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Not that he loves me. Or I love him. Just, cared for. That’s more accurate.
“The pasta,” I murmur.
“Will be fine. It has at least three more minutes.”
Laughing against his chest, understanding his internal timer well, I silently agree. That’s about how long I’d have given it too.
“One day, on that trip,” he says as I’m still pressed into his chest, “a man came up to me as I sat alone in the piazza, watching my father kibitz with old friends. He spoke a little English, introducing himself as a cousin.”
Tris pulls away just enough to look at me.
“We talked about cigars, and scotch. His country, and mine.”
Our eyes lock.
“Later, I asked my dad how we were related. Do you know what he said?”
I shake my head, fully aware that I am cocooned in him still.
“He said we weren’t related. Which confused the hell out of me until I realized I must have gotten the word wrong. Turns out I interpreted just fine. We didn’t share any actual relatives. My father was connected to enough people in that square that, blood-related or not, we were family.”
Neither of us move as I soak in his words. I have no parents. No siblings. Only aunts and uncles and cousins who live, mostly, out of town. But Tris is telling me that doesn’t mean I don’t have family here.
And I’m about to overcook the pasta for them.
“Shitballs.” I pull away, reluctantly, and grab the pot.
Tris moves quickly too, and in no time, we have four pastas plated. As he grabs two of them, I stop him, laying my hand on his wrist.
“Thank you.”
For a second I think, hope, he’s going to lean down to kiss me.
Instead, he says, “You’re welcome,” and so I grab the other two plates, realizing it’s the first time I’ve cooked with a guy, ever. I tried to get my ex into the kitchen with me, but he had zero interest.
This was nice.
Really nice.
Almost as nice as Tris’s ass, I notice, as he heads back toward the kitchen doors.
20
Evie
“I may have been a little drunk,” Tris says, and he takes a swig of beer to punctuate his words.
“A little drunk?” Cole, sitting next to him across the bar, four empty plates between us, looks skeptical. “You were completely toasted.”
He tells me, “We almost missed the bus back.”
Reminiscing about a Jimmy Buffett concert in Jersey last summer that a bunch of the guys attended, Cole finishes his story.
“I found him talking to a stagehand as if they were best friends.”
“Where was your phone?” I ask Tris after Cole said the others had been trying to reach him to catch the bus back home.
“In my pocket.” He smiles. “I could feel it vibrating. But I was having a good conversation with some new friends.”
