Marissa tries to get up, but I pull her back down. “Sit with me, angel.”
“Why don’t you play something on the piano while we clean up?” my mom suggests.
“Yes,” Marissa agrees. “Why don’t you?”
It’s an old routine, but it feels new with Marissa here. I take her hand and pull her with me to the piano. It’s my first piano—the one my mom badgered my dad into getting me. My oldest friend.
I sit down and consider Marissa. Then I smile when I think of what to play. I start playing and singing one of the first love songs I learned to play—She’s Always a Woman, by Billy Joel. I sing it right to Marissa, who blushes and nibbles her plump lower lip. By the time I finish, the rest of the family has gathered.
“Who sings that?” Marissa asks. Of course it was way before her time.
“Billy Joel,” I say, playing the start of Piano Man in homage.
“The piano man, himself,” Paolo says with a derisive edge to his voice. “There was a time when little Gio dreamed of playing in piano bars just like old Billy, didn’t you?” He laughs and slaps me on the back.
“And why shouldn’t he, if that was his dream?” Marissa challenges. She levels her gaze at Paolo like she’s daring him to make fun of me.
My lips twitch.
The rest of the family blink in surprise.
“Yeah, I’m, uh…” Why is it so fucking hard to tell them? I still feel like it’s this shameful, embarrassing thing.
Junior hones in on it. “Are you playing publicly, Gio?” He sounds surprised, but not judgmental.
“Yeah. Well, I’m thinking about it. See, I bought this restaurant.”
“What?” My ma says loudly. “You bought a restaurant? Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“What restaurant?” Paolo demands.
“It’s called Michelangelo's. Marissa’s a chef there and, uh, yeah. We moved a piano in today.”
“No shit.” Junior sounds stunned.
“Language, Junior,” my mother chides. “I think it’s wonderful, Gio. When do you play? I’ll come every night.”
I laugh. “Please don’t, Ma. And I haven’t started yet. Still in the planning phase.”
“Good for you,” Junior says, and I have no indication he doesn’t mean it.
Paolo’s still looking at me like I have two heads, and he’s clearly keeping his mouth shut because he can’t say anything nice. Well, fuck him.
I lift my hands and drop them on the keys again, playing my best rendition of The Beatles’ Birthday, singing and hamming it up to make Jasper laugh.
When I get up from the bench, I knit my fingers through Marissa’s and lean down to murmur “thank you” in her ear. When she turns her face up to mine, I steal a quick kiss from her. “You really are an angel.”
“Gio,” she murmurs, her intelligent eyes trained on mine. She’s searching for something, but I can’t tell what.
“I’d do anything for you, doll,” I tell her in a low voice as we head back to the dining room for cake.
Her intake of breath gives me shivers. Her expression is a mixture of fear and hope. Again, I’m not sure how to decipher it.
I think she’s deciding whether to give me her heart.
Chapter 10
Gio
All good things must come to an end, and my twenty-four hours with Marissa landed with a thud when she made me drop her around the corner from her grandparents’ place instead of walking her to the door.
She may fit in perfectly with my family, but I’m definitely not the guy she can bring home to Grandma.
Fuck.
Well, that’s a problem I’ll have to figure out. And I’m sure I can. Nico might have some ideas. I’m sure as hell not going to ask Junior. He’s a big part of the problem.
I didn’t give in to the temptation to get up into Marissa’s business today. I’m content tonight to sit at the restaurant and watch things run, knowing she’s just behind that kitchen door. Remembering that I just had her yesterday, bent over the table by the wall.
Michael wanted to shit all over the piano when he saw it. “Fine dining is in silence,” he told me more than once. I let him grouse for a few minutes, and then I told him to shut the fuck up.
He did. The guy’s scared of me, which suits me fine.
It’s remembering Marissa’s enthusiasm when I played last night—defending me to my brother, Paolo, that finally moves me to get up from my seat in the corner of Michelangelo's and walk to the baby grand. It’s 10:00 p.m. The dinner crowd is winding down. This place needs a little music. It’s way too fucking quiet.
I sit down and start to play a sweet version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. There’s a moment of surprise when I begin and then the room settles into the notes. The customers accept the music and let it move through them, enhance their experience of the food, wine and company. I don’t know how the fuck I know that, but that’s my sense, anyway. That’s how I experience music.