Page 29 of Cherry on Top

“I’m sure,” Enzo said.

A hundred Enzo Morettis sauntered through Will’s brain, uninvited, but not unwanted.

Enzo smiling.

Enzo teasing.

Enzo, his dark eyes serious and intent.

Enzo, moaning with the taste of Will in his mouth.

It was . . .well, it was not surprising, exactly, because Will was attracted to him. Anyone with a pulse would be, because Enzo Moretti was plain fucking gorgeous. But it was disconcerting. Especially with how tightly his brain was hanging on to even the thought of the guy. All day, he’d been trying to get a respite, even as he’d known he’d be seeing him tonight.

Not just any vision of him either, but an Enzo Moretti eating his ice cream.

He was having difficulty even focusing, as Enzo slowly demolished his milkshake, bliss blooming across his handsome face.

“Well, Will, how does it begin?” Joy teased. “Since it’s your favorite.”

When he’d first come to Indigo Bay, scouting for the right location for his ice cream parlor, he hadn’t been convinced it was the right place for him. Then one morning, over coffee and the best scones he’d ever tasted, Joy had told him the story of her ancestors, the story that made Indigo Bay so special, and he’d never wanted to leave.

“It has to begin with Eliza,” Will said. “She was born in the early 1800s to one of the first families of this town.”

Joy nodded, giving him a soft smile. “Right. She grew up with Nathaniel Billings. To hear it told, they were childhood playmates, always close. But when they grew up, he decided to go to sea.”

“But first, he fell in love.” Will sighed.

“And not with Eliza,” Joy confirmed. “With a woman named Betsy. They pledged their love to each other, before he left for a long sea voyage. When he came back, they were to be married. But he didn’t come back. Not for years. For so many years, Betsy married someone else.”

“Betsy’s the real villain in this story,” Enzo inserted casually.

Will had gotten momentarily distracted by Kate and Mari having a quick discussion, and when he glanced back, he realized that Enzo had finished his milkshake and after pushing it away, he’d laid his sketchbook out in front of him. He was sketching quickly, pencil flying over the page. Like he couldn’t even keep up with his own inspiration.

With scenes from the story? Will wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know if she’s a villain,” Joy said. “What other choice did she have but to move on? There’d been no sight of him, or word either, for years. She wasn’t supposed to wait forever.”

“Eliza did,” Will reminded.

It was the thing he loved most about the story. The hope that lived in Eliza that had never died—even when it didn’t make logical sense for her to hang on to it.

“It was a question I did consider at length, when I wrote their story,” Joy said. “Was Betsy right to move on and marry someone else? Was Eliza right to wait so long?”

“I think it’s romantic,” Will said.

Enzo shot him a teasing look. “Of course you do.”

“She knew he wasn’t dead. She knew it, which was why she waited. Why she climbed up to the high point every single day. She knew he’d come back home; she knew it deep down, in her heart, that he’d come back,” Joy said. “That’s why she waited. Ultimately that’s why I decided she waited. There’s a certain kind of enchantment to it, an unshakable faith that you have to buy into.”

The way she glanced over at Enzo, who didn’t even notice, with his eyes glued to his sketchpad, pencil flying over the surface, made it clear what side he came down on.

But could anyone not believe and be so into illustrating each scene? From his vantage point, Will could see the quick lines he’d drawn, building up the vantage point—this was South Carolina so none of the cliffs were particularly high, but it was the highest point on the coast—and the figure on the top, long hair curling in the breeze.

“Ten years she waited. Even when her family began to say she was crazy. She still climbed the high point every day. Watching and waiting,” Will said.

Joy nodded. “They tried to send her away. To relatives in Boston. To a sanitorium in Georgia. But she refused. Kept saying she needed to be here, for when Nathaniel returned.”

“I don’t know how anyone would believe, how anyone could believe, when all the evidence pointed to the fact he was dead,” Enzo mused. But he no longer seemed as convinced as maybe he’d once been. When he looked up, Will could see the questions in his dark eyes.

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