Chapter 17

I stared at the phone, feeling the blood drain from my face. Six years since he called me last, and that was a quick one-minute congratulations on graduation day. He had tumbled over the words in a rush, as if he had a few minutes between events and wanted to check this off the list. Check me off the list. Jillie launched into adulthood? Check. The youngest fleeing the nest? Check and done.

Except I hadn’t fled the nest, and I wasn’t even his youngest anymore. I stuck around my childhood home while my father remarried and started a new family with two sons. Alexis had told me about that, how he gave her a huge check and told her to get lost, essentially. The reason behind her backpacking trip around the world. Even now, her feelings ran so deep that she could barely talk about him.

And now he was calling me.

My fingers hovered over the screen. DAD. A title of endearment, a role that he hadn’t earned. Biologically, yes, but not in the ways that mattered. Taking care of housing and food and then generally leaving us alone for Mom to raise.

We go after the people we love, I had told Mom. But she didn’t love him, and he didn’t love her. There was nothing left holding them together but us, and we weren’t enough to keep him there anymore.

MISSED CALL, the screen read. I felt a spike of panic followed by an even bigger wave of relief.

“Is something wrong?” Matteo leaned over to see the screen.

I slammed my phone against my chest. Not that he couldn’t know about Dad, but more that I wasn’t ready to talk about him. Our last minutes together felt tainted enough.

“I’m fine. Just a dropped call, but I’ll call them back later.” Or not. As in, never in twenty lifetimes.

“Do you not have service yet? You can use my phone.” He slid his hand into his pocket to retrieve it.

“No, it works. I just want to enjoy you while I have you.” I shoved my phone into my pocket and snuggled up against him, sighing in contentment as his arm settled around me. Pulling me closer. He teased my height—or lack of it—but it meant I fit perfectly under the crook of his arm and beneath his chin, even with the bouncing of the boat on the waves.

My phone buzzed. Not the single buzz of a text, but the double buzz of a voicemail.

M aybe there was an emergency. But Mom was already gone, which meant the last two people in the rubble of our family were my sisters. If something happened to one of them, the other would have called me. Right? They wouldn’t call Dad and have him call me. Unless something happened to both of them. But then, how would Dad have found out?

Ugh. I had to know.

Sliding my phone from my pocket, I sat up and put the phone against my left ear, as far from Matteo as possible. Then I listened to the message.

“Hey, Jillie. I know it’s been a long time, so I don’t blame you for not picking up. I’ve been following you online and I saw that you’re in Rome. I’m here too, actually. I thought maybe we could meet up for dinner tonight and catch up. Put the past behind us, maybe move forward?”

There was a pause with heavy breathing, and then he continued.

“That sounds so trite. The truth is, I’ve had some time to think about things. I’ve made some huge mistakes with my girls that I’m not proud of. Eventually I’ll reach out to your sisters, too, but I wanted to start with you, baby princess. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, meet me at Piccolo Buco at 7. I know how much you love pizza.” Another pause. “Please come.”

The phone dropped from my hand. It bounced twice before settling by my feet. I swiped it before Matteo could react and flinched to see a crack in the screen, slashing right through the middle.

“Careful,” Matteo said. “I don’t think we can find you a third phone before you leave.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

He didn’t point out my unnecessary apology this time. Instead, he turned his gaze back to the waves. We fell into an uncomfortable silence. He felt strangely tense, so snuggling on the bench wasn’t really an option anymore.

“You’re being quiet again,” Matteo said, his voice clipped, still not looking at me.

“Just tired.” Thinking back to this morning, it seemed a week since I climbed onto that helicopter and Matteo first took my hand. Look at us now. We were . . . something. Not boyfriend and girlfriend, certainly, because that required commitment.

So frustrating. If we had another week, or even another day, this foundation we laid could be something special.

Who are you kidding? You’re more like Dad than you want to think.

I could go meet him. Try to start up a relationship with the man who gave me lasting trust issues. Make him feel better about casting me aside like an old container of eggs. I feel guilty for how I treated you. Here’s some pizza.

Or I could recognize that my failed relationships in the past weren’t an accident, nor were they casual and meaningless. They were a pattern. A series of boards stuck into the ground to create a fence—come this far, but no further.

I had barely enough time left for one thing: Matteo’s event or pizza with Dad. Two options drawing me in two very different directions—one to the past and one, perhaps, into the future.

I didn’t know what would happen if I forgave Dad and allowed him back into my life. Probably the same as before, with him breaking my heart all over again. Honestly, I wasn’t convinced I could expect anything less from Matteo, either.

But I would never know if I stayed within the fence.

A quick check of the time meant it’d be close. Less than an hour to find a dress and shoes, but hey, this was Rome. Every shopping spree of my entire life had been in preparation for this moment. I’d arrive late for Matteo’s event, but I’d be there. Waiting. Offering myself to him, showing that I cared enough to see into his heart. Giving him a chance to do the same, assuming he didn’t turn me away then and there.

With my decision made, I felt a rise of determination and a little thrill of excitement.

Your play, Matteo, I thought, lifting my face to his for another kiss.