Her body slides back slightly until she’s able to pull some sort of
contortionist move where her body is still impossibly close to mine, while her lips come insanely close to grazing my ear. “Uncle Gio,” she whispers, “I prepared a little something for you, to welcome you home.”
“I’m Italian,” I growl. “This isn’t my home and I’m not your uncle.”
“But you lived here when my dad was…younger than me. And you even used to sleep in my room.” She pauses. “Maybe you’d like to sleep up there one more time, for old times sake…and new experiences too.”
“In Italy, you serve coffee with a glass of water. You took the time to learn how to cook lasagne that well, but you didn’t learn the basics of Italian coffee presentation,” I ramble. It’s true, but it’s completely inconsequential at this point. I just need to be stern with her and get her away from me before I explode. “Understand?”
“I understand a lot more than you realize?” she fires back, yet sulks toward the fridge, her lower lip jutted out as she drops ice cubes into a glass.
“And Europeans don’t use ice cubes like you Americans do.”
“I know that it’s just that with all that sweat coming off your temple. I thought you might want some help cooling off. Or do you prefer to keep the temperature turned up?” she asks over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
It’s clear from her banter that this tesoro mio reads, which is also evident by her Kindle sitting on the table next to her sketchbook. I bring my hand to my face, wiping my brow. Of course, the little girl who’s got me sprung is quick-witted with a fiery tongue. Her dad says she’s as independent as they come, a loner because no one her age can keep up. I already know that every interaction with her is going to be fireworks, I just hope the pyrotechnics these little conversations I’m trying to avoid don’t blow up in my face.
And speaking of faces, I need to quit staring at those youthful, feminine features of hers as she refuses to take her eyes off me. Normally the primal superiority contest that manifests itself in the form of stare-downs is my thing. But why am I trying my hardest to avoid sustained eye contact with a girl who’s not even old enough to drink, while everything in my mind and body tells me to drink in the sight of her…because there’s no one else like her in this world?
But her life is just beginning, and the world is there for the taking for a girl who’s sharp as a tack like she is. The last thing I want to do is step on her toes and keep her here where she grew up, clipping her wings before she even gets airborne.
“Come on, let me show you, Gio,” she purrs as she sets the water down next to my coffee, trying to play the same game with my thigh again but I scoot my chair just in time and she comes up empty. “Don’t you want to support a young girl’s education? Show her if she understands Italian culture correctly or not? I thought you Italians were fiercely proud.”
Is she really going to tempt me with all seven of the deadly sins in a period of a few hours?
“Ok, bambi. Whatchu got?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest partly in a display of defiance and partly to remind me to keep my hands to myself.
Never taking her eyes off mine, she reaches for her sketchbook and slides it in front of my face yet keeping it closed.
“I know you’re gonna like it,” she offers, but I say nothing. “I just need you to tell me if I’ve drawn everything right. Everything…to size?”
I don’t move a muscle, although my jaw is tightening by the second. I know this troublemaker is setting me up for something but I’m too committed now and I have to see what she’s got that’s so important.
“No promises,” I suggest, giving myself room to jump out of my seat and go if this gets out of hand, although I have no idea how I’m even going to be able to stand considering there’s no way I can do so right now without snapping the steel pipe in-between my legs in half.
“You’re right,” she counters. “No promises because you don’t want to hurt my feelings. But…I need to learn about a lot of things, and someone with your worldly experience can teach me. So…” she trails off, moving back toward the sink and opening up a sliding drawer. “If I’m wrong then I guess I’ll have to be punished.”
I shake my head in disbelief as she’s back at the table in a second, a lightweight wooden spoon in her hand…one that I could crack over her ass with one swat.
“I hear in Italy people aren’t afraid to discipline children, unlike here,” she adds, slowly and playfully bringing the back of the bowl of the spoon into her opposite palm.
“You’re not a child, Gabriella. You’re an adult.” I’m not taking the bait.
“Then why did you call me bambi…papà?”
But now she’s got me, hook, line, and sinker. Something inside me flips, like a light switch lighting up an entire football stadium, and my arms uncross and I grab her by the wrist.
“What did you call me?”
She licks her lips and smiles like the Cheshire Cat.
“Oh,” she says, her other hand covering her lips in fake surprise. “You liked that…Daddy.”
People say a man has two lives, and the second one begins when he knows he has only one left. The moment that word, papà, slid from her lips it was like everything that had ever existed in my life before was meaningless. It was like I had a new purpose in life…to make her mine. To protect her. To keep her safe. To be hers in all ways. To put her first, always. To leave my past behind, and start a future with her. But no way in hell can I admit that to her.
“I’m not your daddy, and I’ll remind you your father is asleep in the other room, not ten meters from here.”
“Ten meters…that's almost like eleven yards, right? Is ten…big?”