I hug her this time. “I love you all so much. I’d die before I’d bring any trouble into your lives.”
“We love you, too, and we know that.” She kisses the top of my head. “Now take five, dry your eyes and go on back to work. Mr. Andruzzi doesn’t like to wait for his gnocchi.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I say, laughing as I dab at my eyes with a napkin.
“What’s wrong?” Nico asks from behind Livia.
She turns to him. “Nothing is wrong. Just some girl talk.”
“Why has Sofia been crying?”
“Because your Nona was exceptionally kind to me.”
“I’ll never understand the things women cry over.”
Livia bops him on the head. “You don’t need to understand. You only need to make her cry with happiness and nothing else, you got me?”
“I got you.”
“Good, now I’m going back to work.”
After she walks away, Nico puts his arms around me. “Are you really okay?”
“I am.”
“Then I’ll let you get back to work, too.”
I hold him tighter so he can’t get away. “One more minute of this first.”
“Gladly.”
We’re still there a full minute later when Mario, one of the busboys, comes to find me. “Delivery for you, Sofia.”
“For me?”
“Yep, and you’re gonna want to see this.”
I glance at Nico, who shrugs as he follows me to the restaurant’s main entrance, which is full of white roses. There are dozens of them, and the scent is so overwhelming, it drowns out the usual smell of Cuban and Italian food. “What the heck?”
Marlene hands me a card. “For you.”
I turn to Nico. “Is this you?”
“No,” he says, his face tight with tension.
My hands tremble as I open the card that says, I’m so sorry for everything. I love you and Mateo more than my own life. I’d give you anything, do anything to have our life back. Everything would be different this time. I swear on my mother’s life. I love you. Please come home. J
I feel like I’m going to be sick. This must mean he’s made bail, which has the bile rising to burn my throat. Thank God Mateo is at Nico’s in that secure, gated community while I’m at work. “Is the delivery truck still here?”
Mario looks out the front door. “It is.”
“Tell them to take them back. Take all of them back.”
“I, uh…”
I push by him and go outside, waving to the delivery driver parked at the curb. He puts down the passenger side window. “You need to take those flowers back. I don’t want them.”
“Take them back?”