They finished eating, lingering over wine and meatloaf that Mary insisted they all share. The sun was starting to set, painting the restaurant windows gold.
Two days until setting off for New Orleans and seeing Celeste's face when she realized who'd be sitting in the passenger seat.
Ruby probably should've felt guilty about the ambush. But mostly she felt curious. Because the Celeste she'd seen today, tired and defensive, wasn't the same girl who'd competed against Ruby for top grades in high school.
That Celeste had been controlled, yes. Serious, absolutely. But not hollow.
Whatever had happened in the years afterwards had carved something out of her. And Ruby, despite knowing it was none of her business, desperately wanted to know what.
Chapter Three
Celeste
“Nonno, why do you flip the meat so much?” Theo peered up at Daniel, his small face scrunched in concentration. “Won't it get dizzy?”
Daniel laughed, spatula poised over the grill. “Meat doesn't get dizzy, buddy. But too much flipping makes it tough. You want to let each side cook properly before you turn it.”
“Oh.” Theo absorbed this with the seriousness of someone receiving classified information. “Did you know my dad's in love with a man named Jackson? Jackson's really nice. He showed me how to throw a spiral.”
Celeste winced. Her son had developed this habit over the past week, announcing Braden's relationship to anyone who'd listen. The mailman. The librarian. A few days ago, the cashier at the grocery store who'd only asked if they needed bags.
It was innocent. Theo was seven and didn't understand the weight those words carried, the way they made her father's shoulders stiffen or her mother's smile become fixed and brittle.
Her father's jaw tightened at the mention of Braden, but he kept his voice even. “That's great that Jackson's teaching you football, Theo. Now watch closely, see how the edges are browning?”
Celeste's hands clenched in her lap. She wanted to say something, to defend Braden, to explain that he hadn't betrayedher. They'd betrayed themselves, really, with years of lying. But the words stuck in her throat, heavy and useless.
Her family didn't and couldn’t understand. To them, Braden had blindsided their daughter with a divorce, shattered their family and upended everything. They didn't know about the nights Celeste and Braden had stayed up planning their future or that the love they had had always been platonic.
She’d let them think Braden deceived her because the truth was worse: that she had been complicit in the deception and wanted the safety of that lie just as much as he had.
Across the garden, Luna sat curled against Ottavia's side, nose buried in a book. “And then the dragon realized she didn't need a prince at all because she could fly herself anywhere she wanted.”
“Very wise dragon,” Ottavia murmured, her fingers gentle in Luna's dark curls.
Celeste's mother had transformed the backyard into something from a magazine spread. Roses climbed the fence in cascading pinks and reds. Lavender lined the stone path. Hanging baskets of petunias swayed in the evening breeze, their sweet scent mixing with charcoal smoke from the grill.
Friday evenings like this, with the whole family gathered and her grandmother's cooking weighing down their stomachs in the best way—these were the moments Celeste lived for. Even with her sister Lauretta in New York anchoring the evening news and her brother Enzo in California designing buildings that probably cost more money than Celeste could ever hope to earn in her life, they'd managed to maintain this tradition. Weeklydinners when everyone was in town, FaceTime calls when they weren't.
This was what mattered. What she'd sacrifice anything to keep.
The table behind her bore the evidence of culinary assault: empty serving dishes that had held eggplant parmesan, homemade ravioli, antipasto, and enough garlic bread to feed a small village. Her stomach protested just looking at them.
Her grandmother had been cooking since dawn, preparing enough food to feed an army. It was how Vittoria showed love, through food and hours spent in the kitchen, with the aid of recipes passed down from her own mother in a small village outside Naples.
“I can't eat another bite of food,” she announced as her father loaded the grill with more chicken. “You're all trying to kill me with kindness.”
“You're too skinny,” Vittoria said from behind her, fingers working through Celeste's hair with practiced ease. “Always working, never eating.”
“I just ate my weight in pasta.”
“Pfft. That was an hour ago.” She divided Celeste's hair into sections, beginning the familiar pattern of a braid. “Your sister Lauretta, she knows how to eat. Last time she visited, three helpings of everything.”
“Lauretta has the metabolism of a hummingbird.” Celeste tilted her head back, letting her grandmother's hands work their magic. This, sitting still while Vittoria braided her hair, had been their ritual since Celeste was five years old.
Back then, she'd sit on a stool in the kitchen while Vittoria told stories about the old country, crossing the ocean with nothing but a suitcase and a dream. About the sacrifices she'd made so her children could have better lives.
Missing from those stories were tales about her cousin, who had been cut off from the family for loving the wrong person. A constant reminder of what honesty would cost.
