Wish You Were Italian (11 page)

My face combusts, suddenly very aware of all the customers, especially the table of American hoochies not even five feet away. I steal a glance at them. The brunette’s mouth hangs open and the blond one looks me up and down, her expression simultaneously appalled and impressed. I’m mortified.

And slightly thrilled.

I run through the restaurant and into the kitchen without looking back. I blast the cold water into the sink, let it fill my cupped hands, and dip my face down into it again and again until I’m no longer on fire. When my eyes clear, I notice a hand towel dangling in front of me. Luca.

I take it and quickly pat my face dry. “I—” … have no idea what to say. “Your brother …”

Luca makes an understanding noise. “Bruno is”—he struggles for the word—“loud.”

I would have said something else, but his definition is accurate too. Luca wasn’t even outside but he obviously knows his brother well. Bruno barging in on me while I was changing should have told me everything I needed to know about him.

Luca goes back to chopping vegetables, and I busy myself at the sink, heart rate still accelerated.

Anxious to avoid similar impromptu performances, I spend the rest of the day in the kitchen. There’s a reason I’m comfortable acting in plays; we rehearse them. Improv isn’t something that comes easy to me, onstage or in real life.

I’m surprised and relieved Chiara doesn’t mention it when
she waltzes in to grab her orders. She doesn’t even give me a sly look from the corner of her eye—the kind I’m giving her to check and see if she’s giving me one. I guess she’s just being nice because it’s impossible she missed me making a fool out of myself. Everyone saw.

Crap. There went that goal.

Chapter Sixteen

Don’t make a fool out of myself in public—FAILED

ASSIGNMENT NUMERO SEI: COMFORT ZONE Get out of your comfort zone today! Tell the truth to someone. More specifically, tell a gorgeous guy that he’s gorgeous. Yep. You read me
.

According to Google Translate, “Tu sei un uomo bellissimo,” is your money phrase
.

Sound it out like this: too say un whoa-mo beh-lee-see-mo
.

Memorize it. Find a hunk (maybe you already know one by now?). Say it. It might even be the start of a BELLISSIMO relationship. In which case, you can thank me later
.

Throughout the next week, I learn to act more composed around Bruno, but it’s just that: an act. My eyes find him every chance they get. At the trattoria, from the other side of the couch while watching television, in the mirror when we’re running late and have to brush our teeth at the same time. I subconsciously study and memorize everything about him.

Like how his eyes get sad sometimes when he thinks no one’s watching.

Bruno is everything I dreamed an Italian boy would be, the stereotype I had in my mind before coming to Italy in the first place.

And it’s really, really, really hard to resist.

I’m slicing fresh tomatoes for salads when I sense a presence behind me. I slow down my cutting and try to see who it is out of the corner of my eye without turning my head.

A breath breezes over my neck as Bruno asks, “You say toe-may-toe or toe-mah-toe?”

Goose bumps avalanche down my arm and I raise my shoulder to my ear, turning my body to block him. “You left out an option,” I say, continuing my work.

“
Che cosa?
”

“Toe-may-ter.”

“
Sì!
That is the way!” Bruno throws his head back and laughs, raspy with a slight squeak in the inhales. Freaking adorable.

And I made that happen. I suppress a smile so he can’t see what an easy target I am.

He takes the knife from me and cuts two slices of deep red tomato, then rummages around in the kitchen, gathering items on a small plate. He returns and presents a dish of fresh mozzarella circles alternating with the tomatoes. He’s even finished it off with basil. It looks as perfect as the
caprese
salads they serve the customers, but miniature.

“You try this before?” he asks.

I shake my head. I’ve had versions of it back home, but the sight and aroma of this one renders all others impostors. I reach for a fork, but he snatches it out from under my hand and stabs a piece, bringing it to my mouth.

I look from his eyes to the fork and back again. He can’t seriously think he’s feeding this to me. I reach for it but he pulls away. I check to make sure Luca and the chefs have their backs to us.

“You’re insane,” I say before hesitantly taking a bite.

He mutters something I don’t even try to decipher because the juice from the tomato explodes in my mouth and my eyes close involuntarily as I savor it. The spice of pepper, the crunch of sea salt, the sweet, almost mint flavor of basil.

“It’s amazing. I can’t believe you just threw that together.” Assuming he made it for me, I grab the fork from him and taste more. “Seriously,” I say between bites, “
incredibile
.”

Bruno watches me eat, obviously pleased. He takes a step toward me and opens his mouth, somehow still smiling. He wants me to feed him. With my fork.

I should probably put up a fight but as if in a trance, I offer him a little sliver of tomato and cheese. He leans forward to take it, eyes on mine the whole time.

Holy. Crap. I never ever thought anything about eating could be sexy. I was wrong. So very wrong.

I break my gaze first and hastily gather the dirty dish and fork, carrying them to the sink to scrub them clean. When I’m finally thinking clearly enough to turn around and continue my veggie cutting, Bruno’s gone and Chiara’s staring me down from the drink station with her arms crossed.

After the dinner rush, I’m eager to crash on my bed—I haven’t forgotten it’s actually Bruno’s bed—and rest my legs. As soon as Chiara and I head back to the apartment, Bruno calls to us from the door of the trattoria.

“Chiara! Pippas! Where you go?”

“To sleep! You can handle it on your own.” Chiara shouts something else to him in Italian before she links arms with me.

His eyes find mine through the dark and the corner of his mouth pulls up. I bite my lower lip and turn away, allowing Chiara to lead me up the steep hill.

We walk in silence for several minutes until she says, “You know what he is, do you not?”

Italian?
Hot?

“You Americans call him a player.”

Aside from my surprise that Chiara knows that word at all, a weight tacks itself onto my shoulders. Our conversation from the train ride replays in my mind at hyper-speed. Wrong crowd. Bad decisions. Wasting potential. But I haven’t seen evidence of any of that, not really. He’s been nothing but sweet to me … and every other girl in town, but still.

I don’t respond and she shoots me a pointed look. “Do not let him get to you. It will be a mistake.”

“I’m not letting him get to me,” I reply too quickly. “I don’t even know him.”

“You would be wise to keep it that way.”

I stop at the gate. “He can’t really be that bad.”

“Pippa, you make your own choices. I only show you what you cannot see. What I know about him that you do not.” She sighs and turns the key, leading me up to the apartment. “I know that he is not right for you. You like nice boys.”

Nice boys like Darren
.

I shake the useless thought away and press my lips together tight. Chiara’s blurring the line between friend and mother now.

“And how would you know?”

“Because you are a nice girl.” She frowns, shrugging her shoulders. “
Bene
. But do not cry to me—”

“Chiara, I appreciate you looking out for me, but I get it. I know what I’m doing.”

I think.

I mean, I wrote it down on paper, the goal to end all goals—fall in love with an Italian. I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, wishing for the same thing. And I didn’t even have to look. An Italian found me! But maybe I’ve been making it too hard on myself, taking my goal too seriously. The idea of falling in
love
love probably isn’t very realistic.

And this summer is about doing what I want. So if a gorgeous Italian wants to feed me
caprese
and whisper in my ear, then I officially want him to.

After we get ready for bed, Chiara mumbles a good night as
she creaks her way up the wooden ladder to the top bunk. I hope she’s just tired and not upset with me. I hate that negative vibe in the air when I’m worried someone’s mad at me. I might talk to her more about it tomorrow. I want her to know I can handle myself around her cousin. At least I hope I can …

My eyes are closed, mind whirling through a thousand thoughts at once. What is it about Bruno that makes him so charming? Why did Chiara have to get such an attitude about it all? I wish she’d lighten up. Why did I see Darren that second time? Why do I still find myself thinking about it? About him.

I try to get comfortable but it’s so hot, my legs stick together and my face is clammy. I settle on my back, sprawled across the entire mattress, one leg out of the sheet. The hum of the ceiling fan becomes my focus. Maybe it will lull me to sleep.

Toss. Turn. Toss. Turn. Too. Hot.

I shuffle into the kitchen and get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. I press the cool plastic against my cheek and just as I take a swig, the front door swings open.

Chapter Seventeen

I startle, practically jumping into the air, and some of the water in my mouth sneaks down the wrong pipe. Spitting what I can into the sink, I surrender to a coughing fit.

Bruno shuts the door behind him and rushes over to pat me on the back. “All right?”

I nod, coughing a couple more times and wiping the tears out of my eyes. The springs on the couch bed in the living area squeak when Luca rolls over. My hand covers my mouth as my throat forces me to cough again. I try to make it as quiet as possible, but there’s really no controlling this.

“
Andiamo
—we go,” he says, hand still patting my back. “Outside.”

He leads me through the living room and up the small spiral staircase to the mystery door. On the other side of the door is a terrace overlooking the main street past the trattoria to the marina. Two reclined lawn chairs are lined up next to each
other, beach towels laid out across each of them. Bruno pulls out a lighter from his pocket and lights a couple of candles on the table off to the side.

Once I finally stop coughing, I lie on one of the chairs, facing the deep night sky. A thin cloud passes quickly over the moon.

He picks up a soccer ball from the floor and leans all the way back in the other chair. “Who is this tall girl who stays in my home?” I can tell he’s smiling, even without looking at him.

“Ah,” I say. “My height. I was wondering when someone would point that out. Does it bother you?” I always say I don’t want my height to be an issue, but I end up making it one anyway.

“
Perché?
”

“It just seems like most guys don’t like tall girls. I guess it intimidates them.”

Bruno laughs, repeatedly tossing the ball into the air and catching it.

“What? It doesn’t intimidate you?” I press. “What if I were the same height or taller than you?”

He crosses his right foot over his left. “I buy taller shoes.”

We laugh together and fall silent. A cat screeches somewhere on the street below, its cry echoing several times before disappearing. It makes me think of Darren. The closet cat lover who skipped out on catechism class.

I fight a smile and close my eyes, relaxing deeper into my chair. I’ve often closed my eyes and pretended to be somewhere else. Exotic places, just like this. On a terrace, at night. With a gorgeous Italian. So why my mind drifts back to Illinois is beyond me.

I’m by our pool in the backyard, Gram in the chair next to me, calming me down after the Summer Abroad News Bomb. I can even smell her lavender scent wafting through the air. What’s she doing right now? Is she bored out of her mind without me there? I wish I could talk to her.

“You miss home,
sì
?”

I blink a few times, talking my eyes out of welling up. “Parts of it.”

“Parts?”

“My grandmother mostly, and my best friend, Morgan.”

He shifts onto his side, facing me, resting an arm on the soccer ball. “Do you have parents? You do not miss them?”

I consider his question carefully before answering, aware that Bruno’s father recently passed away and it wrecked him. Here I am, on the other side of the world from mine, and I haven’t even been thinking about either of them, both alive and well. But that’s not really my fault. Sure I miss my parents. I miss the kind of parents they
could
have been. Mom more so than Dad—he sides with me most of the time. At least he makes an effort.

“We have different … ideals.”

He clears his throat again, harder this time. “You have boyfriend waiting for you?”

I fold my hands over my stomach. “Not for a long time.”

He playfully rolls his eyes and sighs. “Boys.”

A laugh escapes my lips. The boys back home seem so lame in comparison to Bruno, with their retro superhero T-shirts and baseball caps. They’re trying too hard, whereas Bruno doesn’t have to. He just
is
the kind of guy who demands to be noticed.

“So,” I say, steering the conversation away from my lack of a love life. “Why did you think I was missing home?”

“You were quiet,” he answers, a catch in his voice. “People think of home when they are quiet. Miss things. People.”

I lower the back of my chair so I’m lying completely flat, and roll over onto my side, mirroring him. The warm orange light from the candles brightens his face. He looks older than seventeen in this light, with harsher angles, yet there’s something vulnerable about him. Like I’m seeing a part of him no one else ever has.