Love by the Slice Read online

  “Oh. Right.” It didn’t surprise me that he would just drop in to help without being asked. “That’d be great.”

  “Do you do this every day?” he asked followed by a grunt as he heaved two bags of flour onto one of the shelves. Those things were forty pounds apiece and he’d carried one on each shoulder. Like he was purposely trying to turn me on.

  He probably was.

  “No, twice a week. Sometimes three.” I wiped a hand across my forehead. It wasn’t even hot out yet but manual labor typically ensured a nice sheen of sweat would cover my body. “Depends on how busy we are. Sometimes we have to add an order.”

  “I can do this,” he offered. “The morning deliveries.”

  Of course, he would offer to take work off our hands. Where did this guy come from? Most people avoided doing anything more than what is required.

  “I appreciate that.” How about you help me once a week and if we have extra deliveries?”

  “What about the other time. You don’t have to do this by yourself.”

  “I know. But Gramps will insist on taking one of the days.”

  “Ah.” He nodded. “But you’ll let me help you?”

  “Well, yeah. I would’ve had to slide them across the floor and bitched at them the entire way. You threw them over your shoulder like they weighed nothing.” Gio chuckled which made me smile. “My mom didn’t raise a fool. I’m not going to pass on that kind of help.”

  We worked together for about an hour, talking but not saying much of anything. He asked about the weather during the summer and exactly how busy we got. Small talk. That’s all. Small talk after I agreed to accept his help until we were done getting everything put away where Gramps liked it.

  “You hungry?” Gio asked as I pulled the back door closed.

  I had time to run home before I needed to start prepping which had been my part of my plan. Get home, grab something to eat and maybe give myself a quick wipe down from the sweat I’d worked up.

  “Starving, actually. That’s what I was going to run home for.”

  “Oh.” He wet his bottom lip. “When I saw the door open, I was headed to the bakery. Want to join me?”

  The local bakery made the best pastries I’d ever tasted. Since only a couple of scrambled eggs waited for me at home, his offer was better. Healthy or not, one did not turn down Harbor Point Danish.

  “Absolutely.”

  After we ordered at Smith’s Bakery, I grabbed the plate with a cream cheese Danish on it and an orange juice then picked a table by the window. Gio followed behind with his own order. I insisted he let me pay for his because he’d come in early to help and he didn’t have to do that. He scoffed a little but in the end, let me.

  The warm pastry melted in my mouth and I moaned. I found Gio staring at me with the smallest smile on his face and that damn raised eyebrow. Rolling my eyes, I shook my head.

  “This is really good,” he said trying to hold in a laugh. Jerk.

  “They’re the best.” I drew the words out for two reasons. The Danish was the best.

  “How’s it going in the kitchen?” I asked figuring work would be a safe subject.

  “Good. Joe seems to hate me which makes your grandpa happy.”

  “That’s the goal,” I said with a laugh. “Gramps and Joe have been friends since they were kids. I think Gramps would hire someone who couldn’t do the job to get under Joe’s skin.”

  “How does Joe take that?”

  “Pretty well.” That wasn’t entirely true. “If pretty well means that he once wrapped Gramps car in toilet paper because the kid Gramps hired couldn’t make a pizza with a recipe, a YouTube video and someone holding his hand.”

  Gio snorted mid drink and a couple of drops of orange dripped down his chin.

  “Recently?”

  I nodded. “Last summer.”

  “That’s awesome.” Gio’s shoulders shook.

  The bakery started to fill with people. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time and sighed. I enjoyed spending time with him but responsibilities had to come first. Such is life as an actual adult and I refused to let Gramps down.

  We ended up short a person, which meant I had twice the amount of tables. I scurried around the dining room for hours without a moment’s pause.

  As I rushed to the restroom in between orders, a glass shattered. My toe hit something hard and I stumbled forward… right into Gio’s arms.

  “Whoa, where’s the fire?” he asked keeping one hand on the lowest part of my back and the other on my hip like he thought I’d fall again. My heart fluttered against my chest as warmth flooded my body. My fingers ached to trace up his arms, to see what his skin felt like against mine.

  “Sorry. Caught my foot.”

  “You can fall for me anytime,” he said in a low voice.

  I couldn’t help it. It might have been the cheesiest line ever and a laugh bubbled up before I could stop it.

  “You like that do you?” He laughed with me.

  “It was pretty corny.”

  “I know. But you’ve been running around all night. I thought you could use a breather.”

  My heart beat double time but I couldn’t tell if it was from the almost fall or his hands still on my body.

  “Mission accomplished.” My hands rested on his forearms with the intention of pushing him away. Yet I didn’t. A few more seconds couldn’t hurt anything.

  “Bianca, table—” Carly stopped short, took in the scene then spun on her heel and muttered an apology as she scampered away.

  “Carly,” I called, “it isn’t…” But it wasn’t any use; she’d disappeared out of sight. “Shit, she’s going to think we’re together.”

  “Is that bad?” he asked releasing his hold on me.

  “Yeah, Gio, it is.”

  I brushed past him and headed for the restroom like I’d originally intended. If Carly thought Gio and I were dating and she told the others, every move we made would be scrutinized. If I gave him a day off or god forbid, we both had the same day off, the gossip would fly. Romano’s is like family. But like family, the gossip could kill the place, kill productivity. And I didn’t even want to think about what could happen if we did actually date and it didn’t work out. Gramps once had to make sure two of his servers never worked the same shift after their relationship ended and the headache that created wasn’t worth it. Just a bad idea all around.

  I wanted to avoid Gio as much as I could but my curiosity would always get the better of me. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to know everything about him but I did. Course I rationalized my thirst for knowledge of all things Gio by reminding myself that I talked to Carly just as much which might have been true but it wasn’t the same.

  “So, big plans for your days off?” I asked sitting across from him in the break room. I hadn’t made the mistake of staring like a creeper since the first time.

  “You gave me three days off.” Everyone knew I made the schedule. “Why?” His tone wasn’t the happy one he should have been using. Three days off meant celebrations to most of us.

  “Uh, because if you work any more hours we’re going to have to make you a partner.”

  He snorted.

  “Three days off in a row is a blessing. I’m not punishing you.”

  “You have those days off, too.” The schedule hung in the break room letting everyone see everyone else’s hours. The employees who wanted to switch shifts could do it without involving me or Gramps.

  “Yeah, Gramps insisted. He started to notice that I’m here too much, too. His words. But I hate him working all those hours, ya know?” Gio nodded. Everybody loved Gramps and we all tried to take whatever off his plate we could. Joe too even if Gramps hated that we did it.

  “So what’s there to do in Harbor Point? Maybe you should show me around.”

  Danger, danger, Will Robinson, blared in my head. Alone time with Gio wasn’t what I needed. Then again being new and part of our work family, turning him down wasn’t ex
actly nice either. Rock meet hard place.

  “I suppose I could show you around Harbor Point. Wouldn’t want you to get lost,” I said with a smile. I knew he came from Chicago; maneuvering Harbor Point would not be a big deal for him. “I’d hate for you to drop your dry cleaning off at the dance studio then be forced to salsa.”

  “Depending on the partner, I might not mind that.”

  Shaking my head, I went back to work. But first, we made plans to start the tour of our small town at ten the next morning. Honestly, I didn’t want to waste my days off sleeping anyway, though a solid night would be excellent.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning, we met at Romano’s. Our first stop had to be the diner for coffee. If we were going to walk one end of town to the other, I needed fuel. Gio took a giant gulp of his as I dumped two creams and three sugars into mine.

  “Black coffee is like battery acid,” I said giving my concoction a vigorous stir.

  “You mean liquid gold.”

  “I mean battery acid.” We both turned for the door. “It tastes disgusting and does bad things to your stomach.”

  Gio chuckled softly. “I bet you put chocolate in your coffee whenever you can.”

  I came to a halt beside him and looked up with a smirk. “Caramel actually.”

  “Figures.”

  I fought the smile that wanted to take over but lost miserably as we began our tour.

  We took the first right we came to, walking so close that I could feel the heat radiating from him. Gio was always so warm. I bet that’d be handy in the winter.

  “Unless you want to drive into the city, this is the grocery store.” I pointed to our little market. “It’s small. Doesn’t carry everything but handy when you don’t want to drive half an hour for a cup of sugar.”

  “This place, I’m familiar with.” He took another big drink. “I’ve been living on ready-made meals since I came to town.” When he glanced down at me, I cocked my head to the side in confusion. “I don’t have a kitchen in my room, Bianca. A microwave but that’s about it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I couldn’t not watch it. “Oh and that restaurant…the one by Mrs. Wardin’s…”

  “Dawson’s?”

  He snapped his fingers as soon as I said it. “Right. Dawson’s. They’re getting to know my face.”

  It’s a good face for them to get to know. When he barked out a laugh, I realized I’d said that out loud. All I could do is shake my head and return to walking.

  “Oh, that’s Bill’s,” I said when we’d made it all the way to the end of Main and then halfway back. “The best bar in town. Tourists never go in there because it’s not touristy.”

  “But you go in there?”

  “Hell yeah. For years. Bailey…my best friend and I learned to kick ass at pool in there.” Two blocks later, I added, “And now you know where the movie theater is.” I had just pointed it out to him about a block past Bill’s.

  “Yeah, but I’d have to make a friend to go with me.” I glanced up at him to find him licking his lips. His full, very soft looking lips. My heart rate ticked up a notch and I took a breath to calm myself back down.

  How had he not made a friend since coming to town? He’s a nice guy. Very easy on the eyes. There should’ve been someone. It’s not like he acted all socially awkward and inept. No. Gio knew exactly what he was doing.

  “Well, that’s our town. Think you can find your way around?” I asked with a smile. A blind person could get around town without much trouble.

  “If I have any trouble there’s always GPS.”

  We stood there looking at each other. The day had gone too fast.

  “Let’s grab lunch,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I should get back.” Laundry to do. Though I wasn’t about to say that to him. That sounded lame, mostly because it was. But I did, in fact, have a crap ton of laundry waiting for me.

  “Are you not hungry? Do you not need to eat?”

  My stomach growled right then the traitor.

  “Come on.” He tugged on the hem of my shirt. “Let me thank you for using your day on me.”

  Not so reluctantly I agreed. I wanted as much time with him as I could get and since dating was out of the question, he worked for us, then I’d have to be happy with hanging out with a friend and having lunch. But if he ate my fries, I’d stab him with a fork.

  After we ordered, we each sat back and nestled into the booth of the diner we’d gotten coffee at that morning.

  “So how are you really liking Harbor Point?”

  Gio scratched his chin, at the stubble he hadn’t shaved off that morning…hot.

  “I like it. It’s nice.” The word ‘nice’ came out an octave higher than the rest of the words. It wasn’t the tone of someone who actually liked where they were at the moment.

  “Nice?”

  He shrugged. “Nice.”

  I was so in love with Harbor Point that I couldn’t imagine anyone else not loving it like I did. Then again, I had family here. I grew up here.

  “What’s the story with your family?” I asked. The waitress dropped our food off and disappeared.

  “No story.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him, copying his signature move which made him unleash that big, full smile I didn’t get to see often enough.

  “Not really. We’re just a normal Italian family. We pretty much keep to ourselves. We’re not very close.”

  How was that possible? Even my Italian Family, though small, still got in each other’s business. That happened to be one of the main problems with this crush I’d developed on Gio which wasn’t helped by spending the day with him.

  “You know parents,” he said after swallowing a bite of burger. “Expectations run high and failure isn’t an option.”

  I nodded but that isn’t how my family worked at all. Making mistakes were encouraged to some extent. How could you learn if you didn’t fail once in a while? One thing I have to admit is that I could’ve listened to Gio’s voice all day and never tire of it. He could read me a sonnet or How to Change a Flat Tire for Dummies and I wouldn’t care.

  “We should go out,” he said when we came to a stop back at Romano’s, our day together coming to an end.

  “Huh?”

  He tilted his head toward me and grinned. “We should go out. On a date. Try out that movie theater maybe.”

  Yes sat on the tip of my tongue begging to be released. I wanted to let it out but that nagging voice whined in the back of my head. He worked for us. Mixing business and pleasure usually lead to disaster. I fought that yes back and sighed.

  “That’s sweet but I can’t. Sorry.”

  I scampered away from him, leaving him alone on the sidewalk out front just because I didn’t want him to try to convince me to say yes. It would be too easy to do it but I’d never let anything like a summer fling jeopardize Gramps’ restaurant.

  As we worked together, Gio’s gaze followed me around the restaurant and I became hyper-aware of where he was at all times. Like somehow I’d obtained a sixth-sense where Gio was concerned.

  I sat at the counter that Thursday night after we closed, adding up the receipts and getting a deposit together. Glancing out the window, I found the muted light of dusk rather than the pitch of night, another benefit of summer and longer days.

  “Night, Gramps,” I said keeping my attention on the receipts as he headed out. During the offseason we made bank runs twice a week but in season we did it every day. Having too much money in the safe made us both uncomfortable.

  “Deposits?” he asked. I nodded in return. “I’ll wait then.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Gramps. I’m a big girl.”

  “I don’t like you making those runs on your own. Especially at night.”

  I smiled and swiveled on my chair to find his battle-weary dark eyes, his hair looking a little grayer than it had last month. “You do know that the crime rate is like zero around here, right?”

 
; “Like zero and zero are two very different things, Bianca.”

  “I can take her.” I didn’t know Gio hadn’t left yet but his voice covered me like a warm blanket. I wanted to burrow inside the sound and hibernate for the winter. There was clearly something wrong with me. I’d never wanted to cocoon myself inside someone’s sound. Not once. But Gio…he was different.

  “You don’t—”

  “That’d be great,” Gramps interrupted. “It’d sure make me feel better.”

  I didn’t agree with him but it didn’t matter—he was out the door before I could protest. Instead, I sighed and kept working.

  “You can go ahead,” I said to Gio without looking up.

  “I made a promise.”

  “Not technically. I can handle this on my own.”

  “Bianca.” His breath fanned against my neck, though I hadn’t seen him move closer. “Let the old guy think he’s taking care of you. It makes him feel better that you’re not alone.”

  My eyes locked with his and something more than friendship or obligation looked back at me. I nodded without meaning to because those damn chocolate eyes made me melt and caused my brain to go haywire. Besides, what harm could fifteen more minutes do? I spent part of the day with him outside of Romano’s and managed to keep all my clothes on, I thought we were all good. “Are you going to the beach tonight?”

  “I planned to. Carly made me promise.”

  During the summer, bonfire parties were held every week at the beach and the warmth of the flames with a cool breeze coming off the ocean made everything right with the world. While I wouldn’t go every week, the kick-off was kind of special. Almost like a bonding ritual.

  Zipping the deposit bag closed, I glanced up to catch Gio watching me as I had a few times before. Our eyes locked, the intensity became too much. I had to look away then tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. My palms became moist from grasping onto the bag tightly. If he didn’t already sense the desire flooding my body, wiping my palms on my shorts would be a big giveaway. But I didn’t need to be looking at him or even near him for the stomach full of butterflies to flap those gentle wings. It’d been a long time since I felt nervous around a guy but Gio did that to me. After locking up, we strolled to the bank.