Page 16 of A Winter Wedding Adventure
He choked. ‘No! Alessandra is like a sister to me. But perhaps that makes it worse. She’s always been my biggest supporter and she’s moving on in life… without me.’
Kira’s only reaction was a brief, assessing glance. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t hang onto her.’
He couldn’t help laughing, even though that earned him another doubtful look. ‘That’s your advice? Don’t be attached to anyone because they might leave you?’
She made a low, disgruntled sound in her throat. ‘I didn’t really mean it like that, but it’s good advice anyway, isn’t it?’
‘You don’t have friends, then?’ he asked, provoking her on purpose.
‘I just choose my friends carefully,’ she said, her mouth tight, and because he wasn’t wise the way she was, he was immediately thinking about earning the right to be called her friend. ‘So all of this makes you less than happy about the wedding? Does the singing make you nervous?’
‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘I want to do that for her. It’s a sort of… blessing. It’s the one thing I do very well.’
Her non-committal nod amused him. ‘You still sound about as excited as I am – which is not very much.’
He nodded. ‘For one, I don’t get on very well with Joe, as much as that upsets Alessandra, and worse…’ He belatedly realised he could be opening Pandora’s box by bringing this up. But he didn’t think he could hold it in anyway. ‘I… dated the bridesmaid.’
‘Mattia, you sly dog.’
It took him a second to understand what she’d said and her teasing tone registered before anything else – and the way she slightly mispronounced his name that he rather liked. But he managed a mock-peevish scowl.
‘Is it going to be awkward?’
‘You have to ask?’ he replied, his voice high. ‘We got together because of Alessandra and now…’ Even Alessandra couldn’t always bend the world to her will.
‘She dumped you, then?’
‘Yes, but it was my fault,’ he mumbled. The more time passed, the more he was convinced of that.
‘What, you couldn’t keep it in your pants?’
‘I did not. How could you even think?—?’
‘Chill out, opera boy. You basically apologised for her dumping you. Unless you cheated, maybe you should give her some of the blame and not beat yourself up?’
She spoke so casually, dropped that drawled nickname – which he chose to interpret as an endearment – and seemed to defuse all his wound-up emotions with a single word. But the situation was more complicated than she made out.
‘I offended her.’
‘Like, you insulted her taste in music or you denied the holocaust?’ Kira asked warily.
‘Neither! I would never do either of those! I just…’ Again, Kira’s outrageous turn of phrase made it easier to get the next part out. ‘She bites her fork when she eats,’ he explained, flinching inwardly at the memory.
‘Is that a euphemism for something?’ Kira asked quizzically.
‘No! Her spoon too. It was like fingernails scraping on the blackboard! Every meal!’
She nodded slowly in dawning comprehension, her lips compressing in thought. He wondered if she realised how expressive her lips were, given the cardboard face she put on for the world. ‘And you told her this.’ It was a guess, not a question. ‘Does she know about your… sensitivity?’
‘The official name is misophonia and yes, she knew. We knew each other for a long time before we dated. It just never bothered me that way before.’
‘Did you ask her to try to stop?’
‘I told her it seemed to be getting worse the longer we were together. She interpreted it as a way to break up with her. She was really hurt.’
‘Did you intend it that way?’
‘Of course not! We’d been together nearly a year. I thought… I thought that was it; we were together.’ That sounded naive now he had to admit that to Kira, but she’d probably already worked out he was a little naive.
