Page 11 of Hello Goodbye Amore

“WHERE DO you usually eat?” Chase asked.

“There’s a lot around. In the center of the city, most of the restaurants there are designed around tourism. The ones here are for businesspeople.” He led Chase to a small restaurant with four tables. He loved this place and walked past the line of half a dozen people outside.

“Are we going to be able to get back in time?”

Antonello held the door and went back to one of the small tables against the side wall. “Sure. This is my table at lunch. I pay so it’s always available.” He sat down and motioned Chase to the other seat. Maria hurried over and greeted him with a kiss on each cheek.

“Ciao,” she said happily before greeting Chase the same way. Antonello smiled as Chase tensed a little, not quite sure what was happening.

“This is Chase, a friend of mine from college. He is working with us on a project.”

“Good. I bring you something excellent,” she said, switching to English when he did. Then she patted his cheek and hurried off.

“Does she kiss all her customers on the cheeks?” Chase asked.

Antonello smiled. “Of course not. Maria was my second nanny. She looked after me from the time I was eight until I was twelve and ready to go away to school. She met Luigi right after that. He was a chef in the city, and they opened this restaurant eight years ago. I keep a table here to support them and make sure I can get their cooking whenever I want it.”

“What are we getting?” Chase asked, looking around the cozy space.

“Whatever is good,” Antonello answered. “Whatever it is will be amazing. Maria was always really good in the kitchen. She used to sneak down and make me her special gnudi di spinaci whenever the cook was busy.” She returned with a bottle of wine and poured them each a glass and then hurried away before returning with two bowls of dumplings with spinach in a butter sauce.

Instantly Antonello was transported back to a time when he always knew he was cared for.

“Your favorite,” she said happily to Antonello, and Chase took a bite and moaned softly. “You like?” she asked, and Chase nodded, his eyes wide. Maria beamed. “I always make to get you to tell me your secrets.”

Antonello always felt like he belonged whenever he was here. This place and this woman exuded comfort and care to him.

“So what secrets did you tell her?” Chase asked, raising his eyebrows.

“The kind of things that were so important when you’re ten, like the fact that Pietro Brundo was bullying me at school. I was so ashamed. But as soon as I told Maria, I felt better, and she told me how to stand up to him.”

Chase turned to Maria. “What was your advice?”

She leaned over the table. “I told him to get friends together and give him taste of own medicine.” She smiled. “And it work.” She straightened up, standing tall. “You eat. I come back later.” She went to help other tables as Chase groaned once more.

“This is so good,” Chase said before covering his mouth with his hand. He swallowed, and that smile grew even wider. “Oh my God. Ricky would love this.”

Antonello ate, happy he’d brought Chase here. Maria stopped over a few more times to refill their wineglasses.

“I could never have wine with lunch at home.”

“I know. Americans are so prudish about some things. What does a glass or two of wine hurt? We aren’t going to get drunk, and wine goes with the food. What are we supposed to have, Coke? With this?” He shrugged and loved that Chase nodded across from him.

“If my boss found out…,” Chase whispered.

“Then we won’t tell him.” Antonello put his napkin on the table, and after saying goodbye to Maria and Luigi, they left and headed back to the office.

“You always manage to lead me into trouble,” Chase said.

Antonello chuckled because he was so right.

Antonello had thought of himself as untouchable in college.

He did everything he shouldn’t have, and he dragged Chase and Elaine along with him.

They always had a good time and wiggled out of their scrapes with little damage because Chase somehow always managed to talk their way out of it.

And the few times he’d failed, Antonello had slipped into Italian and played the “I don’t speak English” card.

“We had fun, yes?” Antonello said, knowing he certainly had.

Those years with Chase and his sister were the happiest he had ever had.

He still wished he had been more honest about himself and who he was.

He had loved both Chase and Elaine, but because he had been denying part of himself, he had let his love of Elaine go too far, and once he’d become intimately involved with her, he didn’t know how to back away without hurting her, especially since it had been Chase that he really wanted.

But leaving her for her brother would have devastated Elaine, and Antonello couldn’t have done it.

So, like many things in his life, he had done what he knew he had to do and kept his true feelings to himself.

Not that he could have acted on them anyway; his family would never have understood.

“We did,” Chase agreed softly, a wistful look in his eyes.

“But that was back in college.” His expression grew hard.

“Then you left, and Elaine and I had to pick up the pieces of our dreams and move on.” His steps grew more rigid.

“I don’t think it’s good for us to go over what happened.

We agreed to be professional and work together. ”

Antonello knew what he’d done, and if he had the chance, he’d like to think he’d do things differently.

Back then things had seemed so black and white, but maybe if he had tried harder, he could have figured out a way to have the life he wanted and make his family happy.

“I know what I did, and I wish that things would have been different.” He stopped just down the block from the office.

“I had to come back. I’m the heir to all of this… to hundreds of years of history.”

Chase put his hands on his hips. “I know that. I understand that part. What I don’t get is why you weren’t honest with us in the first place.

You knew your family history and what was expected—you had to.

Instead, we made plans and purchased things to start the business.

We had commitments that all fell apart when you left.

Elaine and I didn’t have the resources alone to get things started.

You left, and we had to take everything apart. ” Chase shot daggers at him.

“I didn’t understand all that. I was a kid away at college, and I had started to dream my own dreams. Maybe I was foolish to think they could come true.

I was told what they expected and given a choice.

Come home immediately or we will cut you off.

Just like that, I was ordered back.” He shook his head because it sounded so feeble, even to him.

Chase was right. He should have known, or at the very least have figured that shit out.

He knew the traditions in his family, but like all kids, he thought the rules didn’t apply to him.

“I’m not going to say that I didn’t have a choice, because I did.

I could have stayed in the US and walked away from my family… .” He swallowed hard.

“I don’t think I could have done that either.

But that doesn’t excuse that you should have known that you couldn’t stay.

You should have been honest with us. And when you left, you didn’t just leave Elaine and me in a lurch because of the business—you left us…

you left Elaine, and she—” Chase cut himself off midsentence, and Antonello wondered what he had been about to say. “You broke her heart.”

Antonello knew he had hurt her. “I know, and what am I supposed to do about it?” He had been a stupid kid and acceded to what his family demanded of him.

Had he done the right thing? Probably, yes, but he had most definitely done things the wrong way, and now he was going to regret how he had left for the rest of his life.

Chase shrugged. “There’s nothing you can do now. She’s gone, and any chance you had to make things right with her is long past.” He glared fire at Antonello, and frankly Antonello couldn’t blame him. He had been stupid back then in so many ways, and now he was stuck with the consequences.

“If you really want to go there, then judging by the fact that she had Ricky with someone else, she must have gotten over me.” All this angst and emotion was beginning to seem over the top.

Yeah, he had left, and Chase kept blaming him for Elaine’s broken heart, but there had to be something more to it.

He had also stepped out on a business that hadn’t even gotten off the ground.

As far as he was concerned, it had just been in the idea and formation stage, but like so many things back then, he had misread the situation.

Chase seemed a little startled and paled as he blinked.

“What is it? What am I missing?” Antonello pressed.

“I know there is something.” Chase cleared his throat, speechless for a few seconds, which made Antonello even more curious.

“You’re going to have to tell me eventually.

We’re going to be working together for months.

Do you want whatever is at the heart of this hanging over us for all that time? ”

Chase nodded. “Let’s just say that Elaine wasn’t the only one you left behind who loved you.” He turned and quickly strode down the walk to the building. By the time Antonello got over the shock of what he’d heard, Chase had pulled open the door and disappeared from sight.