“Sofia!” Mom calls from downstairs, interrupting my question. “Are you ready for pictures?”
Sofia hurriedly slaps on some lip gloss and fluffs out her long, wavy blonde hair. She juts out her hip, pouting at her reflection in the mirror before snapping her hand in the air. “Hell yeah, I am! Come on, guys.”
“I can’t take pictures with this big mark on—"
But Sofia isn’t listening. She grabs my hand and pulls me out of the room, dragging me along behind her as she sails down the stairs. We round the corner in the foyer and I recall Massimo’s heated gaze on me only minutes earlier in the exact same spot. A shiver scurries down my back, butterflies swarming in my belly at the memory.
Sofia stops short, and since I’m still in my reverie, I slam right into her back.
I look past her to get a glimpse of the reason for the shocked expression on her face.
“Wade?” she asks, taking a step toward a tall, lanky, high-school-aged guy with glasses. “What are you doing here?” She peeks around him, her brows furrowed. “With your backpack?”
He stutters an unintelligible response.
“Who’s Wade?” I hiss to Maria who is standing next to me.
She makes a heart with her hands and nods toward him.
“Boyfriend?” I mouth.
“He wishes,” she mouths back.
He sweeps a hand through his light brown hair and looks around like someone is about to leap at him and pummel him to the ground.
Nervous is an understatement.
I narrow my eyes as he tries again to get out the words.
“I, ah, I know you’re having a party today and it’s your birthday and all, so I just wanted to bring you a present. It’s okay, I’m not upset that I wasn’t invited. But we’re friends…” His voice trails off for a second, his eyes wide with fear. “Right?”
Sofia’s jaw drops and hits the floor when he unzips the pack and hands her a wrapped package. “Yeah. Sure, we are. That was, um, really sweet of you.”
He smiles, his face lighting up. “I hope you like it.”
I give her a nudge and she fires off a glare in my direction before turning back to Wade. “You know, it would be great if you came back for the party.”
And suddenly, his smile fades and his jaw tenses.
Now it’s my turn to furrow my brow.
“Thanks, um, I’ll think about it,” he mumbles. “I have to go. Happy birthday.”
He rushes past us and pushes past a few of the caterers who are on their way back inside.
“Sof, what the heck was that all about?”
She gives me a half-shrug. “He’s just a guy from my class.”
“Is it just me or was it weird that he came here looking for you like that?” Maria asks.
“A little weird,” I say, still trying to read Sofia’s expression. “But what’s weirder was his reaction when you asked him to come back later.”
“Totally,” Maria agrees.
“Sofia,” Mom appears in the doorway of the kitchen and waves us toward the living room. “I want to get a few pictures of you with the cake.”
Sofia darts forward, shoving me right smack against my father’s chest in her haste to get in front of the camera.
“Dad,” I gasp, jumping backward. “I was just coming to see you.”
Maria and Sofia disappear into the throngs of caterers scurrying around the kitchen and I’m left staring at my father. I twist a thick strand of hair around my finger. “Mom said you wanted to talk.”
My heart clenches when I meet his troubled gaze, his worn face is pinched with an emotion he almost never expresses.
Pure unadulterated fear.
I’ve missed all the time we used to spend together — the sparring in our home gym, the early morning breakfasts we’d share when my sisters would snooze until almost noon, the treks into Manhattan on weekends to visit all of our favorite museums since we both love art so much.
Sometimes I wish I’d never seen what I did.
Sometimes I wish that pedestal had never crashed to the ground.
Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
He takes my arm, leading me into the conservatory toward his office and closing the door. “Kristina, I know things have been rocky between us and I want to fix them. But—”
“I’m not happy about the way things have been between us, and I really want to make it better,” I say, interrupting him. “I don’t want this to hang between us anymore. I miss you so much.”
“I want that more than anything, Kristina.” Dad puts his hand on the small of my back, a shuddering sigh escaping his lips. “But right now, there’s something important that we need to discuss. I didn’t want to do this now but I’m afraid there isn’t time to—”
A loud crash jolts me and I jump backward into my father. He pulls open the door, his eyes darting left and right, a look of alarm seeping into his features.
Dad and I rush back toward the front of the house and into the kitchen where all of the staff is congregated, working in a frenzy to clean up the mess. I let out an unsteady breath, collapsing against the doorway.
An inexplicable feeling of anxiety hovers overhead and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.
Today is supposed to be a happy day.
I’m home with my family whom I’ve missed terribly.
We’re celebrating a special occasion.
And Dad and I are actually talking again.
So why do I feel like I’ve been swallowed up by a dark cloud of doom and gloom?
“Sofia and Maria, go into the living room and get ready for pictures,” Mom says in an exasperated voice. “There is cake all over the floor and I don’t want you tracking it around the house.”
That beautiful cake.
It survived twice only to finally perish on our kitchen floor.
“Let me help you clean it,” I say, grabbing a wad of paper towels and falling to my knees next to the sweet casualty.
“No, you’re wearing white. Get inside. We’ll take care of it.”
I back away, my eyes tangling with my father’s. A flicker of fear glimmers in the depths of his blue eyes causing that sense of dread to crash over me once again. His lips turn upward but the smile doesn’t match the worrisome expression etched into his features. “Go,” he mouths with a nod.
I wring my hands together and slowly walk into the living room where my sisters are flipping through Netflix shows.
“I can’t believe my cake is destroyed,” Sofia moans. “Do we have any boxes of mix in the pantry? I can’t have a party without a cake.”
I sneak a glance back at the activity in the kitchen, angst snaking through my insides. He was about to tell me something…something he clearly didn’t want anyone else to hear. And judging from the look on his face, it didn’t seem like good news. “Don’t worry. I can run out and get one from the supermarket in a little while.”
Sofia scrunches up her pert nose. “The supermarket? Blech. Those cakes are total crap!”
“Well, I’m sorry, princess,” I snap. “Sometimes you have to be a little bit flexible when things don’t go according to pl—”
An ear-shattering explosion erupts from only a few feet away, the force knocking us all to the hardwood floor.