Page 50 of The Pumpkin Spice Proposal
In case someday we wanted to remember that for a little while, we’d been a family.
And maybe that was worth something, even if it couldn’t last forever.
CHAPTER17
Mario
My cottage lookedlike someone had detonated a bomb in a sporting goods store. Half-packed boxes scattered everywhere, racing memorabilia in precarious stacks. And in the middle of it all—a bare coffee table, conspicuously empty where that ridiculous pipe cleaner ring had once sat.
Three days since the gala. Three days of unanswered calls to Lily’s blocked number. Three days of the entire town treating me like I’d personally canceled Christmas.
Mrs. Wilkins had crossed the street to avoid me yesterday. Mrs. Wilkins, who once brought me soup when I’d sneezed in the grocery store, and lectured me about wearing a scarf in the chilly October weather.
The aggressive knock on my door could only be one person…
Ben didn’t wait for permission—just marched in using his spare key like he owned the place.
“Madonna mia,” he said, taking in the chaos. “You look like you wrestled a bear and lost.”
“Charming. Get out.”
“Can’t. Promised Mom I’d perform an intervention.” He nudged a box of trophies with his foot. “What’s all this? Finally, packing up your glory days?”
“Maybe.”
“The Italy job?”
I shrugged, which was apparently answer enough.
“Right.” Ben’s eyes swept the chaos of half-packed boxes before landing on the bare coffee table.
“That explains why you’re sitting here staring at empty space, like maybe that ridiculous pipe cleaner ring might magically show up.”
My jaw tightened.
“She took it with her, didn’t she?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “That explains everything.”
“Ben—”
“Olivia asked about you yesterday.”
The words hit my chest like a perfectly aimed punch. “How is she?”
“Heartbroken. Confused. Really, really angry.” His voice dropped. “She destroyed the Italian part of her heritage project. Tore it up and threw it in the trash.”
I sank onto the couch, the image of her small hands ripping apart weeks of careful work hitting me harder than any crash I’d ever walked away from.
“I never meant?—”
“I know.” Ben’s voice softened. “But road to hell, good intentions, all that. Kid doesn’t care about your intentions when her heart’s in pieces.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I stood up, needing to move, to do something other than sit in this disaster zone of my own making.
“You think I don’t lie awake replaying every moment, every promise I made without thinking? But what was the alternative? Stay and pretend I know how to be a stepfather? A partner? A small-town guy who fixes toilets and goes to PTA meetings?”
“You were already doing those things.”
“No, I was playing house. There’s a difference.”
