Page 56 of Say It Isn't So

Bianca:My father doesn’t approve of anything. If it were up to him, I’d still be a virgin and wouldn’t marry until I’m forty. So I’d done what any rational teenage girl in my shoes would’ve done—snuck boys in and out.

Knox:You better hope you don’t have a daughter one day because she’s going to be just like you, and you’re going to have your hands full.

As soon as I hit send on the text, I reeled.Holy cow, I just talked about offspring. What is wrong with me?I’d tell you what was wrong with me—everything. I pulled on the back of my neck and groaned as the three dots appeared and disappeared, appeared and disappeared. Until finally they never came back.

We weren’t in a relationship. Not really.

You wish you were in a relationship. And you would be, too, if you could just decide between Rina and Bianca.

Silencing that little voice, I calculated how bad this was.

Calculating. . . calculating. . .

And the results were in—it was bad.

Do you know how many women I had been with who had talked about babies on a first or second date and my body had quite literally broken out in a cold sweat?

I mean, babies were the kiss of death to a new. . . well, whatever it was we were doing here. We were just getting to know each other and exploring our feelings.

Good job, Knox, maybe you’d like to tell her: no worries, though, because when you have that baby, I’ll be the father and we’ll figure it out together.

Even to myself I was sounding like a weirdo.

Finally, she responded.

Bianca:I always hoped I’d have a boy.

A boy.

A knock on the door had my head turning so fast I could barely process that piece of information.

Knox:Someone’s at my door. I’ll be in Milan soon and then we can see each other.

I opened the door and was surprised to see—

“Rina,” I acknowledged her. “What are you doing here?”

The corner of her lips tugged upward as she stared at me. She was holding a bag and raised it in the air. “Can I come in? Since we’re both still here, I thought we could make the most of it. And I brought sustenance.”

I stared at her for a moment and saw the vulnerability in her eyes. She came off as confident, but I knew better. She was afraid of rejection, just like the rest of us. And right now, she was afraid I’d turn her away. Which I wouldn’t do. I wasn’t that guy.

I moved away from the door and let her come in.

“What do you have there?”

She smiled sweetly. “Lunch.”

I cocked a brow and must’ve wrinkled my nose because she came over and tapped the top of it. My eyes followed her as she took a seat next to me on the bed.

Dumping the bag on the floor as she pulled out the contents—a plastic to-go container with food—she explained, “They call it a ploughman’s lunch. It’s like a cold platter.” Pointing to each item as she listed them, she told me, “Bread and butter, ham, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, pickled onions, and—”

“Pickled onions?” I placed a hand over hers. “You hate anything pickled.”

Now she scrunched her nose. I used to love it when she did that, often kissing where it scrunched up. And then, of course, we’d end up just kissing. There wasn’t much need for talking those days. “I do hate pickled onions, but I remember you like them.” As she opened the container and gave me a fork, she double-checked. “You do still like them, right?”

I nodded, forked one and put it in my mouth. “Definitely.” I just wished I could say the same about Rina, but we already knew where I stood—on the corner ofwhat do I doandwhy me.

She began eating, too, selecting a piece of cheese first. “I don’t know how you eat them. They burn my throat. All that vinegar.”

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