Page 22 of Come Back to Me

My brows lift. “Potatoes?”

Tee groans. “Roll with it.”

“I prefer pasta.”

Her eyes light up. “You come to supper next Saturday. I’ll make you my marinara sauce. I’m famous for it.”

“I appreciate the invitation but?—”

She doesn’t let me finish. “Bene. We’ll make a feast worthy of the new marshal in town.”

Tee, who’s doing a great impression of wanting the ground to open and swallow her whole, blurts out, “Right. Nonna, Mom, I have to go.” She eyes me with sudden desperation. “You’re my ride, Cody?”

Fuck, I wish that ride had nothing to do with my truck.

Why am I steering clear of her again?

My attempt to scrub my mind clean fails when I look at her nonna and see future Tee—I don’t think I did that great a job of it.

“Callan asked me to come and collect you. Zee had a meeting.”

In a flurry of motion, she kisses her nonna’s cheeks three times, her mom once, and then after asking if they need helpgetting back to the kitchen, I realize Tornado Tee has made me lose my manners.

“Let me help, please.”

Tee’s nonna’s eyes light up. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse!”

Tee groans, but I ignore her and sweep in to taxi her grandmother to the kitchen. A feat she helps with by telling me which doors to ignore.

The house is enough to steal my breath.

It’s a home.

Full of knickknacks and family photos. The walls are loaded with them, so loaded, in fact, I’m surprised the drywall can sustain that number of picture frames. There are shelves too. Awards on them, trophies... I know Tee has a brother, but most of the names on the awards are hers.

When we’re finally in the kitchen, she tugs me down to the chair beside her. “Do you want some tiramisu?”

I hide a smile. “If there’s some on offer, please.”

Nonna claps her hands together in delight. “Tee, get the boy some tiramisu.”

She mutters something I can’t hear but retrieves the largest sheet tray of dessert I’ve seen outside a professional kitchen. Hell, they make smaller quantities in the RCAF mess.

“You really like tiramisu, huh?”

“I do. Please, call me Nonna.”

“Oh, I couldn’t?—”

“Yes, you can!” She nods at me, those bright as a button eyes filled with mischief as my mouth works until, eventually, I cave.

“Nonna.”

“You get a double serving for that.” She pats my cheek before accepting the spoon and the plate that her daughter places in front of her.

“He should get a double serving only if he can stop those horrible bikes from ruining our town!”

“Oh, Angela,” Nonna chides. “Give it a rest. They’re living! It’s a beautiful thing to see.”

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