Page 125 of Falling Overboard

I didn’t know how I was going to resist her. Not able to help myself, I leaned in to kiss her softly and it had the effect of making my stomach quiver.

She needed to know how I felt. How important she was to me.

The most important person in my life.

No more waiting.

It was time.

“Lucky, there’s something I want to tell you. I wanted to say it last night but I didn’t want you to think that I was only saying it because of the situation.”

She gulped. As if she knew exactly what I was about to say.

Then the words that I had thought would be hard to say felt entirely natural. Like I should have been saying it the whole time. “I’m in love with you.”

A thousand different emotions crossed her face. Disbelief, concern, excitement, desire, worry, resolution.

And then I saw what I most hoped for.

“I love you, too,” she said.

Her words lit me up like stadium lights. My heart grew three sizes and I wanted to run around the entire city shouting that she loved me. That couldn’t have been easy for her. My girl was so unbelievably amazing and brave. I was beyond thrilled.

“That’s good. Otherwise this would have been really embarrassing for me. ‘Up a creek without a paddle’ kind of situation,” I said. I was teasing but I hoped she knew how happy she had just made me.

This had to change things. We weren’t in some disposable situation where we would move on from each other and cause problems among the crew. This was real. This was serious.

We were in love.

My dad wouldn’t have to worry about liability. She and I would find a way to make things okay.

We belonged to each other.

“I’ve never said that to anyone before,” I confessed.

“Neither have I. I’ve been so busy protecting my heart, worried about people leaving, that I ...” She took a deep breath. “That I’ve been too afraid to be open and vulnerable. Too scared to care about someone so much that I gave them the power to hurt me.”

I felt so honored by the gift she’d just given me. I kissed her again. “Thank you for trusting me. I would never hurt you that way.”

“I know.” She sighed and nestled in closer to me. “We should get up and go. The Mascarellis are expecting us this morning.”

“Are you sure I can’t stay here with you like this?”

“There’s nothing I’d love more, but we have to go.”

It was difficult to leave this room, this safe bubble she and I had created, but we did have a schedule.

We made our way back over to Il Pane and were enthusiastically greeted by just as many family members as we had been yesterday. Giovanna waited for Lucky in the kitchen and had already taken the dough out of the fridge. Maria translated as they moved through the next steps.

When everything was completed, Giovanna took the sfogliatelle out of the oven and handed one to Lucky to eat. She bit into it.

Tears immediately sprang to her eyes and she began to cry. “It tastes just like my nonna’s.”

I wrapped her up in my arms while she cried happy tears. I was going to order her an entire mountain of Italian flour for her bakery.

My parents were planning on returning by dinner, so we had to head back to the ship. It took a long time to say goodbye, with all the kissing and hugging and promising to keep in touch. They’d adopted us both as part of their extended family. Maria and Lucky exchanged emails and cell numbers, and Lucky promised to contact them as soon as she made her first batch of sfogliatelle.

Giovanna loaded us up with bags of baked goods to take with us, insisting that we were both too skinny and needed to eat more.

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