Bittersweet (22 page)

“Hey, y’all. You must be Isabella’s boy?” she says with a vague hint of an Italian accent mingling somewhat confusingly with a North Carolina drawl.

“That’s right. Ana?” Greg says, walking up to the woman and kissing her on both cheeks. “My mom told me a lot about you. This is Cathy.”

The woman beams and reaches out her arms to me, planting an enthusiastic smacker on each of my cheeks as well. “So glad you could make it to our little restaurant,” she says, beaming. She bustles inside and leads us between the tables populated with a few senior citizens and out to a courtyard garden furnished with small, white metal tables and pockets of purple irises. It’s really pretty. The woman Greg called Ana takes us over to a shaded table in one secluded corner and seats us with a wink. “Your mama told me you’re going to be a big famous TV star, huh?” she says to Greg, who visibly blushes.

“Something like that,” he murmurs.

“Sit tight, I’ll go get you some water, and we just got this beautiful new rosé—just a splash for the driver though, uh?” She chuckles and heads away again, leaving me smiling in wonder as Greg grins back at me.

“This place is… Wow,” I breathe, taking in the quiet garden surroundings.

He looks down at the table a little bashfully. “Well, I know you like Sicilian,” he says, and then takes his sunglasses off and folds them on the table, looking back at me with a twinkle in his eye.

I lean a little closer to him. “Yes … yes I do.” I spring away just as I’d begun to brush Greg’s lips with mine, as Ana arrives back with some cold rosé wine and iced water, and a plate of arancini.

“Just to get your appetite going,” she says over her shoulder with a smile.

I take a bite and my eyes widen with delight. Greg nods appreciatively as he tastes one too, but I can’t help chuckling. “If Maxi were here right now, she would definitely be making a joke about me having balls in my mouth,” I say.

Greg laughs, and he shakes his head. “Not even going to touch that one.”

I take a sip of the crisp, cold wine, and then tilt my head and rest my chin on my hand as we finish up the plate of food. “So how about you? Have you got a bunch of theater buddies talking about you in jealous tones back in Brooklyn?”

His eyes dart away from mine, the mirth seeming to drain from them as he takes a large gulp of water. “Uh… I’m not much of a social whirlwind these days.” He takes a breath. “It’s cool that you and Maxi are so close though. When did you guys meet?”

I try not to notice how he’s deflected the question about his friends back onto me, mainly because we’ve had enough ups and downs for an entire relationship in the space of a couple weeks, and I don’t want to do anything to dislodge this warm feeling that’s just returned, and ruin the delicious meal. I tell Greg about how Maxi and I met by fighting over a dump truck in first grade, the only weird girls to even want that toy, and that we’ve been joined at the hip ever since. “I can’t imagine my life without her. I know she can be kind of a hard-ass, but there’s nobody else I’d rather have in my corner. God, all through the stuff with my mom, with Joe getting sick, through, um, Jeff. All of that. She’s just a little overprotective sometimes. Like the big bro I never had,” I finish with a laugh.

Greg chuckles too. “Little-big-bro,” he says, then leans back in his chair. “That’s great. You know, I’m sure the feeling is mutual for her. It’s nice, seeing you guys together, seeing how you … have each other’s back.” He glances down at the tabletop. “Friendship is important.” He looks back up at me. “And your family too. I can see how much they mean to you. You get a good sense of a person from seeing them around the folks that mean the most to them. And seeing how
they
are with that person.”

I tilt my head to one side, wondering what he’s like with his family. I have a feeling it’s not all peachy keen, especially with his father. Maybe that’s why Greg can be so guarded sometimes. I reach for his hand again and smile. “Well, it sounds like your mom is super proud—her excitement seems to have reached all the way to the Tar Heel State, huh?”

Greg raises his eyebrows. “The … Tar Heel State? Really?”

“Saw it on a billboard when we drove across the state line,” I say, laughing.

He shakes his head at me, grinning back. “Anyway… Yeah, my mother is really into her daytime soaps so she loves all this. I’m sure she’d rather I was on
General Hospital
or whatever, but she’ll take a prime-time teen drama at a push.” We both chuckle. “She just wants us all to be happy. She worries a lot, you know? Me and my brothers… She had those rosary beads out a lot, let’s just put it that way,” he says with a wry smile.

I squint, and I can almost picture him again as that excitable, emotional kid that grew into a reserved young adult. I weave my fingers in between his and squeeze, and he raises my knuckles to his lips for a kiss, just as Ana brings out the next course.

Greg and I fall silent as we savor the stupidly good, amazingly simple truffle pasta, and even though I’m almost full to the brim already, when Ana brings out a
secondi
of swordfish, I nearly manage to eat the whole thing.

“Oh my god,” I say as she trundles away again. “Mercy! I think you’ll have to carry me back to the car.”

“So it was worth the trip?” Greg asks, reaching over and running his fingertips up my arm, leaving trails of tingles.

“Yes,” I say quietly, studying the contours of his face in the shade of the garden. “Thank you for bringing me.”

Greg takes my hand again and I look down at our interlaced fingers, smiling. “You’re welcome. I thought maybe it could give you some more ideas for JJ’s.”

I sigh. “Yeah, it’s given me plenty of ideas, but I wonder if Joe’s ever going to let me put any of them into place, you know?”

Greg leans back in his chair, pulling my hand onto his leg like he doesn’t want to let go of it. “Well, JJ’s is his baby. Maybe if you had your own place—”

I scoff, and shake my head. “No, no. JJ’s is our family restaurant. I’m a Johnson. It’s … it’s where I should be.”

“It could be that’s why Joe doesn’t let you really get your feet under the desk though. Like you said, he doesn’t want to hold you back.”

I slowly unfurl my hand from his and reach over for my wine. “So, what, you think I should open up a place in New York, franchise JJ’s over there?” I’m smiling, but underneath it is a tiny seed of worry, beginning to grow with each new feeling I have for Greg. What if he has to leave Dogwood? I thought it right from the beginning—he’s not going to stay there forever. It’s not exactly the hub of the entertainment industry.

Greg seems about to answer me when Ana strides back out and sets two bowls down with a final flourish.

“Granita!” she announces. “My specialty.”

Greg clutches his toned stomach. “I don’t know if I can—” he begins, but Ana shakes her head vigorously.

“Come on, try just a little bit, for me—both of you!”

She practically stands over us while we try it, and it’s worth it—icy and tangy, it’s the perfect end to the meal and something I’m definitely going to try and persuade Joe to let me sneak onto the menu at JJ’s.

By the time Greg and I have chatted to Ana and thanked her for the delicious meal, the sun is lower in the sky, and further out to the east I notice a storm threatening to roll in. We head back over to the Corvette, and I raise my eyebrows and fold my arms, nodding toward the darkening clouds.

“Hope you know how to put the top up on this thing,” I say. Greg bites his lip and shrugs, frowning at the latches and levers. “Huh. Well then, we better drive fast,” I say, chuckling.

We get in and I lean over to Greg. “Oh, but just one second,” I murmur, and pull him in for a kiss. His eyes are still closed when I pull back, and he opens them and blinks those baby blues at me, then drags his gaze away to put the key in the ignition. The engine sputters, chokes, then stops. He tries again. Nothing. We both turn to each other again, and my eyes widen.

“You have
got
to be kidding me.”

The first rumble of thunder drowns out Hal’s voice on the other end of my cell phone.

“Hang on a second, Hal. Did that work?” I shout from the driver’s seat to Greg as he leans under the hood of the car, frowning. He shakes his head.

“Sure you don’t want me to drive out there?” Hal says.

“God, H, no. Thanks, but I can’t expect you to do that. The lady who owns the restaurant says the guys at the garage shut up shop early for the holiday weekend. First thing tomorrow we’ll be able to get a tow. There must be a motel here or something. We’ll be fine. Thank you so much for your help.”

I hear him sigh on the other end of the line. “You’re going to stay overnight with him?”

Now it’s my turn to exhale, and I lower my voice so Greg hopefully won’t hear. “Hal, come on. It’s cool, we’re … we’re good now.” Although the idea of sharing a room with Greg makes me break out in sweats and shiver simultaneously. Somehow it feels like there would be more pressure now, that I’d be more self-conscious about it all. “I’ll call you in the morning and let you know how we’re doing. Tell Maxi I’ll call her later, OK?”

“All right,” Hal says grudgingly. “Be safe, Cath.”

I smile at his concern. “I will be. Thanks, Hal. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

I end the call and get out to stand next to Greg as he folds his arms and shakes his head at the engine. I reach over and shut the hood, and then we both duck as a crackle of lightning illuminates the sky.

“Holy shit,” I chuckle nervously. “We need to get inside.” Just as the words leave my lips, a downpour erupts, and we both laugh and run back toward the restaurant steps. We drip in the foyer as Ana tries to insist we stay with her, but somehow I feel like we’d be stuffed like Thanksgiving turkeys and be unable to move, let alone get our tow in the morning.

“There’s no hotels in town, honey,” she says to Greg. “Come on, Gio can sleep on our couch, you two have the bed, it’s no problem—”

“Oh, Ana, we really don’t want to be any trouble,” I pipe up. “I think we passed a motel just before the turning for Colby. Could someone just give us a ride out there?”

She eventually agrees, getting her sixteen-year-old son, Gio, to help Greg and me push the Corvette under an awning so it doesn’t get completely soaked—unlike us. By the time we climb into Gio’s truck and he drives us gingerly down the road in the pouring rain to the motel, I feel like my white silk shirt is guaranteed to be heading for the trashcan.

“Thanks, man. Drive safe,” Greg calls as the kid pulls off in the dark, his headlights flashing at us as he turns the truck around, but the rain is easing at last. Greg and I look at each other as we stand in the parking lot, and can’t help laughing, though his eyes darken as he studies the clingy fabric of my shirt in the light from the streetlamp. I shiver again, even though I’m not really cold. He moves a step closer to me and puts an arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get inside,” he murmurs.

We push through the door and into the overwhelmingly brown motel lobby. A thin, dark-haired, unshaven guy looks up from what appears to be a trashy romance novel.

“Good evening,” he says languidly.

“Hey,” Greg says. “We need a room…” He glances down at me, suddenly looking a little flustered. “Um, I mean, is that OK?” he asks in a low voice. “We could get two, if—”

I shake my head. “No, of course. One room is fine,” I say, then bite my lip as he turns back to the desk clerk. Even though this place has none of the faded charm of the Fairview, I’m starting to get serious flashbacks of the last time Greg and I were in a hotel room together. But for some reason I’m not sure if that’s the route I want to go down this evening.
Go down.
I wince at my brain’s choice of words. The thing is, I do want to sleep with him. Badly. I’m just worried about rushing into things headlong and ruining—

“…the Aqua suite…” the desk clerk is saying, and I suddenly start paying attention again as he hands over the keys.

I look up at Greg and his eyes are doing that twinkle as he barely suppresses a grin. “Great. Thanks, uh, Richie, right?”

“That’s right, sir. You need anything else?”

Behind the desk I see some ancient-looking motel-branded T-shirts pinned to the wall in a display. “Actually—are those for sale?” I ask. I’m going to need some kind of change of clothes, and I draw the line at sitting around in my damp underwear. Somehow I doubt there are robes in the Aqua suite.

“Yes, ma’am. Nineteen ninety-nine each.”

It’s my turn to grin. “Great. I’ll take two.” Greg coughs as Richie hands over my merchandise, but if I’m wearing one, he’s wearing one. “My special gift to you,” I murmur, and he smiles.

We go back outside and cross the parking lot, heading up the stairs to the second floor and moving slowly along the walkway trying to find our room.

“Give me the
rustic
Fairview any day,” Greg says low in my ear as he walks next to me with his hand on the small of my back. He probably means it innocently, but I swallow, and open my mouth to start saying something about ground rules. But then he realizes we’ve passed the room, and we double-back and let ourselves inside.

It’s a symphony of faded blues and greens. There’s a mural of an ocean scene painted on one wall that looks like a scaled-up version of something Carl would have done in kindergarten, and we’d humor him by sticking it to the refrigerator.

“Um, wow,” I breathe. My eyes alight on the bed, and before any thoughts of what Greg and I might do on it can cross my mind, something else occurs to me. “Oh, hold on a second…” I rush toward it and leap. “Yes!”

The “mattress” gives way under me and undulates slowly, with a sloshing noise to accompany it. Both Greg and I burst out laughing, and he flops down beside me onto the waterbed.

“Hmm, matter of fact, we probably shouldn’t lie on top of this bedspread,” I say, wrinkling my nose. Greg turns to me as we lie on our backs, bobbing slightly.

“You want to get under the covers?” he asks, and although the twinkle in his eyes tells me he’s sort-of joking, the tone of his voice suggests he’s also sort-of serious.