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Matty eyes me because of course I said that out loud.

“Zia Gab is gonna spiral,” I say. Zia Gabriella is—how do I put this delicately?

—mildly obsessed with Topher. Like Ma and Zia Rosa, she’s a single Italian mother who lives and breathes for her kid, often telling people Topher is her best friend.

She’s got serious FOMO. It killed her when he moved out of New York, so she’s been trying to find a way to take her custom jewelry-making business on the road to follow him to LA, or wherever he ends up next.

She’d never say this out loud, but I don’t think Zia Gab likes the idea of sharing Topher with Sienna.

Which, for anyone who didn’t grow up in an Italian family, probably seems weird, but for us, it’s standard.

“I think she already is.” Matty elbows me, clueing me into the Coven arguing over Topher paying for everyone to fly to his wedding on a PJ.

Zia Gab hates how generous Topher is with his money.

As someone who grew up poor and on SNAP benefits, surrounded by poor extended family, if my wildly successful and rich-ass cousin wants to pamper us, why shouldn’t he? I would do the same if I had the means, in a heartbeat.

Zia Rosa throws her hands in the air and storms past us. “You two are unbelievable.” Then she mutters something in Italian—“Va funculo!”

Nonna hisses from inside the now-parked golf cart at the foot of the jet.

“Sorry, Ma.” Zia Rosa grabs hold of Nonna’s underarm with one hand to steady her as she hobbles out of the golf cart.

“I feel like royalty,” Nonna says, waving a cupped hand like the queen mother. “What the hell does my hair look like? I told the driver to slow down!” Firmly on the tarmac, she primps her coifed chestnut-brown pixie cut, voluminous and freshly dyed.

“You look gorgeous, Nonna.” I bend down to kiss her cheek.

She grabs my cheeks and squeezes. “Love you, kid.”

Matty, not to be outdone, does the same to Nonna’s opposite cheek, and, in an effort not to seem biased, Nonna grabs Matty’s face next. Rinse and repeat.

I grab my phone and start recording for @LemonAtFirst-Sight; a private jet is the exact opposite of “sustainability,” so it surely won’t win me the prize, but I won’t tag @FoodForChange.

I also doubt I’ll find much in a tourist destination about conservation, so the real contest-worthy content will most likely happen once I’m back in the States, post-wedding chaos. Hopefully.

I don’t have a plan for that yet. So . . .

Fingers crossed.

The lens starts on Nonna, then pans to Matty who sticks out his tongue and flexes his biceps before ascending the stairs up into the bowels of the private jet.

Which, ohmygod .

Flying private is a completely different world than flying with the unwashed masses of a regular airliner, and honestly if I sound like a privileged bitch, it’s because in this moment, after nearly eighteen years of being so poor it hurts, this feels like a small victory.

Large white leather couches facing inward line the walls of the jet, with a few rows of regular seats—and by regular, I mean massive La-Z-Boy recliner-looking monsters.

There are pillows and built-in champagne buckets and a massive TV in the center of the plane with state-of-the-art surround sound.

I could cartwheel down the center with how much space is here.

There’s a freaking bed, which I’m sure Nonna will claim.

I make sure to film every square inch; with a well-timed song, a spontaneous video that’s slightly (okay, majorly) off brand can do relatively decent numbers.

I also plan to find hidden-gem restaurants and eateries in Amalfi for the channel.

Right before I stop recording, everyone already seated waves right on cue.

I recognize virtually none of these people.

Except Sienna and Ricky’s older cousin, Benny Gorga, and his mom-slash-their-maternal-aunt, Francesca, who I know from countless Christmas Eves with the DeLucas.

Me and Ricky used to idolize Benny because he was so brazenly out he called himself a walking stereotype.

Everyone made fun of him because of his flamboyance, but I loved growing up seeing him live his truth.

Growing up, he was our gay sherpa, but after Ricky dumped me— breathe —I haven’t so much as liked a picture on Benny’s Instagram.

I wasn’t ready for the knot in my stomach from being this close to Ricky’s bloodline.

“Ohmygod, shut the cockpit!” Benny jumps up and rushes at me, wrapping his long-ass arms around me. “You’ve grown up, my little gayling! I’m sorry about you and my dumbass cousin.”

“Thanks, but I’m—I’m over it.” I quickly add, “ Him. I barely think about him anymore.”

Benny narrows his eyes. “To quote Jinkx Monsoon: ‘Delusion, convince yourself,’ ” he says, and Matty chokes out an incredulous laugh from behind us. “If you ask me, he’s still not over you. Definitely wasn’t at Christmas, or at—”

“You saw him at Christmas?”

Right as I’m about to probe Benny for more, Zia Gabriella bursts through the doors like Kuzco in The Emperor’s New Groove , shimmying, doing a cringy dance, and screaming, “Benvenuti al mio matrimonio Italiano!”

“It’s not your wedding, Gab,” Ma says.

Zia Gabriella ignores her and instead makes her way down the aisle to hug and greet everybody.

“Ma, relax,” I say. “It’s her big day.”

“You’re bad,” Zia Rosa chimes in.

“I just can’t deal with her.” Ma leans in. “Who are all these people? Besides you, Benny!” Ma and Benny hug. “You’ve grown up!” Then she moves on to Francesca.

Zia Gabriella claps, demanding attention.

“Does everybody know everybody?” She doesn’t wait.

“You all know me, Gabriella Limone.” My entire body crumples from secondhand embarrassment when she turns our last name into a showpiece.

“Topher’s mom! Mother of the groom!” She whoops, or raises the roof, or some other old-person move.

“If you don’t know my beautiful mother, Topher’s nonna. ”

“No name, just Nonna. Like Beyoncé,” I add.

Topher and Sienna’s friends laugh.

It’s clear nobody quite knows what to do—do they stand up and greet the matriarch of the Lemon family, or wave awkwardly from their cushy seats? The deer-in-headlights of it all makes me chuckle.

“I’m crying,” Benny says. “This is—”

“ So much,” Matty adds.

“An epic start to a wildly unnecessary destination wedding!” Benny says.

After introducing the Lemon clan, Zia Gab goes around the rest of the jet.

“The whole guest list is here. Well, almost!” She starts with the two other groomsmen on Topher’s side, grabbing the broad shoulders of a blond-haired white guy so hot my nonexistent ovaries burst. “This is Tyler Dell, Topher’s freshman-year roommate at Cornell, and”—she moves on to the guy across the aisle, yet another smokeshow, tall, dark, and douchey with a buzzcut—“Trav Ridgewell the Third, who went to Cornell but didn’t room with you boys, right?

But they were in the same circle. Topher may not have lasted at an Ivy, but the friendships he built did! ”

“I should play a triumphant instrumental as she does this,” Benny quips.

“I’d like to play any music with Tyler,” I say.

“Or Trav,” Matty adds.

“They’re devastatingly straight, boys, and far too old for you both,” Benny says.

Zia Gabriella then introduces Sienna’s second cousin Jenni Lee, a two-names-at-all-time law student who looks like an airbrushed model.

“What the hell is she doing here?” I whisper to Matty.

Jenni Lee DeLuca and her dad, a local conservative politician who is Sienna and Ricky’s father’s first cousin (I hope you’re keeping up because this is confusing!), moved to the neighborhood when Ricky and I were really young.

Her mom, an author of “inspirational romance” (aka super religious), left her dad for a younger man, and it was the scandal of the century in our small Hudson Valley town.

And Jenni Lee, who became her father’s protégé, leveraged the sympathy vote to win student body president as a high school senior touting a “No Labels” message to bring “all students” together.

She claimed to be the “A” in LGBTQIA + , but after Jenni Lee swept the election, she wrote an op-ed in the school newspaper about how “A” meant “abstinent ally” and ended up campaigning the school board to cut funding to the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, get books with any queer or “nonreligious” themes in the school library pulled from circulation, and went so far as to support a nearby school district’s decision to kick a genderqueer student out of their high school musical.

That was big news around the Hudson River towns.

It seemed she had a lot of support from parents who thought exposure to “mature content” was harmful to teens.

I knew she was bad news. She always gave me the ick, and I never understood how Sienna and Ricky were related to her.

I do a sweep to make sure her father isn’t on board, but Ma whispers, “Don’t worry, the bigot isn’t coming. He’s on the campaign trail. Governor .”

A shiver runs down my spine. Good god, save us.

Ma elbows me to be quiet.

Zia Gab then announces, “Jenni Lee and Trav started dating last year after meeting through Topher. Isn’t that just wonderful?” Zia Gab makes a kissing motion with her hands that’s borderline gross.

Jenni Lee wastes no time rushing to my side and telling me she follows me on Clock.

“Last time I saw you, you were a kid! Now you’re spicy on Clock.

” She releases a honk laugh, referring to content I filmed with Matty, both of us shirtless but wearing aprons, and cooking with Nonna. It was a joke video, but it blew up.

I don’t smile or give her anything.

She clears her throat. “Dumb food pun. I don’t mean it in a bad way; lots of gay guys get spicy online.”

“Wholesome family content,” I say casually. “Right?”

Her smile tightens as she hums. “Not exactly the word I would use. It’s a shame. You could use your platform for good . Appeal to . . .” She chooses her words carefully. “More people.”

My chest rises and falls rapidly, in anger, but I won’t make a scene with one of Sienna’s bridesmaids, so I bury it, decide not to engage further.

I’m enlightened or whatever. What she’s saying is that I should appeal to straight viewers.

Growing up in a more conservative old-school Italian suburb, even in blue New York, which isn’t so blue outside the city, I’ve had to contend with that mentality of having to curb my gayness for others.

But my art is mine . My space. If you don’t get it, it’s not for you, Jenni Lee.

She must register my irritation, because her eyes calculate a way out. Then she smiles sweetly, mechanically, like a politician. It’s unnerving. “How excited are you for Sienna’s big day?”

“Very. I’m going to, uh. . .” I hitch my thumb and swerve away from her.

Moving on.

“She still gives me the ick,” Matty says under his breath, and I nod in agreement.

The final girl is the last of Sienna’s bridesmaids, with a fabulous hot-pink blowout, the fiercest fifties-style cat eye mint-green eyeglasses, clad in a ratty old band tee she obviously thrifted.

Her makeup is beyond flawless, and while she definitely stands out among Topher and Sienna’s bridal party, she’s also by far the coolest. Monroe Cooper, Sienna’s college roommate at FIT while Sienna studied fashion merchandizing.

An expectant flight attendant materializes.

“If we can all get seated and buckle up, the pilot is almost ready.” The flight attendant is tall with dark hair pulled back in a tight bun.

In a navy-blue blazer and tailored slacks, she walks around the cabin handing out hot towels before taking drink orders.

“When do we take off?” Matty asks after ordering a rum and coke and getting turned down because the manifest revealed his age.

“We’re waiting on two more passengers,” the attendant responds.

“Two more? Who else are we—”

My words dissolve like foam when I see him round the corner—

Ricky DeLuca.

Reader , when I tell you I nearly pass out . . . Woof. Though I’m not sure if it’s from the surprise of seeing him, or from how he takes my breath away.

Cliché, I know, I get it. Relax, I’m a red-blooded himbo with an increasing rush of blood to my dick and heart all at once. But if you saw what I’m seeing, you’d get it!

Effortless charisma; he’s the most confident guy on the planet in loose blue jeans that hug his waist and a V-cut tank top that reveals how muscular he’s gotten as a woodworker’s apprentice.

His biceps could act as flotation devices should the plane go down.

His face—gone is the smooth, clean-shaven boy I knew a year ago, replaced by scruff.

He’s grown out his dark hair so long he looks like a heartthrob in those old magazines from the 1990s Ma keeps stored in the garage.

It’s effortless and cool in front of his eyes, and ridiculously hot, especially when he tucks it behind his ears.

The earth stops rotating.

He turns and catches my gaze, his mouth parting slightly.

I’ve bulked up a lot over the last year thanks to spending time at the gym with Matty.

My pasta body has some musculature to it now.

Add the blond scruff to the mix, and I’m no longer the soft, unshaped doughy kid he left on the beach.

If that’s true, then why do I suddenly feel like that kid again, fragile and alone, needing his affection?

Ricky stops dead in the entry; his nostrils flare, and a stony gaze falls over his face.

He looks right through me.

I’m frozen in place as he steps aside and, in slow motion, another guy comes up behind him and drapes his arms around Ricky’s neck, kissing his cheek.

Ricky proceeds to introduce everyone to Cam Wallace.

His boyfriend .