‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘And so you should.’ He raises his glass
to me. ‘Cheers to a successful day.’
I clink my glass against his. ‘Cheers.’
We drink but the bubbles stick in my throat. Nerves, want, love...all the emotions claw their way through me, making it impossible to relax. I lower my lashes and cover my mouth on a small cough.
‘Are you okay?’
I force another smile. ‘Of course. Have you had a good day?’
‘Si.’ He frowns at me and hesitates. ‘It’s actually gone better than I dared hope.’
‘Really?’ I laugh now, wanting the mood to lighten, wanting him to quit worrying. ‘You say that so seriously. I know people panic that things will go wrong at weddings but to be so emphatic! Are we really all that bad?’
He laughs and I treasure the sound.
‘Not you, exactly, but...’ He turns and looks down on the dance floor, his eyes settling on his mother and Giovanni.
‘They look happy,’ I say after a moment.
He flicks me a look. ‘Si, they do. Turns out it was my aunt’s plan all along to bring Giovanni and remind my mother of what she could have if she would only move on from the past and come home.’
I study his face, watching him as he watches her. ‘Sounds...deep.’
He gives another laugh, softer this time, reflective. ‘Apparently, Giovanni has always been in love with my mother, only Papà got in there first.’
‘Really?’ I say, my smile genuine now, my surprise too.
‘Really. And now it seems they may have a future.’
I look at them on the dance floor, their hands entwined with Leo’s and Isabella’s as they dance in a circle. Everyone is smiling. Everyone is happy.
‘How perfect.’
He makes a non-committal sound and I frown at him. ‘You’re not happy for them?’
He looks at me, but not for long; his eyes are too quick to go back to the dancing figures.
‘I’d like to be happy for them.’ He gestures out to the dance floor with his glass. ‘I’d like to be happy for them all.’
‘But?’
‘Life has so many other ideas, doesn’t it?’
I study his pensive expression and stay quiet, sensing that the question is rhetorical and there’s more to come.
‘Take my mother and father. They were once happy. They argued, but they loved each other underneath it all. And I didn’t make life easy for them.’
‘In what way?’
His smile is small and one-sided as he looks at me. ‘I was something of a hellion.’
I laugh, happy that he’s opening up to me, and amused to imagine him as such. ‘You were that bad?’
‘Dio, si.’ He sips at his drink. ‘I wanted to conquer everything all at once and as soon as possible: swimming, cycling, driving, schooling. If my parents could do it, so could I. Regardless of the law, of what was wise or sensible.’