A Summer Like No Other

Chapter 20 - Nick

When Em invited me to her Nonna's restaurant on Monday, I sweated my balls off. I'm so not ready for the big family dinner, I can't face Roberto or Em's parents. But Em explained her Nonna is going on another date with the older gentleman she met at the market. Em says her Nonna believes in love, she believes her deceased husband sent that guy to her to make her dance again. So, they're going to one of those festivals the firefighters organize every summer. The way Em blushed when she talked about love made me want to tease her, made me want to make her smile.

But I resisted. I can't cross the line—what we have is a friendship with temporary and limited benefits. Nothing less. Nothing more. And I better remind myself of that before I do or say something stupid. I'm tempted to throw away the flowers I got from a street merchant on the way to Brooklyn. It's a bouquet of tulips, and there's something about them that reminds me of Em.

And oh my God, where did my balls go? I've never been so touched by anyone, so in synch with anyone in my entire life.

Before I can convince myself to turn around and cancel our date tonight, I ring the bell of the restaurant, hiding the flowers behind me.

"You can come in!" Em calls, her voice a tad muffled. "In the kitchen!" she says again and I follow her voice.

She's covered in flour, almost from head to toe. Her dark brown curly hair is peppered with white. And she's holding a cannoli in her hand.

"What are you doing?" I chuckle, still holding the flowers behind me.

She steps closer to me. "You're not going to be laughing once I get flour all over you too."

She kisses me gently but too quickly for my taste. "Screw the flour," I tell her and bring her closer to me with one of my hands for a real kiss, a deep I-want-more kiss. She moans in my mouth and I'm suddenly forgetting why it's a bad idea to take it further than our make-out sessions, why I can't cross that line with her if I can't promise her more than this summer.

But luckily, she steps away from me, before my lower brain decides to overcome my real one.

"What are you hiding?" She's smiling that bright smile of hers, the one that touches both brains of mine.

I run my hand through my short hair and then shift on my feet. I've never been this nervous with a girl before. I hand her the flowers. "Hmm. A guy was pushing those outside the subway. For you." I don't tell her that I thought of her as soon as I saw them or that I was worried she might not like tulips.

She takes them carefully and gazes at them with the tenderness she sometimes has when she looks at me.

Shit. I am in trouble.

"I love them. Thank you." She kisses my cheek and then skips to the other side of the messy kitchen to get a small vase. She arranges the flowers in it and then turns back to me.

"I made lasagna this afternoon. For us. And then I've been trying to make my Nonna's cannoli for dessert, but I've been having issues."

She blows a strand of hair away from her face, or at least she tries to, but it keeps on falling back. "What type of issues?" I ask.

"It doesn't taste the same," she replies and pulls out a tray full of delicious-looking creamy pastries. "Here, taste one." I plop it in my mouth and it's my turn to moan. Those pastries are absolutely amazing.

"Those are wonderful." I stare at her lips. "Like you." I want to forget about the pastries, and the dinner, and everything else right now. I want to carry her onto the nearby counter and see where it takes us. But then she switches topic and it calms me down as quickly as a cold shower.

"Roberto's pissed at me."

"For what?" I tilt my head and tighten my fists.

"Don't sound so scared, it's not about you." I cock an eyebrow. Rob called me on July 5th to tell me to stay away from Em if I couldn't offer her forever. We talked about it and I somewhat came to a truce with him. She bites her lip. "Fine, it's still a bit about you. But mainly, it's about me not giving up on looking for my birth parents. Despite what Dad said about Claire Carter." She pauses and picks up another pastry before dropping it into her mouth. If she licks those lips one more time, I will forget my promises to myself. "Maybe he's right though. Like what else do I know? Based on her LinkedIn profile, she's an executive assistant for Procter & Gamble now. But all I have is what you overheard, and I'm so fucking scared."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you ever get so close to something you really wanted only to have taken it away from you?"

You. But that's my own fault, so instead I reply, "Yes. Remember the lead at last year's showcase? It was mine for only five minutes."

"That's because you were only a junior then—they don't give leads to juniors."

"I'm sure you or Nata could get the lead."

She frowns. "Is the flour getting to your brain? Maybe Nata, but not me."

"Whatever. You know you're good and with us practicing every day, you're getting even better!" I pause. "I couldn't find anything in my dad's office yet, and this week might be tough because he's working from home a lot, but next week, we could try to dig deeper in there. There's some important conference. He wanted me to come with him, as part of my stupid internship, but I told him no."

"You never talk about it. About your work there."

Because I don't want to tell you about Jen. Because I don't want to show you how low I can go to get what I want. Because I'm afraid you're not going to look at me with so much passion in your eyes.

I purse my lips. "Not much to say. Dad put me in an office with a real intern, one who graduated from Harvard Law and who wanted to get into business. All I do all day is listen to him talk about how awesome my father is, and how he wants to become like him. Luckily it's only three days a week and I get to leave early."

"Sounds like fun." She nudges me and I capture her hand in mine, bring it to my lips and gently kiss it.

"No, this is fun." I kiss her cheek, then her lips. "This is amazing." I kiss her neck. "This is fucking amazing." I steal one of her pastries. "I promise you, Em. I'll help you in any way I can. And I'll make sure you smile at least once a day."

She giggles, blushing. "Why is that?"

"Because seeing you smile is making everything better. Everything."

This time, when I kiss her, I don't hold anything back. We may only have one summer, but it's going to be a summer like no other.

Author's note:

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're enjoying getting to know Em & Nick! I'll be publishing two new chapters every Friday and would love to hear from you, so don't hesitate to leave a comment. The full novella is already published/available on all e-retailers for only $0.99 in case you don't want to wait for the next chapter :) More information on www.elodienowodazkij.com :)