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“It was a bad time, but plenty of kids have it tough in high school.” I shrugged ruefully. “College was my reset, and this town gave me what I needed to start over—self-respect, confidence, acceptance. No one here gives a shit if you’re gay, bi, trans, pan, or whatever.”

“Yet you’re still technically in the closet.” Mateo raised a hand. “Not that I’m judging. Hey, I didn’t come out to my mom or my aunt till my dad died. My cousins knew, but Dad…nope, couldn’t do it.”

“Oh. Was he…”

“A bigot? Sort of. He tried to be open-minded, but he was from a strict Catholic Italian family. He had old-fashioned ideas and I was his only son, only kid…” Mateo waved dismissively. “It wouldn’t have ended well, but that’s old news. I’d rather talk about you brown-nosing the whole fucking town with bagels.”

I snort-laughed. “You’re an asshole, Cavaretti.”

“But you knew that,” he singsonged, a cocky grin tilting one corner of his mouth.

I hid my smile as I opened the bag of spaghetti. I plucked the lid off the pot of boiling water and lowered the heat, then took a handful of dried noodles and broke them in half. A choked gasp interrupted me. I spun toward a wide-eyed, apoplectic Mateo.

“What’s wrong?”

He grabbed the noodles from me, his mouth open in shock and dismay. “What do you mean, ‘what’s wrong’? You’re murdering spaghetti! You don’t break them in half. Stop. This is…sacrilege!”

I widened my eyes, wisely stepping aside as Mateo dumped the rest of the noodles into the pot, muttering in Italian. “They’re going to the same place and let’s face it, it’s easier to eat shorter pieces of spaghetti.”

Mateo’s deadpan stare was on point. “There is so much wrong with that sentence that I don’t know where to begin.”

I snickered. “Oh, come on.”

“Come on? Pasta is shaped as it’s supposed to be eaten. Breaking it like a heathen is disrespectful. You’re lucky my mom and my aunt didn’t see that.”

I raised my hands in surrender. “Lesson learned.”

“Hmph.” Mateo stirred the sauce, adding a smidge of salt.

“You speak Italian.”

He set the spoon down, checking his watch as he turned to face me. “Yeah. My mom was born there. Her family moved to California when she was thirteen, so she grew up speaking both and made sure I did too. Funny thing…my dad’s Italian was terrible.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, he tried but it was painful sometimes. And none of my cousins learned. After so many generations here, some things get lost and the definition of home changes. Let’s test these poor broken noodles.” Mateo declared them perfect and assembled two heaping bowls of spaghetti.

And damn, it was delicious.

We sat at the island and steered conversation toward neutral topics—the new mural at the lifeguard headquarters, rainfall this season, and my thwarted attempts at surfing.

“I spend more time getting tossed in waves than I do standing on the board,” I griped, twirling spaghetti around my fork. “It’s painful, but I swore I’d finally learn how to surf after I retired, and I’m not giving up.”

“It’s all about balance,” Mateo said matter-of-factly.

“You surf?”

“Yeah. I’ll come out with you sometime. Give you some pointers.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I bet you will. I’d rather not end up as shark chum.”

Mateo set a hand on his heart as if wounded. “I thought this was a truce. If so, you’re gonna have to trust me…just a little.”

He was right. And like it or not, I was more interested in him than ever. His strong family bonds, his culinary prowess, and…he could surf too? Yep, very interested.

“Okay.”

Mateo grinned. “Okay.”