Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Beside me, Dasha was slowly relaxing. The women in our family had that ability. To make you just immediately feel like part of the fold, like you’d been there all along.
“Oh, you baked,” Valley said, looking at the pie in Dasha’s hands. “Mom’s gonna love you. Come on. Let’s go give it to her.”
With that, she was led away from me and taken into the kitchen.
“Don’t worry. Traveler is in there,” Massimo said, speaking of August’s woman. “She’ll make sure Dasha is comfortable. Whoa, little man,” Mass said, reaching down to scoop up Judah—Nino and Claire’s toddler—right before he made a grab for one of Ma’s ceramic vases. He flipped the toddler upside down, getting little squeals of glee out of him. “Oh, I know that look,” Mass said as he swung Judah side to side for a second before flipping him and setting him back on his feet. “Picturing having one of your own already?”
“One… six…” I said, getting a laugh from Mass.
“She on the same page?”
“She was an only child. She’s excited to be part of a big family. And have one herself. Eventually.”
“Yo,” Dante said. He came up, passing beers around. “I got in touch with Mark Mallick. He said he can get the yard all fixed up at Phil’s old place. And he recommended someone to fix the foundation.”
It hadn’t been a hard decision to sell Phil’s place.
It was too small for us to even think of moving into it. Besides, everything Dasha owned was now in my place. Her cutesy little mugs were in the cupboards. Her bunny lamp was in the living room. The pink couch had made it into one of the extra bedrooms.
“I mean, chances are, we will have a little girl one day. We will need somewhere to sit and read to her. It’ll be perfect,” Dasha had said as the movers carried it up the steps.
But to sell Phil’s place, we had a lot of work to outsource. We’d personally gone in to remove all of the paperwork, wanting to go through it all to make sure nothing linked back to the cocaine, shipping containers, or storage units that were all now closed.
Dasha had also taken one of those singing fish plaques back to our house, keeping it in the garage—where she claimed she would always think of her uncle most.
“Hey, look,” Dasha said, coming out of the kitchen with a small plant held between her hands like her greatest treasure. “Your mom gave me one of her spider plant babies!”
She was fucking beaming, clearly seeing the offering like a representation of my mom’s approval. And it was. My mom didn’t give her plant propagations to just anyone.
“I did explain my limited plant skills, so she said she would pop in now and then to check on it.”
“Don’t let her fool you. That’s just an excuse for her to stop in and ask you when we’re going to be getting married.”
“I mean, it would have to be a spring wedding, wouldn’t it?” she asked, eyes going dreamy, and I just knew she was picturing the flowers, the table linens, the rustic barn venue she learned that Matteo ran.
“Spring sounds good to me,” I agreed, taking the plant as she passed it to me.
“I have to go help make the garlic knots.”
With that, she was gone, leaving Dante and Massimo smirking at me.
“Spring, huh?” Mass asked. “Guess you better start looking for a ring then.”
Dasha - 1 year
“Thank you so much for this,” I said as I approached Antony at the end of the hallway.
I’d spent the whole morning in the bridal suite with all of the Grassi women. It had been loud and full of laughter and so, so perfect.
We’d sipped champagne, pinned flowers to the hair of the flower girls and to the chests of the ring bearers. We put them in our own hair.
They helped me zip up my gown—white, of course, but it had a pretty pastel flower pattern as well.
When I’d mentioned to Santo roughly a year ago that I was picturing a spring wedding, I hadn’t exactly expected for it to be the very next spring. But now that it was here, it felt so right.
There was no reason to wait.
We’d both known our road was going to lead here eventually. Almost from the moment we’d met.
“Oh, sweetheart, you have nothing to thank me for,” Anthony said, offering me his arm. I slid mine into his and his free hand came up to hold my arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I never got to have a little girl of my own. Nothing makes me happier than to get to walk you down the aisle.”
I shot him a smile, my eyes watering.
My own family, small as it was, decided not to make the international trip for the wedding. And while I wasn’t surprised, I had to admit it stung. But the love of Santo’s family—soon to be called my own—was a balm. Soothing and healing.