Grinded (The Invincibles 3)

As much as I didn’t want to, even I had to concede that he shouldn’t be talking directly to my father. He should be speaking with Elio. He was the head winemaker and the man Georgio worked for.

“By the way, your father was on his way inside to talk to you. He wants you to go to Campania with him.”

“When?”

She looked me up and down. “Tonight.”

“Why do I have to go?”

Mamma sighed and took off her reading glasses, but chewed on the part that went over her ear. “Pia, your father needs you to go with him on winery business, and you will go. You’re always telling him you want to run the winery someday. Prove it to him. Go get dressed and pack a bag for overnight. Maybe several days.”

She put her glasses back on, stood, and walked out of the room. I looked outside and saw my father and Georgio were still arguing. It would be impossible for me to slip past them to tell Mylos I couldn’t swim with him, but I had to get word to him somehow. If I tried, Papà would ask me where I was going, and that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have.

I went upstairs, changed out of my bikini, and packed a bag like my mamma told me to. I jotted a note to Mylos and then went looking for Lucia.

“I heard you have to go to Campania,” she said when I found her in the kitchen.

I hung my head. “Sì.”

“I wish I could go to Campania.”

Between Lucia, Georgio, and me, she was the dreamer—filled with wanderlust. She talked about traveling places I’d never even heard of. I envied that about her. For me, I was most comfortable at home.

“Someday, you will be the one to go on sales trips.”

“Georgio will make the wine, and you will run the winery.”

“Sì,” I said again, smiling at the plan we’d made back when we were little children. I pressed an envelope into her hand. “Please take this to Mylos for me. I was supposed to meet him at the pool at sunset.”

Lucia wiggled her eyebrows. “I could go in your place.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” I scolded.

“I thought you were with Paolo?”

Technically, I still was, but as soon as I got back from Campania, I intended to break up with him.

When my father and I returned several days later and drove past the farmhouse, it looked closed up, like it did when no one was staying in it. I studied my father, who didn’t appear to notice.

When we got to the main house, my mamma ran out to greet us. After she hugged and kissed my father, she put her arm through mine.

“Did the family that was staying in the farmhouse leave?”

“Sì. C’è stata un’emergenza.”

“What kind of emergency?”

“Pia! That’s hardly our business.”

I took my bag to my roo

m, flopped on the bed, and covered my eyes with my arm. Could it really be that I’d never see Mylos again?

I heard the door creak open and feigned sleep, thinking it was my mother.

“He asked me to give this to you,” Lucia whispered as she tucked something under my waist. I waited for the door to close before I opened my eyes and grabbed the envelope.

Dear Pia,