“Why do–”
“Because the owner’s great-grandfather was about to give up on this place before he found this special potato that was his lucky potato. He put it on the shelf over the bar, and business started booming, so hence. The Lucky Tater.”
Macy winced, because she sounded like she was giving a tour, but Luca only nodded solemnly, glancing down when his nephew nudged him. Something unspoken passed between the two of them, and Luca looked up at her again.
“Can we see it?” he asked, and Macy laughed.
“You can. Come on.”
Inside, the titular spud had been ensconced in a glass case by the cash register, and Macy bit back a smile as Luca lifted his nephew up to see, not putting him down until he nodded and gestured toward the floor.
“That scientific curiosity will serve you very well, young man,” Macy said. “What’s your name?”
The child, his eyes as green as his uncle’s, only gazed up at her, and his uncle spoke up.
“He’s AJ. He’s not much for talking yet.”
“What’s AJ stand for?” she started to ask, but then a smiling waitress came to seat them at one of the vinyl booths off to the side.
“Get whatever you want, my treat,” she said as they got settled. “Just about everything here’s good, but I’d recommend saving some room for the blackberry cobbler.”
To her surprise, a startlingly firm look came across Luca’s face.
“No, I invited you,” he said. “Please let me pay. It’s. It’s a business expense.”
It was so clearly an excuse that she couldn’t help but smile and shrug.
“All right. Then I’m going to get the five most expensive things on the menu.”
To her surprise, it made him smile, and oh Christ, but when this man smiled, it was like something coming apart in her chest. It was sunlight and honey and a flash of sharp white teeth, and she had to mentally take herself by the scruff and drag her mind back to the menu in front of her.
You are a professional,she reminded herself, but there was a more than plaintive note to it that suggested she might be fighting a losing battle.
“So about the problem we have at City Hall,” she began, and then she noticed AJ watching her with the most serious lookon his round face. She suddenly remembered her babysitting days, how much kids understood even if they couldn’t talk, and she bit her lip.
“Er, is it going to spook AJ if we talk about the S-N-A-K-E?”
Luca tousled AJ’s hair affectionately, making him grin.
“Nah, he’s tough. Way too tough to get spooked by a snake, right, buddy?”
He bared his teeth at AJ, quick and fierce, only for AJ to bare his teeth in response, his uncle in miniature. Macy couldn’t help laughing before she realized that AJ’s feelings might be hurt, and she stopped. Instead, however, AJ turned to her, showing her his teeth and making a sound that was remarkably like that of a spitting house cat.
Without thinking, she bared her teeth in response, and AJ broke into giggles even as Luca stared at her. She touched her hair nervously, and felt ridiculously fortunate that that was when the waitress came to take their order. After she left, Luca tilted his head slightly.
“I don’t think the pasta bake and the lemonade are the most expensive things on the menu.”
“Oh, well–”
“I would get them for you, whatever they were.”
From someone else, it might have been weird, and maybe it was a little, but somehow, it made something in Macy want to break at how sincere he was, how honest. He meant it, every word, she knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt. For a moment, she wished that the waitress hadn’t taken the menus—at least then she would have had something to hide behind.
“You’re very—”
She couldn’t come up with a word that didn’t make her sound like a raving lunatic who hadn’t been on a real date in six months. “So anyway, as long as AJ doesn’t mind, we should talk about what you need.”
Luca blinked twice, and she watched in surprise as a hint of color crossed his cheeks. He looked startled, but not embarrassed, not at all. Instead, she glimpsed something in his gaze that made her own mouth go dry, and maybe he wouldn’t think she was such a lunatic after all if she reached over and—
