Page 115 of When Love Gives You Lemons
“More noise? Really, Nonna?”
She smacks me upside the head. “Did I stutter? Disgraziato!”
“All right, all right, Madonna mia!”
Sienna delicately clutches her belly. She gives me a knowing look as if I caught her doing something I’m not supposed to see, and her eyes plead.
My lips are sealed. Though, the Coven collectively is far more perceptive, so this should be an interesting Christmas.
Nonna shoos me down the hallway.
My bedroom door is cracked open, and the light is already on.
Nudging it open, the first thing I see is Ricky holding a small present.
“What—” I throw my bag to the floor and sprint into his arms, jumping on him and wrapping my legs around his waist.
Burying my face into the crook of his neck, I melt into him. “Nice cover.”
“Yeah, I had to get off the phone before you came into the house.” He nuzzles me back and squeezes tight. “You said you missed my face. How much?”
I pull back. “More than you know.” I kiss every square inch of his beautiful face.
He’s beaming, his dreamy brown eyes so full.
Sliding out of his arms and back to the floor, I hold my arms out. “Present?”
He laughs. “Some things never change. So, hear me out. I’d been racking my brain forever thinking of a way to come into myown as a woodworker. Find my voice. I still don’t totally know what I want to focus on, but I’m leaning more toward custom art and more practice pieces whose intention is to make a difference.” Between his fingers dangles a small wooden lemon carved from oak to resemble a Sfusato Amalfitano, the bulbous and beautiful Amalfi lemon. At its bottommost tip, it’s painted yellow with flecks of metallic gold and sealed with epoxy, resembling the ceramics we saw everywhere in Italy. At the top is a thin white gold chain. He hands it to me.
On the left side is a small hinge, nearly invisible, and a latch on the other. I open it, and inside is a tiny packet of lemon tree seeds, and an excerpt of one of the poems I found in his journal, which he let me keep, repurposed:
“If love is a tree
Who planted its seed?”
It’s a perfect reinvention and reinterpretation of us, his past turmoil and our ability to rebuild. All it took was for both of us to tend to each other, help each other grow.
“You inspired me with the whole @FoodForChange stuff,” he says. “And I wanted to help. So I figured maybe we can sell these, with all different seeds since you can’t grow a lemon tree in the Northeast, for example, and donate all the proceeds to the Avello farm, and others like it in Italy?” He’s bouncing on his heels. “And—”
“I love that idea!”
“You do?” He’s surprised, as if he thought he’d have to sell me.
“We’re a team, I’m always behind you.” My nose grazes his. “Except Iammad at you for not telling me you were coming home.”
He pecks my lips, refusing my ire with his cuteness. “What fun would that have been? I missed you too much, Field. You didn’t think I would spend one more Christmas without you, did you?”
“You played a good game.”
He tips an invisible hat to me. “One last game.”
I move to kiss him, but he jerks away.
“I’ve never done this before . . . kissed adude.” His voice is husky and low.
“Neither have I.” My words are hazy, lost in a dream of a Christmas four years ago. “You wanna kiss a dude?”
He grabs a fistful of my shirt and pulls me into him.
