Page 13 of The Summer You Were Mine

“Weren’t those your favorite?” Yes. They were her favorite. She loved the tart strawberry coating on the creamy vanilla center. When she was little she loved to look in the mirror after eating one because it left her lips pink and she could pretend it was makeup.

“I don’t remember.”

“Oh,” said Cris, crossing his arms and taking a step closer.

His thick forearms pushed his biceps into volleyballs and strained against his T-shirt sleeves.

Ellie felt the muscles in her jaw get tighter.

She wondered about the conversation she’d overheard him having with Simone.

And what was with the disguise? He looked like he was in the witness protection program.

She was next in line but didn’t move, and the girl behind the counter looked at her expectantly.

“Are you going to order anything?” he asked. She did not turn around.

“ Ciao, ” she said, stepping up to the counter in answer. She asked for bruschetta and a bottle of mineral water. The girl put down a ticket and invited her to sit while it was being made. It would only take a minute, she said.

“Or I can wait and bring both orders together?” the girl asked, raising an eyebrow at Cris. Oh no.

“ No, no. Non siamo insieme. ” Ellie plucked the ticket off the counter and looked for an empty table.

They were most definitely not together. She found the only available table at the farthest end of the terrace and sat with her back to the café.

She pulled her laptop out of her tote and checked for a Wi-Fi connection.

There were probably a million emails to answer.

Even if there weren’t, she would make it seem like she had a million emails to answer.

Maybe Cris would eat somewhere else. Or not eat at all.

Or maybe a strong wind would carry him off the wooden deck and onto a passing ship heading to Spain.

“Can I sit here?” Cris strode around the other side of the table and stood with his hand on the back of the plastic chair across from her. “It’s the only empty table.”

Ellie kept her face down. “As you like,” she said, not excited to give him more of a view of her than he’d already had today.

She wasn’t sure if it was worse that Cris was sitting at her table or that she had no emails aside from summer sale announcements from Zara and COS.

She’d made a list of people that had reached out to her in the last year to be guests on the show and organized them in order of who might be the least likely to block her if she called back.

The top spot was going to either the guy trying to make cricket a thing in the United States by making a documentary called Around the Wicket or the sweeper from the Portland Timbers soccer team who’d opened a gluten-free bakery.

It was looking grim, to say the least. Despite the shade of the umbrella, Ellie was feeling woozy. She really needed to eat.

“ Eccoci. ” The girl placed a beautiful plate of food in front of Ellie and something not at all beautiful in front of Cris. Ellie leaned in slightly to see a thin gray line of something bumpy between the halves of a smooth, almost shiny bun.

“What is that?” Her forehead scrunched. She really couldn’t help herself. She had never seen anything like that served here.

“I think it’s a burger.”

“A hamburger?” she asked. “It doesn’t look like a hamburger.”

“It’s just thin,” he said, pulling off the top of the bun to reveal the anemic-looking patty.

“Why is it gray?”

“It’s not gray. It’s grilled.”

“Sure,” she said, cutting into a slab of toasted bread with chopped tomatoes, basil, and olive oil.

It was a simple dish, but there was nothing like the Genoese basil and Ligurian olive oil.

Ellie felt the hunger fog lift from her head and sat back in her chair, looking out over the sea.

Current company not included, everything was perfect—the sun, the waves, the breeze.

She let herself glance at him from behind her sunglasses.

He had cut the weirdly flat bun in half and was attempting to bring his lunch to life with some salt, pepper, and tiny packets of mustard.

“Can you pass the napkins?” he asked, pointing to the metal container on her side of the table. Without looking, she shoved the box toward him with one finger.

“ Ragazzi! Good! I’m glad you’re eating something.” Graziella and Lucrezia cruised by the table on their way back down to the beach, no doubt for the post-lunch, post-Burraco, afternoon swim.

“ Cos’è? ” asked Lucrezia, pointing a manicured fingernail about a quarter of an inch away from the odd formation on Cris’s dish.

“I ordered a hamburger.”

“But why?” she asked. There was no correct answer to this question, of course. “ Sbagliato, ” she said, and there was a great puffing of lips and many head shakes from the two ladies.

“Anyway, Cristiano,” Graziella began, placing her hand on Cris’s shoulder. “Your grandfather told me about your problem. I am sorry to hear this, but you don’t have to sit on your hands about it.”

“Well, I don’t know that I would call it a problem yet,” said Cris, his eyes darting from Ellie to Lucrezia. “It’s just some guy making stuff up.”

“I would!” Graziella continued. “You are a big star and people love to see a big star fall. If you didn’t care, maybe you wait and see how bad it gets. But that doesn’t seem like you, Cristiano,” she said.

“Grandma, maybe this is a conversation you would want to have without me here,” said Ellie, trying to keep a lid on her curiosity. Was it actually possible that both she and Cris were having major personal crises in the middle of all of this Circus Maximus?

Graziella pointed with her chin at the rest of the beach club. “Who here is a stranger?” she asked. Lucrezia made a clicking sound with her mouth, echoing the sentiment. Privacy had limited value with this crew.

“Thank you, Graziella,” said Cris. “It’s very very sweet of you to worry.”

Lucrezia touched Graziella on the arm and her eyebrows went up behind her shades. It was time for the ladies to exit.

“Well, I’ll leave you two kids to your lunch. Buon appetito! ” Graziella squeezed Ellie’s shoulder and turned to Cris, pointing at his plate. “I have ginger candy in my bag. It’s very good for stomachaches. Let me know if you need one. Okay, we’re off.”

Ellie watched as the ladies headed down the stairs to the beach, unsure what to say next.

A giant white seagull lifted off from the peak of the café roof and flapped its way toward the sea, then dipped and rolled toward its mates and became part of the clan again.

Should she even be curious about what was going on with Cris?

She’d avoided that for years with zero difficulty.

Then again, it was pretty easy to not google someone, but it was an entirely different story when news arrived tableside in a hibiscus-print bikini and a raffia tote bag.

Maybe she should stop thinking and let the conversation happen naturally.

She turned back to Cris, who was staring at her, an expression on his face that matched the one from the time it took him three days to tell her he lost her friendship bracelet playing Calcetto. She sighed. Sure. Just stop thinking.