But cooking and dancing are another matter. My mother taught me to do both. Tonight, I think at least one of those skills will serve me well. And the thought of my mystery woman in my arms is enough to make sitting this way particularly uncomfortable.
Shifting in my seat, I watch.
And wait.
3
Evie
“Angel Red, please.”
The bartender pops the cork on a new bottle and pours my glass. It’s hard to imagine in the not-so-distant past I’d have to choose between another drink or getting a car to go home. And then coming back to pick mine up. But not anymore. Thanks to the groom.
Handing me my wine, the bartender nods in thanks as I slip a bill into the tip glass.
That very groom is now on the dance floor, laughing as his business partner, the other half of Angel Inc., dances with a circle of onlookers. He seems like a lot of fun. I don’t know Hayden very well, only met him a couple of times, but Chari talks about him a lot.
One person missing from the circle . . . Him.
This is the closest I’ve ever been to Tristano DeLuca. He was a few years ahead of me in school—I didn’t really know him then—and then I went away to college. He’s a good friend of Cole’s, but we haven’t run in the same circles, mostly because I’ve been away from home. But everyone knows the DeLuca brothers, especially when one of them opens an Italian restaurant ten minutes away from ours. Dad had been worried, of course.
And there’s no doubt DeLuca’s II opening hurt our business. But I’m back in Bridgewater now. And in charge. Things will be different. Better.
There he is.
Tristano isn’t looking. Doesn’t even see me. He’s talking to someone I don’t recognize clear across the barn at the other bar. But there was no doubt during dinner he had been looking. And Zara noticed.
“Are you making eyes at the groom’s brother?” she’d asked.
“Who says that? Making eyes?”
“My grandmother used to say that a lot. And I’m not letting you off the hook. Answer the question.”
“No,” I’d lied.
“Mm-hmm. Well, he’s looking straight at us, for the hundredth time tonight.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” I lied again.
“He must not know who you are.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t. He’d not be flirting with me otherwise.”
“Ahh, so you admit to flirting with him?”
“Maybe I accidentally looked over at him a few times.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, you’d have to be dead not to notice the DeLuca brothers. That is one seriously tricked-out gene pool.”
And before today, all single. At least, as far as I’m aware. It’s not like I’ve had time to keep up with the DeLuca boys’ love lives. Enzo is on the news at least once a week, but he and Chari’s relationship stopped making headlines a while back.
Thank goodness.
Chari had to change her cell number three times, and her poor mom couldn’t even leave the house the day their engagement had been announced. She and Enzo were out of the country when it happened, but word spread back to Bridgewater pretty quickly.
In a town where pig races make front-page news, is it any surprise, really?