It turns into a frown of consideration.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, wanting the smile back on her face.
“Wait, isn’t stracciatella,” she says, doing her best to pronounce it correctly… and failing, “cheese? Is this cheese with chocolate?”
She points at the container with her spoon.
Oddly, stracciatella is the name of a few different foods. None of them related.
Of course, Erica wouldn’t know this, but that doesn’t mean I have to let her off that easily.
I stare at her for a beat, then huff out a quiet breath through my nose, like I’m dealing with someone particularly dumb.
“No,” I say and pause before continuing. “It’s not cheese.”
“No, it is, though!” Her eyes widen like she’s offended. “Stracia… whatever. It’s totally cheese!”
“Yeah, it’s also egg soup,” I say.
Her brows furrow.
“What?” She looks in the container, considers. "Hmm. I don’t know. This doesn't look like soup. Or eggs."
She looks at me, biting her lip.
"I think I know what I'm talking about here, Erica." I tap my spoon against the lid again. "This is egg soup."
I tap my spoon against the pistachio. "Thisone is the cheese."
She fights a smile and taps her spoon on the third one. "What's this one? Bread?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I say, keeping my voice even. "It's obviously gelato."
"Oh, good." She reaches for it and pries the lid off, revealing a pale yellow base with darker yellow swirls mixed in. She frowns at me. "Are you sure this isn't the egg soup?"
She’s teasing me.
She’s teasing me. And I will take every single second of it.
“Maybe,” I say, and I let her dip her spoon into the lemon gelato. “Why don’t you find out?”
I take my own spoon and dip it into the stracciatella, getting a little bit of chocolate with the vanilla cream.
Erica takes a bite of the lemon, and her eyes widen.
“Okay, so maybe it’s not egg soup,” she says, her lips pulling into another small smile. “But it’s good. Really good.”
I hold my spoon out for her to taste.
She opens her mouth and gently slides the bite off my spoon.
Her lips brush the metal, and the contact is barely anything, but I feel it on my skin.
I hear the soft crunch of chocolate as she samples it, then her eyes roll up toward the ceiling in reluctant surrender.
“Oh,” she says, soft and annoyed. “Okay. That one’s… really good.”
She stretches the last two words out, so she’s nearly moaning them.
