Instead of heading to the line, I walked up to a waiter who had just bussed a vacated table. “Emilio.”
He turned at the sound of my voice, and his tanned face immediately erupted in a smile. “Con, you’re back in town.” He returned the tray to the table he’d just cleaned and embraced me with a hand grab and a pat on the back. “How long you here for?”
“A week. Just visiting the fam. How’s your dad?”
“He’s good. On holiday in Egypt right now.”
“Holiday?” I asked. “I don’t remember him ever taking a vacation.”
“Well, he had a heart scare a couple months ago and had to put a stent in. Has a new appreciation for life.”
“I had no idea,” I said. “Glad he’s doing well.”
“If you’ve got time, hit me up.” He fist-bumped me. “We’ll hit the beach.”
I fist-bumped him back. “Sounds like a plan, man.”
He nodded to the table. “Take this one.” He winked and walked away.
I moved to the other side of the table and took a seat.
Aurelia joined me, hanging her bag over the top of the chair. We were covered by the awning, so we would be out of the sun and comfortable in the shade. She examined the table and touched the stone underneath her fingertips before she grabbed the menu. “Whoa, they have a lot of flavors.”
“They don’t offer those every day.” I turned in my chair and peered inside the restaurant, seeing the sign they posted with what they offeredfor the day. I pulled out my phone and snapped a photo before I set it next to her to see. “This is what they’ve got.”
“Oh.” She held my phone and read the selections. “The lemon and the yogurt sound good.”
I shook my head. “Those don’t go well together. I recommend the coffee and the almond. But if you’re looking for fruit flavors, strawberry and lemon pair well.” I’d eaten a lot of granita growing up, and the locals always mocked the tourists when they made poor selections. I was just saving her judgment from Emilio and the others.
“Since you’re the expert ...” She closed the menu and set it aside. “I’ll take your advice.”
I smiled before I lifted my sunglasses onto my head, exposing my face now that we were in the shade. “Good choice, sweetheart.”
She copied me, slipping her sunglasses into her bag. She had a small indentation where the spacers on the glasses had dug into her skin, but the rest of her face was perfection. She looked as she had in the bar, her beauty enhanced with subtle makeup rather than masked by it. She had full lashes, typical for an Italian woman, along with a sharp jawline and an elegant neck that I liked. Thick, long hair was around her shoulders underneath the hat, slightly wavy with gentle curls.
And her eyes ... they just did something to me.
Emilio came back to the table and stopped my mind from drifting to the other night. The little tablet was in hand so he could type in the order for the kitchen.
“Two almonds and coffee,” I said. “Cream on both with the brioche. And a bottle of water.”
“You got it, Con.” He left the table and helped the other customers.
She watched people pass on the street in front of us, sitting with her legs crossed, a golden necklace around her throat. “Did you go to school with Emilio?”
“Yeah. I’ve known him since I was a kid. Pretty much everyone I went to school with works in town.”
“So you’re the anomaly.”
I’d taken a very different direction in life. A lot of people saw Taormina as a beautiful, peaceful town, and for the most part, it was. But Sicily had a long history that most people didn’t know about. “I suppose.”
She turned to look at me. “I can tell you love it here.”
I’d walked these streets hundreds of times. Swam in the Ionian Sea, jumped from cliffs with the boys, explored caves that nearly got us killed. Had family dinners by candlelight next to the stone buildings. I had a lot of good memories here. “It’ll always be home.” Always hold a place in my heart of joy ... and despair. “Where’s home for you?”
“Rome.”
“Same.”
