Page 39 of Cherry on Top

He pulled out his sketches from his back pocket as he finished his bagel and his coffee.

“Oh,” his mother said, inhaling sharply as she leaned over the table, “is that the mural?”

Enzo nodded.

“It’s . . .” She glanced up, meeting his eyes. “It’s stunning, darling. You’re so talented.”

“Thanks, Mom. Don’t you think you might be a bit biased?” He shaded in a corner. He’d been toying with the idea of adding a frame around the main image, almost like he was bringing Joy’s story to life.

“I’m not,” she said, rising and grabbing his empty plate and cup. “All those people who clamor for your work prove that I’m not. And doesn’t Will love it, too?” she asked archly.

“He likes it fine,” Enzo said.

She raised an eyebrow. “I think his feelings are a bit stronger than fine.”

“Maybe,” Enzo said. He wasn’t usually this modest, but there was something special—something private—about the way Will had looked when he’d first seen Enzo’s drawings. Something that eclipsed the faux dating arrangement he’d suggested.

Something real.

“I’m sure he’s wild about it.” His mother patted him on the arm. “Just like he’s wild about you.”

Will shaded his eyes and looked up at the wall of his building, wishing he’d brought his sunglasses outside because it was nearly noon and unbelievably bright, the sun bearing down on them with ferocity.

Enzo was a dozen feet up, brush moving with casual flicks—while the lines developing underneath it were the opposite of haphazard.

He could see the beginnings of a cliff and a woman’s figure, blooming onto the wall in stark white lines.

“Hey,” he called up to Enzo.

Enzo glanced down. “Just a second,” he said. He drew a handful of additional lines and then he was climbing down.

“Is that safe?” Will asked.

Enzo raised an eyebrow, pulling his silver aviator sunglasses off and tucking them into the worn neckline of his paint-splattered tank top. He’d pulled his hair back today, a sweat-soaked bandana holding it in place.

“If it was taller, I’d wear a safety harness,” Enzo explained. “This is too low for me to bother.” He flashed Will one of those Moretti grins. “You worried about me?”

Yes. “I don’t want my insurance to skyrocket because you broke your legs outside my building,” Will said instead.

“Pragmatic. I like it.”

“It’s coming along.” Will shaded his eyes again, glancing up at the wall.

“This is just the first sketch. To get an idea of how the design fills the space. It’ll all get covered, eventually.”

“Makes sense,” Will said, nodding as his eyes traced every line Enzo had painted today.

Will didn’t want to be fascinated by Enzo’s artistic process, but he was. Undeniably. All morning he’d been almost unbearably tempted to step outside, to check on Enzo’s progress, to see exactly what he was doing, but he’d forced himself to stay inside and to work his way down his to-do list.

As a reward for finishing the last of his prep work for the day, he’d finally let himself come outside and check on Enzo’s progress.

Kate had given him a hard time as he’d walked out, because okay, yes, first he’d checked his hair and his face in the employee bathroom before he’d ducked outside, but he’d been working all morning on ice cream mixes, and had even baked a few batches of brownies and cookies, so he’d wanted to make sure he wasn’t covered in chocolate—or worse.

“I had a client freak out once because she thought I was going to paint the whole thing in white,” Enzo said, wiping his face with his forearm. “We had a good laugh over that one.”

“I wouldn’t expect you could freestyle paint this whole thing, or even want to,” Will said.

“Oh, I could,” Enzo boasted, but his eyes were glimmering with amusement. They were almost mocha colored in the bright light, not the deep, dark chocolate brown he often fantasized about. That he’d imagined just this morning, as he’d mixed the rich chocolate batter for his brownies.

---