AllFreeNovel
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“There’s a place to freeze eggs?” Camilla asks her mom. “Why can’t you just put them in Nonna’s freezer?”
All the adults in the room burst out laughing (except me) while Camilla screws up her adorable face in confusion. My sister pats her on the shoulder. “Not the eggs you eat, baby. It’s a different kind of egg.”
She starts for the kitchen while Camilla follows. “What kind of egg?”
“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“Matteo, show Zia your science project,” Vinnie says, patting his son on the back of his head. He grins at me. “You gotta see this, Allie. He’s been working real hard on it.”
Matteo holds up his iPad with a wide smile that displays his missing front teeth. God, he’s a cute kid. “Can I show it to you?”
“Absolutely. I’d love to see it,” I tell him, crouching down next to him as he flips open the case.
He presses one of the icons and a picture of a massive, hairy spider fills the screen.
I immediately gag, then try to scramble away, but because I’m crouching, I wind up knocking myself off balance and fall on my ass before gagging twice more.
Vinnie bursts out laughing, and high fives Matteo. “You got her so good!”
Matteo beams down at me, then laughs like crazy. “Gotcha, Zia!”
He suddenly looks a lot less adorable to me.
I stand slowly, reminding myself that my nephew doesn’t know any better, especially because his asshole dad put him up to it. “You sure did.”
“What’s so funny?” my sister calls from the kitchen. She pokes her head out. “You didn’t play the spider trick on Zia, did you?”
Vinnie, who now has tears streaming down his face while he laughs, nods. “The gagging! Hahahaha! It never gets old.”
“Doesn’t it?” I glare at him, my words coming out crisp.
“Boys! That’s not nice. Zia has a real phobia,” Lucia calls to them. “Sorry about that, sis.”
She may be sorry, but it’s not like she’s going to do anything to stop them in the future. I glance at my watch. Okay, Allie, you can do this for another hour and a half. Then you can sneak back upstairs, barricade the door, and get back to work.
The next twenty minutes are a blur of activity as we set the dining room table for the adults and the one in the kitchen for the kids. More cousins, aunts, and uncles arrive, and soon, it’s a packed, noisy house. I crack open the window in the dining room to let some fresh air in as my mom puts the finishing touches on the three-course meal. First comes gnocchi in a stewed meat sauce, served with fresh baguettes, next will be the salad and roasted chicken, followed by dessert (which tonight will be raspberry and lemon polenta cake that my dad’s sister, Zia Francesca, made). My stomach growls as I carry one of the serving bowls of gnocchi to the table. As irritated as I am with the stupid spider prank and tonight’s topics of conversation (my lack of a man, my eggs that are in dire need of freezing, and how awful I look), I am definitely excited to dig into this dinner.
We’re just sitting down when my phone rings. My dad shoots me a look while I pull it out of my pocket. “Sorry about that. I forgot to silence it.”
Keenan’s name is flashing across the screen. I stare at it, my heart picking up its pace a little. My boss has never called me after hours. Not one time in over ten years. Standing, I excuse myself. Ignoring my mother’s protests about it being ‘Sunday supper,’ I hurry to my dad’s den and shut the door. “Hello?”
“Allegra, I’m glad I caught you,” Keenan says. “I hope it’s not a bad time.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“Good. I wanted to talk to you about a new development that’s just come up. It’s rather exciting, actually.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering what could be so important that it couldn’t wait for tomorrow.
“I’m sure you’re wondering what’s so important that it couldn’t wait for tomorrow.” Keenan pauses for a second, then says, “I know you’re probably quite disappointed about me choosing Chad, so I wanted to give you some exciting news. I’ve just got word that Galaxy Studios is making a movie about us. Well, not us exactly. It’s about David Peck Todd.”
“Like a documentary?”
“No, a major motion picture. And the exciting bit is that they’ve offered to donate a hundred thousand dollars to our team.”
“Wow, that is exciting news,” I answer, wondering what the hell this has to do with me.
“You’re probably wondering what this has to do with you.”
