Her Best Friend's Brother(43)

One of his knees pressed between hers; inhaling slowly Tony enjoyed the lavender smel of his Libby. Carefuly Tony enjoyed the lavender smel of his Libby. Carefuly Tony puled a twig from her hair, and cupping a hand along her cheek he leaned towards her—

“What’s that?” Libby was startled out of moment.

Sure enough they began hearing whispered voices--

“There’s a stream with a bridge just a little further down this path.” Tony’s cousin, Nick, was saying as he came into view around a bend. He had one arm wrapped tightly around a blond girl in a pink sundress, and he was nuzzling her neck as they walked.

Tony straightened up puling away from Libby. It almost kiled him, but a gentleman didn’t alow his date to be caught groping in the woods. He waved a little as Nick and his girlfriend passed but he wasn’t sure they even noticed.

“Sounds like Nick has big plans.” Libby joked as she smoothed her clothes and hair.

“Yeah, he’s real original.” Tony responded, edgily.

“Should we see if this thing stil flies?” Tony bent down and scooped up the kite before leading Libby back into the open park.





Chapter sixteen


It had been a month since the Marchetti Family Reunion    . Mel and John’s wedding was a little more than two weeks away. Orders had begun flying into the bakery for Dolce-McKay, and Libby was on cloud nine. It seemed that everything in her life was just as she wanted it. Just about. After the family reunion     Tony started coming around a lot. Not that that was realy a problem, because Libby loved being with him. They never seemed to run out of things to say to each other, or things to laugh about together. But being so close to him, and having him look at her the way he had in the woods at the park—it was confusing. She didn’t want to be in love with Tony—wel she was pretty sure she didn’t want to be in love with Tony.

As agreed on, Tony organized a Die Hard marathon. They ended up in Stuart’s Family room, because Tony didn’t have living room furniture yet. And somehow Libby found that endearing. Some days Tony would come by the bakery with lunch for two, and once she had renewed her membership at the Y Tony started joining her for morning runs a few days a week. Last week Tony had driven her to the beach, and they had built sand castles.

Being with Tony was becoming an awful lot like breathing—

absolutely necessary.

“Man do I have news for you!” Libby always enjoyed when Mel caled—she could almost hear the italics in her friend’s voice.

“What’s that?”

“Guess who I just spoke to on the phone—no you wil never guess—and he’s caling you next.”

“Then I guess you better spil”

“Gio” the name almost exploded through the telephone. “Libby? Helo?”

“Gio? My Gio?” Libby was speechless. Why on earth would Gio be caling Mel? They had written a few letters and emails since Libby had left Rome, but he hadn’t exactly inundated her with transatlantic phone cals. To be honest she had pretty much figured that Gio had forgotten or changed his mind about visiting America or about trying to pursue any type of relationship with her. What had she thought? That he would pack up his life and move just to be with her?

“How many Gio’s do we have in common?”

“To be honest I didn’t think any… why have you been talking to him”

“He’s coming to the wedding!”

Libby dropped her phone. “Sorry—what?”

“I sent him an invitation. It was just a lark realy—

who would have thought he’d say yes? Girl—he must have it bad for you! You totaly downplayed that accent!”

“Cal waiting Mel! Gotta go!”

It was him.

Libby was glad Gio was coming. He had hired a new manager for the restaurant, and classes at the culinary institute were finished for the term. He had laughed at her surprise that he was planning a visit.

“Betta! We talked about this. I said I wanted to see America, and I do. I want to see you. I have cleared my schedule, and I can stay at least a month.” Libby wondered what at least meant.

Gio arrived a few days later, on a Friday morning.

She met him at the airport, and true to her memories—he was devastatingly beautiful. Also true to her memories being with him had a surreal quality. They actualy ran into each other’s arms in the airport. Wel they walked quickly towards each other, but Gio did scoop Libby off her feet for a kiss worthy of any sappy romantic movie. It was a little embarrassing actualy, because people were staring.

“Have you missed me Betta?”

“Of course, Gio!” And she had. It wasn’t Gio’s fault that she hadn’t had time to dwel on how much she missed him.