“Do I need to change?”
“Nope. You’ll be the prettiest girl in the room, even after basketball practice.”
Lord, I swooned. The only thing sweeter than his compliments to me was him giving one to my Izzy.
***
“These are as good as Nanna Rossi’s.” Izzy shoveled another meatball into her mouth and spoke with it full. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“I won’t. As long as your room is cleaned every Sunday before we go for dinner.” Nothing like a little bribery.
“I’ll just deny I said it.”
I pointed my fork across the table at Hunter. “I have a witness.”
Hunter shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything. Did you say something, kid?”
Izzy showed off her dimples while shaking her head. “Nope. Didn’t say a word.”
The two of them had been teaming up against me since we left the apartment. I didn’t mind, especially since it seemed to take Izzy’s mind off her terrible day.
“Are you Italian, too, Hunter?”
He nodded. “I am.”
“Did your mom do a big Sunday night dinner like Nanna Rossi?”
“No, she didn’t. My mom was sick a lot when I was growing up.”
“Oh. Mine was, too. She had cancer.” Izzy had surprised me a lot today with all of her openness. “Did your mom die?”
“Izzy,” I tried to gently remind her of her manners. “That’s not really dinner conversation.”
“It’s alright. I don’t mind,” Hunter said, turning his attention back to Izzy. “She died when I was seventeen.”
“Was she sick for a long time? My mom was only sick for, like, a year. She had small cell bronchial carcinoma—they call it oat cell cancer. Barely anyone gets it unless they smoked. My mom never smoked.”
Small cell bronchial carcinoma shouldn’t roll off a fifteen-year-old’s tongue so smoothly.
“My mom was sick for a lot of years. But she didn’t go to the doctor. She didn’t take care of herself.”
Izzy held up her hand to show off her charm bracelet. She wore it every day. “This was my mom’s. My dad bought her most of these.” She fingered through the collection of dangling charms until she found the pearl-colored ribbon. “Nat bought me this one last year on my mom’s birthday. It’s the ribbon that represents lung cancer. Is there a ribbon for what your mom had?”
Hunter looked down at his own wrist. “Not that I know of. But my mom made this bracelet.” He wore a beautiful, braided leather band with a thin silver rope entwined through it. I’d noticed it before. “She used to do a lot of craft projects when she couldn’t get out of bed.”
God, this was the strangest date ever. We were sitting in a fancy, romantic restaurant with a fifteen year old, discussing death. And…it wasn’t even supposed to be a date.
Izzy frowned. “Yakshit’s mom died early, too. She wouldn’t go to doctors either.”
Hunter and I exchanged glances. “Sounds like you two are close,” he said.
“We were. Until he decided to go to the dance with Brittany.”
Izzy so rarely allowed me access to her emotions. I jumped on the opportunity to understand what was going on in her teenage head.
“Why didn’t you ask Yakshit to the dance if you wanted to go with him?”
She shrugged and pushed pasta around on her plate with the fork. Her voice was a vulnerable tone I so rarely heard. “I was afraid.”
“Afraid he would say no?”
She shook her head. “But now he likes Brittany.”
“Maybe not. Sometimes people say yes just to go out on a date.”
Izzy looked up with a glimmer of hope in her sad eyes. “Like you and Marcus?”
My eyes flashed to the smirk on Hunter’s face. I sighed. “Yes. Sort of. He was nice, so I went out with him and gave it a chance.” I squeezed Izzy’s hand. “You’re young. I’m not saying you should go ask out every cute boy at school. But if it was the Sadie Hawkins dance, and you really liked him, you should have asked him. Don’t be afraid of getting hurt.”
When I looked back up at Hunter, he was staring at me. He spoke to Izzy without breaking our eye contact. “Sounds like good advice, if you ask me.”
After dinner, Hunter went back to our apartment with us to make sure we got home safe. Izzy thanked him for dinner and took off to her room the minute we walked in.
I kicked off my heels. “Thank you so much for tonight. I know it wasn’t exactly the date you had planned, but I appreciate what you did. You have a sweet side, Mr. Delucia.”
He looked over my shoulder and down the hall to Izzy’s bedroom. Finding it all clear, he wrapped his hands around my waist and locked them behind my back. “At least you admit now that we were supposed to go out on a date.”