Page 24 of Cherry on Top

Enzo didn’t always feel like he fit in well with his family, but that much was accurate. He could admit that he could be a little absorbed, a little obsessive, when he wanted to be. Or when he got caught up in a project he loved.

“So, why are you drawing Will, besides the obvious?”

“Just practicing.” Enzo flipped the page. Let the pencil slide over the paper, a figure emerging. A recognizable figure, albeit an exaggerated one.

Luca, shaking his finger at something off the page, his good looks and his intensity both exaggerated.

Rocco giggled. “Don’t let Oliver see that,” he said under his breath.

But of course Oliver chose that moment to emerge from the back of the bakery. “I give you a minute for a break and of course you come out here,” Oliver complained. But he was smiling as he gazed down at Rocco. “What’s this about me not seeing something?”

Rocco leaned over and covered the Luca sketch with his hand.

“Oh, we’re just joking around,” Rocco said, still chuckling gesturing towards Enzo. “He’s drawing caricatures of the different people around town.”

Oliver raised a questioning eyebrow. “And why don’t I want to see? Let me guess, the best one is my husband.”

Enzo shrugged awkwardly. Somehow the Luca drawing would be easier to explain than the one of Will. “If he doesn’t want to be a target, he shouldn’t make himself one.”

Oliver didn’t say that Luca wasn’t, at least not these days; he only smiled. “True,” he admitted. “You’re not going to show me, are you?”

“Uh.” Enzo hesitated, but Rocco nudged him.

“Listen, he married him,” Rocco pointed out. “Oliver knows what he’s really like. Better than either of us.”

Oliver’s smile deepened. “Also true.” But he didn’t ask again. Instead, he changed the subject. “What’s this about you drinking three cappuccinos today?”

“Rocco gave me this last one,” Enzo squawked.

“He just looked so lonely out here,” Rocco pointed out, all innocence. “With his sketchbook and no coffee.”

“Luca has three cappuccinos all the time,” Enzo pointed out.

“And Luca shouldn’t, because then he stays up way too late,” Oliver said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “You Morettis always believe you can handle your caffeine, but the truth is, you come from the womb pre-caffeinated, already.”

This time both he and Rocco laughed, nodding in agreement.

“That’s my way of saying you’re cut off for the day,” Oliver teased gently. “Now show me this picture of Luca.”

Enzo hesitated again. But then Oliver plucked the sketchbook off the table before he could stop him. He flipped pages until he found what he was looking for.

For a second, he looked at the quick drawing Enzo had made of Luca, Enzo bracing for every reaction he could think of.

Then Oliver’s face cracked into a wide smile, and then he was straight up cackling, head thrown back with the force of his laughter. “Oh, oh,” he gasped, “you’re good.”

“Told you,” Rocco said knowingly.

“Just don’t let him see it,” Oliver said, returning the sketchbook to his table.

“Yeah, it would piss him off,” Enzo agreed, feeling a little pulse of shame for doing it, because he liked Luca. At least he did now.

“No, no,” Oliver corrected gently, “he’d never let me hear the end of it. He’d love it that much.”

“Really? He wouldn’t be insulted?”

“Are you kidding?” Oliver shook his head. “You really don’t know how proud he is of you, do you?”

That was not what Enzo had expected Oliver to say.

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