“No, Mama. Nothing yet.” She had been learning English and understood a lot, so I spoke to her almost exclusively in it to help her practice.
“We could ask Mrs. Battalia if she needs her house redecorated,” she said in Italian, with a hopeful expression.
I loved that she wanted to help, but no one in our neighborhood could afford such a luxury.
“Mama, I don’t think she needs a remodel. Don’t worry. Something will come up. God will provide something,” I assured her, kissing her cheek before she left for work at the kindergarten near our home.
Several of the graduates in my interior design classes had already found jobs in different parts of Italy. I’d never say this to Mama, but the idea of going somewhere new was enticing to a girl who had hardly ever left Rome.
I pushed my laptop away, grabbed my phone, and scrolled through Instagram. Corinna’s friend Sofia had married an American man named Luke several months ago.
Looking at Sofia’s IG pictures of the wedding and her trips to San Diego made my heart long for adventure. There was so much I wanted to experience. As much as I loved reading romance novels, and Ireally lovedromance novels, getting married and having babies wasn’t in my plan just yet, but I daydreamed about finding a man who would look at me like Enzo and Luke looked at their wives.
My mind flashed on the handsome American man that I met at Enzo’s wedding.
Miles Austin, Luke’s brother, was the first man to make me feel jittery, like fireflies had taken flight inside my chest. Butterflies didn’t come near describing this feeling because I felt like I was lit from within. Men had captured my attention, of course, but this man was something else altogether.
There’s got to be something wrong with him. No one is that perfect.
Blowing out a forced breath, I scrolled to the photo that had taken up too much of my brain space over the last few months, something I told absolutely no one about, except Ren. My best friend had thought it was about time I started dating and was wholeheartedly in favor of my first real crush.
In the photo, Miles was dressed in perfectly fitted dark jeans and a graphic T-shirt, tearing up the dance floor with his young daughter, MJ.The picturemighthave found its way into my ‘favorites’ album late one night since he and I shared an intense moment of eye contact that still made my heart race when I thought about it.
I’d almost lost my breath, but he turned away to spin MJ, the moment broken. When he and Luke basically crashed my brother’s wedding, they weren’t exactly dressed for the occasion, and my eyes widened at the thought of this man in a suit.
His sandy blond hair was cut short on the sides but long and tousled on top, with just the right amount of scruff on his chiseled jaw. And those blue eyes? They made my heart skip a beat like a freight train.
Maybe I should cut back on my coffee consumption.
I wasn't sure of his age, but he was older than Luke, who Sofia said was thirty, making him about my brother’s age. I groaned just thinking about the possible eight-year difference.
Some of them met up a few times since the wedding, but Miles didn’t attend any of them.
It’s not stalker behavior to know these things, right?
Corinna teased me when I asked about him recently in front of Enzo, and that sparked a heated argument she never expected. Mouthing ‘I’m sorry’ a few times during my big brother’s outrage over his little sister and an older man was enough to make me glare at her with the intensity of a thousand suns.
Corinna finally calmed him down by distracting him with a neck massage, something I really didn’t need to see, especially when his eyes closed and he groaned, his tirade suddenly disappearing.
Ew. So not necessary
I took that opportunity to hightail it out of the room. But true to form, later that night, I got a text from my brother.
Enzo:Sorry I lost it, sis. Miles is a great guy. Just not for my baby sister. He’s too old and is a single dad. Besides, no one is good enough for you. Follow your dreams. That’s all that’s important right now.
I rolled my eyes and scoffed. It was hilarious how he texted in complete sentences, even using a period. He joked that he never understood my shorthand.
His text that night made me realize something. I’d probably never overcome his description of me. I knew he loved me, but that’s how he saw me. Losing Papa so early, Enzo stepped into that father role, and there were times when I wanted to tell him I needed my fun brother back. It would have hurt him, so I kept it to myself.
Me:Ur ridiculous, ya know that right?? Was a simple ? As if…
Enzo:Good. You’re too young for all that. You’ve got a whole world to conquer first
That night, the rebel in me saved the photo of Miles. My words to my brother were true.As ifa man like that would be interested in me. A grown man with his own company and a daughter to raise on his own didn’t have time for a much younger woman right out of college with no prospects.
My eyes wandered down to my body, and I sighed.
Yeah, as if…
