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Just as Evie had begun to walk away, I noticed her under that hat. Something about the way she moved felt familiar to me. And following her kept me from making an excuse to stop by the Mama Leoni’s tent, which I’d already planned to do.
On the first day of Festa, the rain kept us mostly under the tent. I’d looked for her a few times during setup, but nothing. But there she was earlier, eating my sister’s favorite thing on the menu. Of all things . . . fried ravioli.
Go figure.
Before I say a word, Gian steps in.
“Hey, sorry about last week. Tris will tell you, I’ve got a big mouth. And sometimes I don’t know when to shut it.”
I can’t help myself. “Sometimes?”
Gian shrugs. “You guys were pretty slammed earlier,” he forges on. “I played runner between here and the pizza tent, and every time I walked by, you had one of the biggest lines on the block.”
I did notice that as well.
“It was pretty crazy,” Evie admits. “I haven’t worked Festa in years. Forgot how nuts it gets.”
It’s odd to imagine a young Evie helping out her parents when I was doing the same. And yet, we never knew each other.
Watching the way she chews on her bottom lip, I forget to actually talk.
“You told me to come over before I left?”
Gian’s look of surprise snaps me back to reality.
“I’m taking off,” he says.
Except, Gian drove me here. We still had to head back to the restaurant with his pickup to unload. My brother knows all that.
And knows me, as well.
Fact. I am so fucking attracted to this woman that I did nothing after our dance Saturday but avoid looking for her. I pretty much spent the rest of the night actively pretending I wanted nothing to do with her.
Fact. I may have brought up her name one too many times this week to my brother, and he noticed.
Fact. He now knows, or suspects, the container of pepper cookies on the table I told Jen to leave there as we cleaned up earlier are for Evie.
He may be a pain in my ass sometimes, but Gian is also smart. And he just called me out. I can, and should, hand the package to Evie and take off with my brother. It’s after midnight, and tomorrow will be another long day.
But . . .
We exchange looks.
“I got it,” he says. It might seem to an outsider my brother is being kind. Volunteering to unload without me. But I know better.
I’m going to pay for this.
“Take the money home,” I tell him. Gian rolls his eyes as if to say,No shit.
“See you later,” he says to Evie.
My brother takes off, leaving us alone in the tent.
Like us, there are a few stragglers, but with the festival lights that drape from tent to tent turned off, and the generators that are usually drowned out from the music on stage also shut down, it’s eerily quiet compared to just an hour ago.
I reach over to the container, grab it and hand it to Evie. “I wanted to give you these.”
Though she looks completely different from last weekend, my rival is no less beautiful in jeans and a ponytail, the hat that semidisguised her earlier gone.
