“Nonna, please,” I groan in Sicilian. If my uncle doesn’t marry me off, my grandmother will.
Bianca covers her face and releases a ragged breath. “I’m going to hell with my ass out.”
“I would throw plates too if my breasts sat that high.”
“Pi faùri, Nonna,“ I plead. My grandmother and her breasts don’t belong in the same sentence.
“Do y’all conjure spirits over here? Your grandma looks like someone who uses chicken bones.”
She swats my hand away. “Trouble.” This woman and her imagination.
Nonna goes for the kill. “I’m not getting younger, peri peri. I want to see you in love and settled before I go.”
“My head still hurts, thank you for asking.” I massage my temples and wince. I’m the one who got hit in the head with a plate from a fucking balcony.
“She has amazing cheekbones, by the way. It’s giving Eartha Kitt,” Bianca notes.
“My grandbabies will be so cute.”
“You just saw Alessandro,” I remind Nonna in Sicilian, about her trip to Paris to see her great-grandson. “Preston would love to have you back.”
Nonna sucks her teeth. “Ti facisti picciuli.”
“Is she okay?” Bianca whispers.
Women will be the death of me.
Nonna’s smile widens over her shoulder. “I like her.”I’m sure you do. The back-and-forth between them in different languages aggravates my migraine. “Who is she to you?”
Currently, a pain in my ass.
Bianca was a means to an end. She’s supposed to be my captive, someone I fuck who doesn’t give me headaches or throw plates at my head. Having her in my private home, at my kitchen table with the most important woman in my life, was never part of the plan.
There’s a draw to her that isn’t going away.
“Let me know when you figure it out.” The warmth in Nonna’s tone is unmistakable. So is the earthy aroma of fresh flour that pulls me back to my childhood. I miss it.
Gray curls spill from Nonna’s scarf as she looks toward Bianca.
“Ciao,” Bianca says to Nonna, the word laced with caution.
“Ciau,” Nonna corrects.
Sicilian is a distinct language with regional variations. Our vowel shifts and vocabulary don’t always translate directly to Italian. Bianca does her best to siphon the few similar words and phrases. She’s lost otherwise.
“I didn’t mean to show my vagina and throw a plate at your head,” Bianca blurts in Italian. “Nude sunbathing is a practice I picked up in Naples before I was kid—“
I cough and shake my head.
Nonna is five-two but will cut me down with the dish towel hanging from her apron if she finds out I kidnapped Bianca. She never asks about the Scilari but goes to church twice a week to pray for my safety and my sins.
Bianca’s butterfly robe tips open for a full view of her cleavage in a silk top when she leans forward. My dick taps my shorts.
“What did you say?” I ask, eyeing moisturized curves I’d licked all night.
“Why do you call your grandmother Nonna if she speaks Sicilian?”
I check my watch. “Ask her why she prefers it over Nanna.”
