She swung her legs over mine. “I’m done,” she said. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
I slid my hand over her calf. “Thank you for asking questions and not just assuming Natalie’s theory was correct.”
We’d had our first fight and come out the other side. It felt like we’d reached a crossroads and chosen the turning together. I just wasn’t sure where that turning would take us. Whatever was between us was more than fucking, but we weren’t dating—were we? Part of me wanted it all when it came to Sofia, but it wasn’t a part I was accustomed to heeding.
“Tomorrow morning, I’m taking you on a tour of my city,” she said. “I’m going to show you all the places tourists never get to see.”
I shifted and crawled over her on the sofa, laying her on her back as I slid her dress up her thighs. “If we have time. I plan to keep us very, very busy.”
Twenty-Nine
Sofia
He glanced up at the giant ice-cream cones affixed to the side of the Ferrara’s storefront. “This is our first stop on the tour?”
“Pre-tour cannoli. Can’t hit the sights without proper sustenance.”
“Cannoli? Is that pasta?”
I shook my head and laughed. “Absolutely not. You’ve never had cannoli?” I slipped my hand into his and pulled him into the shop.
The sight of the familiar red-and-white-checkered floor sent a shiver of familiar comfort up my spine as we approached the counter.
“Wow. This is quite the bakery,” Andrew said.
Oh, it was so much more than that.
Behind the glass counters were rows and rows of the finest Italian pastries and desserts outside of Italy. Rows of different shapes and sizes of crunchy sfogliatella, over-stuffed cannoli, cassata, frittelle, bite-sized amaretti, crostata, and the only pasticciotto in the city that I’d ever found. “This place is a slice of heaven,” I said. “But cannoli has to be the first thing you try if you’ve never had it.”
I approached the counter. “Due cannoli per favore.”
“La piccola Sofia, is that you?” Mamma Isabella bellowed out from nowhere. I hadn’t seen her when we arrived. I was so used to seeing new people behind the counter, I hadn’t even looked very hard. Her red hair popped up around the counter and she threw up her hands. “I didn’t know you were coming. Dove sei stato.”
“I moved to London, Mamma Isabella. Didn’t Mom tell you?”
She didn’t respond but called to the back, “Lorenzo, get out here!”
I rolled my eyes. Mamma Isabella and my mom had been trying to get Lorenzo and I to date since we were both born. Lorenzo had a boyfriend and had been out since he was about fourteen. It didn’t stop Isabella though.
“Isabella, this is my friend Andrew,” I said, turning to Andrew.
She looked him up and down and smiled tightly, then turned back to the kitchen. “Lorenzo, did you hear me? Sofia is here.”
I grinned as a huge hulk of a man wearing a white chef’s uniform appeared from around the counter. “Sofia!” I turned back to Andrew and smiled at him as Lorenzo came charging toward me.
I squealed as Lorenzo picked me up and swung me around. “It’s been a while,” he said, setting me back down on my feet. “I hear you’ve been in London.”
“Yeah, I’m just back for a few days. This is my friend, Andrew.” I hadn’t expected all this fuss when we came in or I wouldn’t have come. Most times I came to Ferrara’s now, there were a bunch of strangers behind the counter and I could slip in unnoticed.
Lorenzo did an up-and-down sweep of Andrew just like his mother had, but his gaze wasn’t disapproving. He turned back to me with a grin. “Nice,” he said, before leaning toward Andrew and shaking his hand. “I’ve known this one since she was in diapers. I have all the dirt if you need any.”
I laughed. “You were in diapers too. Like you have anything on me.”
After some catching up, a pile of pastries stuffed into boxes, and lots of kissing, we were on our way.
“Sorry about that,” I said as we got out to the street. “I didn’t expect Mamma Isabella to be there. She can be a lot for an uptight British guy.”
He chuckled. “Nothing I can’t handle. But I have to warn you, I think she hopes her gay son is going to marry you.”
“I know,” I said, smiling and shaking my head. “Lorenzo’s boyfriend of five years spends the holidays with them. He’s out, but they still think he might marry a nice Italian girl. I’ve stopped trying to convince her it’s never going to happen.”
“So you grew up around here?” he asked.
“Sort of. My grandma lived around the corner and my mom cleaned at Ferrara’s before she went through beauty school. I’d always go with her—even as a baby—so I’ve known them all since I was born.”