Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

It meant he wanted to keep our memories.

It meant he didn’t want to leave me behind.

“Coming?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at me as the group began to forge back through the woods toward the house.

I nodded, jogging a bit to catch up, and forcing the urge to overanalyze such a small gesture out of my head.

By the time we made it back to the house, my stomach was starting to grumble. Elio led us to his garden and handed out baskets to each of us, and under the hot Tuscan sun, we picked tomatoes and peppers and summer squash right from the vine at Elio’s instruction. We even tapped pinecones on the ground to shake out pine nuts, which tasted so good I had a hard time not eating all of them before they could be used for lunch.

“Okay, gather around,” Antonella said when we were all in the grand kitchen of the house. It was huge, able to fit all of us in it and then some, and the large center island was filled with fresh meat, cheeses, and all the vegetables and fruit we’d just picked from the garden.

It already smelled like heaven, and Liam chuckled when my stomach growled loud enough for the whole group to hear.

“Today, we will be preparing several classic Tuscan dishes, from fresh bruschetta to my nonna’s tiramisu. You each will have a job, so to start, who would like to chop?”

She held up a large knife with a teasing smile, and Stephen was the first to raise his hand, which made his new bride laugh.

“Oh Lord, I hope there’s a hospital nearby,” she teased.

Antonella continued handing out jobs, everything from slicing fresh prosciutto and rubbing garlic on hot bread, to stirring a deliciously flagrant tomato-based sauce on the stove and preparing salads and truffle soup.

Liam and I were assigned to a smaller table in the room just beyond the grand kitchen to make the desserts.

“Harley, I will have you working on our blueberry ricotta crostata,” she said to me first. “I’ve prepared the filling and the pastry has been chilling, so we’ll just need to roll it out and assemble everything,” she explained, tapping her finger to a handwritten recipe on the table. “Here is the flour to roll, and remember to start the filling with a layer of the blueberry jam.”

I nodded, reading over the recipe — which had been translated to English — while she moved on to Liam.

“Liam, you have the most important job of all,” she said with a smile. “The tiramisu.”

“I’ve never had it.”

She balked, pressing her hands to her chest before she giggled with glee and grabbed his forearm, giving it a squeeze. “Oh, you will love it. Come, let me show you.”

I watched Liam with an amused smile as Antonella went through the ingredients and steps for making the tiramisu, all while I whipped up ricotta, sugar, egg, and lemon to layer with the blueberry jam. The savory smells trickled in from next room over, and combined with the sweet blueberry jam and sugary cheese, it was all I could do not to drool all over the table.

“So,” Antonella said, combining rum and espresso in a small bowl while Liam whipped up some kind of sweet cream. “How long have you two been together?”

I nearly dropped the entire bowl of ricotta, making a terrible racket of bowl against counter as I scrambled to regain my grip. I murmured an apology before setting the bowl aside and spreading the mixture out over the blueberry layer.

“Not long,” Liam answered for me, his smile easy. “We just met this summer.”

“This summer?!” She made a tsk noise. “Ah, the fire has just been lit.” Her grin was salacious when she met my gaze again. “You met here?”

“In Florence,” I said. “We’re both studying art there.”

“What kind of art?”

“Paint, mostly. Oil, acrylic, watercolor, pastel… but we do some sketching, too, and a little sculpting.”

“I mostly fiddle around, but Harley here is the best artist in our class,” Liam said, dusting the bottom of his baking dish with cocoa powder. “In the world, if you ask me.”

I rolled my eyes. “He’s being modest. Our professor would have already offered millions of lire for Liam’s work, if it wasn’t frowned upon and unfair to the rest of us in class.”

“You’re the one who will be famous one day,” he said. “I’ll just be hanging out on a street corner somewhere painting for pennies.”

“You’re so stupid,” I said on a laugh, tossing a rogue blueberry at him.

Antonella looked between us with a knowing smile before turning her attention back to the task at hand. “It sounds like you are both very talented.” She paused. “And a summer together in Italy, what an inspiring adventure, no?”

That reminder sobered me up, and Liam and I locked eyes for a moment before he cleared his throat and began dipping ladyfinger cookies into the rum and espresso mixture before laying them in the dish. “So, is this dessert going to get us drunk?” he asked in lieu of answering her assessment.