“Mommy,” Theo protested. “He is there almost every night. Did you forget that?”
The entire table broke into laughter, and I had to join them. I was totally busted. Even Mama laughed, holding her napkin to her face and guffawing. Then she bent and kissed Theo.
“You funny boy. You go play with cousins until dessert.”
He skipped away happy, not aware of the bomb he had just dropped. Mama watched him and looked at me. “Good boy,” she reiterated. “Good family.” She stood. “I like.”
I draped my arm over Gabby’s chair. “That’s the biggest compliment she can pay. She likes you.”
“She thinks I’m some sort of loose woman with you sleeping over all the time,” she hissed into my ear.
“No,” I replied, kissing the tender lobe, smiling at her shiver. “She thinks I’m head over heels.” I kissed her again.
“And she’s right.”
After lunch, I played with the kids, and we kicked around the soccer ball, lifting our hands high when goals were scored and enjoying ourselves. My brothers and I had always loved soccer, and I liked carrying on the tradition with my nieces and nephews. Gabby stayed inside, insisting on helping to clean up. I hoped my sisters and Mama weren’t giving her too hard a time.
I snuck in to check on her, surprised to find my sisters in the living room and Gabby and Mama alone at the kitchen table talking. Whatever Gabby was saying had my mom transfixed. She listened intently, then cupped Gabby’s cheek and said something before standing and hugging her. Mama caught my eye and headed past me, stopping.
“She good for you. She need you. You bring her back next week. And I look after Theo one night and you take her to nice supper, yeah?”
“Sure, Mama. That’d be good.”
She nodded. “Yes. Good.” She leaned close. “I like. You keep.”
I grinned. “I plan on it.”
Theo fell asleep before we hit the highway later that afternoon. We’d had a nice time sitting outside, drinking coffee, and eating Italian cookies and cannoli. Theo had loved them, devouring three in succession, then running around to wear off the sugar and chocolate. Mama made the best cannoli in the city. Gabby ate two herself plus sampled the cookies and exclaimed over everything. Mama had beamed, her affection growing.
In the back seat was enough food to feed Gabby and Theo for a week—easily. Pasta, chicken, veal, bread, sweets. An extra lasagna Mama had “on hand.” Some cold cuts she’d bought “by mistake.”
“Make my Theo sandwiches,” she insisted. “It go bad here, me all alone.”
I tried not to scoff at her. She was rarely alone since some sibling or a spouse checked on her all the time. Someone was constantly at her place for meals, and the kids usually went to Nonna’s daily. But I loved the fact that she wanted to spoil Gabby, so I stayed quiet.
“Your family is amazing,” Gabby said, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“They loved you. All of them. Mama, especially.”
She smiled.
“Would you be comfortable with us going out one night and Mama looking after Theo?”
“I only get one night off.”
“We can make it work. Or wait until another time. But I would like to take you out on a proper date. Dinner at a nice place. There’s a steak place I really like we could go to.”
“I’d like that.”
“Okay. We’ll figure it out.”
She reached for my hand, squeezing it. “You’re pretty amazing yourself.”
“So are you.” I lifted her hand to my mouth and kissed it. “I had a great day, Tesoro.”
“Me too.”
I glanced in the rearview mirror with a grin. “Even with Theo spilling our secrets?”
She bit her lip. “I’ll talk to him about privacy.”
I laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out? With my family, there is none. My mother can sniff out a secret and have you telling her before you have even finished a coffee. She’ll have him ratting us out every time.”
“Hmm.”
I winked. “Give it up, Gabby. We’re in it now. My mama knows you stole my virtue. You’ll have to make an honest man of me.”
She laughed. “Your virtue was gone long before I got my hands on you, Stefano.”
I held her hand to my chest. “But yours are the only ones I want touching me now.”
She rolled her eyes and looked away, but she was smiling.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gabby
On Monday night, there was another issue with the kitchen. Frustrated, Ziggy decided to shut down the bar completely until they could trace the problem with the gas line. When I called and told Stefano, he came right over. Together, we played with Theo, and I put him to bed, enjoying a few moments of unexpected time with him. Stefano sat on the floor of Theo’s room, smiling as Theo drifted off to sleep as I read out loud from the book about the mechanic shop for kids that Stefano had bought him. Where he had found a book like that, I had no idea.