Page 126 of Falling for Mr. October

“It’s not your fault, Giovanni. I’m the one who asked for this,” Bianca murmurs softly, as if she can hear the thoughts doing battle in my head.

“Not for this.”

She snuggles her head closer, her hair ticklish, her presence exactly the balm I need. “I asked for you, and you’re worth it.”

It’s then, with her in my arms, that I remember what Emily said to me earlier.

Sometimes you have the chance to control the map.

Maybe I’ve been coasting again, letting other people make the important decisions and playing nice so everyone can get along.

It’s time for me to control the map. I’ve already been talking to the apple pie judges, but that’s not enough. The situation has escalated.

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you anymore,” I promise her, kissing the top of her head.

“I know you won’t,” she replies into my chest, her voice drowsy. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you either.”

“Did you love Jake?” I ask after a moment. Not because I’m jealous, but because I want to know her whole story.

She heaves a deep sigh. “You’re really breaking my no-talking-about-anything-serious rule.”

“You make me feel serious.”

She looks up at me, her eyes big in the dark. “I loved him in a way, but I wasn’t in love with him. My first real relationship was with him. Kind of like you with Janine, except he wasn’t an asshole.”

That makes me smile for half a second. I run a hand over her hair. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I’ve lost a lot of people,” she says in a voice that’s soft yet strong. Within it, I can feel the power and pain of all of those losses. How each person who left her tugged on a different part of her heart, threatening to pull it to pieces.

As if anything could destroy a woman like her.

I take a deep breath and then admit the truth. “I’m in love with you, Bianca. I know we said we’d only do this for October, but I want more. I’m going to try to figure out a way for us to get it, if that’s what you want too. If you want me to leave, I will.”

Her eyes meet mine, and for a moment I think she’s going to get up and leave me. Maybe she’ll even climb out the window, down that tree, and run…

“It’s too early for you to know that,” she finally says, her voice quiet.

“I don’t think it is. We’ve known each other most of our lives, and my nonno always told me that when you know, you know. It was like that for my brother too.”

Her expression shifts, sadness gleaming through. “But your last videos were so successful. I know you’ll need to make some big changes for your career, and⁠—"

“I can make those from anywhere, but I can’t leave my grandmother. You know why. That doesn’t mean I have to be by her side every moment, though. We could try long distance.”

Her mouth opens and then closes, and unshed tears glisten in her eyes. I trace my thumb beneath them.

“I don’t know, Giovanni,” she finally says. “It would feel a lot like the long goodbye.”

“You’ve never shrunk from it before,” I point out. “Half your friends are over eighty.”

She hesitates, her lips wobbling, then says, “It would feel different with you.”

Perhaps it’s a foolish time to feel hope, but I do. If she genuinely feels that way, she must want to give us a chance too. “Please don’t give up on us. Please.”

She buries her face into me again, speaking into my shirt, as if she’s trying to whisper directly into my heart.

For a long moment she says nothing. She only listens to my racing heartbeat. Finally, she says, “I love you too.”

“You do?”