre snickered, his brown eyes sparkling. “Good one. I once figured it didn’t make a difference what kind of tomatoes I used to make sauce, and used beefsteak with the seeds. I thought the seeds would break down. They didn’t, and it was the wateriest, most tasteless thing ever. Nothing could save it.”
The pressure eased off, and I could reminisce about these mistakes, which though at the time caused me grief, were nothing compared to having my heart shredded by my mother and Luca. “Oh, that’s a rookie mistake.” I snickered. “I almost got kicked out of school in Paris for throwing out truffles.”
