Charlie goes to work as usual, figuring he’s back to needing the income.
Is this what forever looks like for Charlie Moore? Sitting in a sagging chair behind a glass window selling alcohol in Slatington, Pennsylvania?
The Amorina bars have been restocked in the snack stand. Even after everything, they call to him. He exercises restraint. The taste alone would make him lose his hope, and maybe his mind. His father told him to be positive, so he will be.
In his sketchbook, instead of drawing, he writes up a list of all the things Dario could be sorry for instead of standing him up. As his spirits lift with every scribbled bullet point, a car drives up. Charlie is too focused to notice.
The click of dress shoes instead of boots on the cement floor is what pulls Charlie from his brainstorm.
“Charlie,” Dario says, appearing in a five-piece suit before him.
Charlie leaps out of his booth and into the chocolate maker’s arms. The firmness of his short king confirms he is not a fabrication of Charlie’s flowery imagination. Dario Cotogna is in America, in his arms, where he said he’d be.Where he belongs.
“Your text—I thought—” Charlie can’t form coherent sentences because the familiar smell of Dario’s shampoo fills his nostrils.
“I should’ve never sent that. I had a moment of weakness. I’m so sorry, Charlie,” Dario says. He holds Charlie tighter to punctuate his apology.
“What did you mean?” he asks.
Dario pauses. Charlie pushes a few strands of hair back behind Dario’s ear so he can see his dashing face better. “I gave in to my anxiety for a moment before leaving. I needed a little push. Emilio came to do that for me,” Dario says.
“Emilio?” Charlie asks, unable to conceal his surprise.
The tinted car window zips down behind them. Emilio waves. “Ciao, Charlie. Pretend I am not here!” The window slides right back up.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Dario says.
“I thought ‘I’m sorry’ were the last two words you were ever going to say to me,” Charlie admits. Good things can come and go so quickly, as he’s learned. He didn’t want to believe Dario could leave him like that. The situation with Max all over again.
“The whole flight here I was afraid you’d never speak to me,” Dario says, hanging his head.
“With this face?” Charlie cups Dario’s cheeks in his hands and lifts his gaze again. “Not a chance, Candy Man. I love you.”
The words are sweeter than any Amorina bar ever could be. They taste like truth.
Dario beams, and Charlie can’t help but squeeze his rosy cheeks. He takes on the appearance of a glubbing fish. An adorably glubbing fish who swam all the way upstream against the raging current of his mental health to be here. Right now. Charlie swans in and kisses him, his brave little chocolatier.
“Ti amo, Charlie. I love you, too,” Dario says with his whole chest. They kiss again.
“My shift ends in a half hour,” Charlie says, glancing at the clock.
“Are you going to give me a tour then?” Dario asks, gesturing around.
Charlie honks out a laugh. “This is it. It’s not going to be much of a tour.”
“I gave you a tour of the Amorina Factory,” Dario says.
Charlie shrugs. “Fair is fair, I guess.”
He points out all the different merchandise—the beer fridge, the seltzer fridge, the shelves of hard liquor. They pass by the self-serve ICEE machines that slosh radioactive-looking drinks around.
“This is the snack shelf where I get my Amorina bars.” Charlie dances his fingers over the surface. He loves the oh-so-familiar feel of that shiny wrapping.
Dario lifts the bar off the top and announces he would like to purchase it. Charlie rings it up. The heart in the Amorina logo means more to him now that he has captured the real heart of a Cotogna.
Dario makes a yikes face when he peers into his wallet. “You don’t happen to take euros, do you?”
“This one’s on me,” Charlie says with a wink.
