Whatever tension Beckett had melts straight into mischief. The shit-eating grin he sends me says I am never living this down.
I smile back, deciding I like this look better than the one a few minutes ago, even if I’m about to take the brunt of whatever he has up his sleeve.
“So,” she says, giving him an appraising once-over. “I hear you’re a very talented chef.”
“Naw,” he says. “Not as good as you, I hear.Domenico”—he shoots me a look over his shoulder—“can’t stop raving about your cooking.”
I glare. It’s ineffective.
We move into the kitchen, and the hit of garlic, tomato, and basil is like getting hugged a second time.
“I do okay. Now, come. Dom tells me you’re writing a cookbook, si?” She taps two stools at her kitchen island. “Sit.”
“Yeah,” Beckett says, glancing at me with a soft look that does something stupid to my chest. “Well… Dom had the idea.”
She waves that away. “Yes, yes, handsome and occasionally useful. But can he cook? No.”
“Well, he did make me spaghetti the other night,” Beckett says, lips twitching.
She stops her bustling. “Did he now?”
Beckett smirks, and I give him one last narrow-eyed warning.
“Sure did,” he continues. “It was delicious. Who knew something out of a?—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” she cuts in, eyes locked on me. “Domenico. Tell me you did not.”
Next thing I know, she’s at my side and tugging my ear. “How could you? And for a man you’re trying to impress?” She slaps me on the shoulder. “It’s true what they say. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Well, and his dick.”
“Aunt Sofia!”
“What? I only speak truths.”
Beckett loses it, trying to cover with a cough. “In his defense, I did show up unannounced.”
“And any good Italian,” she says, pointing a spoon at me. “Keeps sauce in the freezer. Remind me to send some home with you.” Then to Beckett, softening. “Now,caro, will you help me cook tonight?”
His eyes bug wide. “I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”
“Don’t be silly,” she tsks. “You come cook with me.”
The way she sayscaroand his whole face lights up… yeah, that gets me. I sit back for a second and just take it in—her bustling, him grinning, this kitchen that let me become myself when nowhere else felt safe. This place is and always will be home, even if it’s not the home I started with.
When I first left home to come stay with Aunt Sofia, we spent many nights sitting around this island talking. She gave me a place to find out who I was. A place I could come to terms with my sexuality on my own and not under the hateful eye of my father.
I don’t know who I would be today if it weren’t for her.
“I thought we’d make an old family recipe,” she says. “Tuscan chicken.”
I groan.
Beckett side-eyes me. “What?”
“It’s… also referred to as Marry Me Chicken,” I confess.
His smile turns downright feral. “Oh, Dom. Don’t you think it’s a little soon? I mean, blow jobs are one thing, but you haven’t even taken me out on a date?”
Aunt Sofia barks out a laugh. “Ohh, I like him.”
