“Your boss makes sandwiches?” Luca asks after about three of those minutes.
“I guess so,” I answer.
“Is there anything he doesn’t do?” he asks, and I actually snort.
“I’m starting to ask that question myself, buddy.”
A moment later, Damien reappears with two wrapped sandwiches. He hands one to Luca, who tears the packaging off and then hesitates. He peels one corner of the crust back and narrows his eyes.
“Shit,” Damien mutters under his breath. “Should I have gone crustless?”
“No, he’ll eat the crust,” I whisper back.
“Oh, good.”
“He’s judging the sandwich as a whole,” I add, and then I laugh.
Luca takes a bite, and I swear Damien is holding his breath.
“Well?” I ask.
“It’s good,” he nods. Then he smiles. “Really good.”
I nudge Damien, who lets out the breath he was in fact holding. “And what’s that one?” I ask, nodding at the sandwich still in his hand.
“This is the Tartine,” he says as he unwraps it. “A bougie take on the OG. Fig, bacon and brie.”
He hands me half, and I take a bite. As expected, it’s out of this world, but then I give him a funny look. “Since when do you run a food truck?”
“It was a pipe dream when I was younger. After the popularity of the hotels skyrocketed, I wanted to do something fun. Well, that’s what people told me to do, and since I’m not the best at that–”
“At fun?” I ask.
“Yeah…I decided to open the food truck. Crazy enough, it’s done really well.”
“I didn’t know you liked grilled cheese,” Luca says, nearly finished with his.
“Neither did I,” I said with a smirk.
“Well, I guess both of you now officially know one of my best-kept secrets,” Damien says before leaning down towards Luca again. “I love grilled cheese.”
It earns him the smallest smile from Luca and a grin I can’t hide from me.
After we finish our sandwiches, we head towards the bouncy castles. Luckily, they have sprinklers in them to keep kids from overheating. “That looks fun, doesn’t it?” I ask Luca as I untie his shoes.
“There’s a lot of kids on the slides,” he says, and I glance over at them. “It’s not too bad, bud. See, if you wait in that little line, you can go down the slide and land in the water. You like water slides.”
Luca nods, but I can tell he’s not sure. It’s been an age-old struggle to get him to socialize. And while I know that forcing it isn’t the answer, I try to encourage it. The slide isn’t bad, maybe only ten kids. But I know that to him it’s not always about the number, but the movement of the activity.
“You’ll feel better if you cool down, bud,” I say, and he nods.
“And we will be right here. We aren’t going anywhere,” Damien adds, and I look up at him. My heart flutters a little.
“Okay.”
Luca finally takes our word for it and scampers off towards the bouncy house. “Is he always this shy?” Damien asks as we squint against the sun.
“I’m not sure shy is the right word for it,” I answer. “He just has a hard time around people. Social anxiety is what the pediatrician calls it. She says the more I put him in situations where he has to be around people, the more he’ll get used to it. But sometimes I feel like it just–”
