“What? You don’t want me to say how great you tasted this morning?” He asked innocently.
“Matteo.” Turning into him, I hid my face against his chest, and his arms went around me instantly, crushing me to his firm chest. “Lower your voice.”
More laughter.
“Please,” I begged.
“Anyone would think you regret…”
Tilting my face up, he forced me to stare into his eyes, half-blinded by the sunlight streaking down between the buildings. “I don’t, it’s just…”
He cut me off again. “Do you recognize where we are?”
The question took me by surprise. Confused, I pulled myself out of his arms and looked around.
“What…is that?” On the far corner, a familiar yellow and red awning swayed. It was the same one I had seen every week for pretty much my entire life, only now it was newer. The font was clear, and the whole thing was pristine.
“How is that place still open?” My mouth agape, I turned back to him. “Didn’t it go out of business? It was shut when…well.” I grimaced.
“When you left me?” he finished for me. “Yeah, it was, but I bought it. That place was your favorite place to eat when we were kids. I wasn’t about to let it fail. Not if I could help it, anyway.”
“You bought the best breakfast spot just for me?” Part of me couldn’t believe my ears.
“Well, for me as well. They have the best French toast in the city. Do you remember?”
Mutely, I nodded.
“The staff are all pretty much the same. There’s a few youngsters who pick up some shifts, but the menu and everything else are the same. So,” he cracked a smile that showed rows of pearly white teeth, “what do you say?”
“To?” I was still confused, reeling from everything that had happened, and even more confused than I had been this morning before he had turned up and interrupted my crying yoga.
“Breakfast.” The dimple in his left cheek popped,
“You want to take me for breakfast?” I didn’t know why, but that surprised me. This wasn’t some flash place where he could show me off. In fact, it was little more than a diner. No one important came here. That’s why we had eaten here every Sunday morning growing up. Just the three of us.
Me, Matteo, and Gio.
“Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”
“No,” I lied, because it was definitely hard to believe unless something had really changed between us. “I would love breakfast, actually. I’ve been dreaming of their cinnamon French toast for six years . I tried to make it for the bakery I worked at, but I just couldn’t get it right.”
It was like a rain cloud rushing over the sun. His smile faded, and his eyes darkened with anger. That was all it took. One simple mention of my life away from him, and he was back to being grumpy.
God knows how he would react if he found out about Lily. His brain would probably explode.
The thought made me smile, but only for a second before he was dragging me down the street and into the small diner.
And the place was full.
Every single person he passed greeted him by name, nodding their heads politely, all the while staring at me with open curiosity.
More than one person looked away when they realized who I was.
He had said the place hadn’t changed. But it had. Maybe not indecor or menu, but in that the people who came here were people like him now.
They weren’t like us.
“I’ll have my usual, Milly,” he called to the old woman behind the counter. “And…”
