Page 16 of All's Fair in Love and Pizza
And today, I was feeling brave.
I spotted Mateo behind the counter, sporting his ubiquitous red-and-white checked shirt and a grungy white apron. The combo should have given “picnic with a pig” vibes but instead was annoyingly sexy.
That could have just been him.
Mateo had a great smile, damn it. His eyes crinkled, his full lips parted and snagged on one of his incisors, and his dimples were the stuff of teen magazines. He was the very definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Always had been. I hated that the sight of him made my pulse skitter, but it fascinated me too. After all this time, Mateo Cavaretti still got to me.
“Ah, look who’s here. Business must be slow,” he greeted me as I approached the counter.
“Nope. The line is out the door.” Slight exaggeration, but we were busy enough. And so was he. There wasn’t anyone waiting for service, but almost every table was taken.
“Good for you. If you’re here looking for new ideas…don’t. I’ve decided to trademark everything in the store. If you steal any?—”
“Steal? Are you fucking joking?”
“Watch the language, Vilmer. This is a family establishment. My ma would smack you upside the head if she heard you talkin’ like that. We keep it clean here.”
I pointed at his messy apron. “Ri-ght…real clean. And who’s stealing from who? You bought a bagel kettle.”
“You made apizzabagel! Pizza!” Mateo picked up a pizza box and tapped it obnoxiously. “Look at this…established in Brooklyn, New York in 1900, established in Haverton in 1958. Same year the Dodgers moved to LA. That means we’ve been here for well over sixty years. You haven’t even been open sixty days, genius. So don’t twist my words or?—”
“Oh, look at you guys…getting along.” Amber breezed into the restaurant, waving at Vanni through the kitchen partition before nudging my elbow at the counter.
“He started it,” Mateo said.
She huffed. “Don’t you think this feud is kind of silly?”
“No,” we replied in unison.
“Well, it is. It’s petty and ridiculous and—” Amber paused abruptly, pushing an errant curl behind her ear as she cast a wary glance between us. “Oh, my God. Why didn’t I think of this sooner?”
“Think of what?” one of us asked.
“I have an idea. A great one!” Her mischievous smile made me nervous. Especially when she rubbed her palms together in scheming mode. “Can we talk somewhere private?”
Mateo skewered her with a puzzled look, but his animosity for me didn’t apply to Amber. And like me…he was probably curious.
He motioned for Vanni to take over, then led us to his office, located down a narrow hallway opposite the kitchen.
This was my first backstage pass to one of my college haunts, and I felt almost giddy with anticipatory nostalgia.
Like every other football player at Haverton, Boardwalk Pizza had been a post-practice staple for me. As Mateo had implied, it was as much a part of the town as the amusement park at the pier and the statue of Colonel Haverton that stood at the top of the hill on campus, a la Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. But I’d never seen the kitchen up close or checked out the collage of family photos along the narrow hallway.
The kitchen was smaller than ours and full of well-used appliances. Sal minded one of the giant pots on the behemoth stove while Jimmy kneaded dough at the flour-strewn prep space. They were too engrossed in their work to notice us, or possibly couldn’t hear anything above the din of the Springsteen classic on the radio. I wanted a closer peek at the small bagel kettle, but the collage wall was much more interesting.
The faded colors and styles of clothing hinted at the bygone eras. Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and more cousins…and Mateo. I spied a photo of him in his high school football uniform. The roguish smile and mischievous glint werestill present, but his youthful cockiness had soured into mistrust and weariness now.
Still hot, though.
Mateo sat on the corner of a battered desk littered with paper work and an old computer. “I’d offer you a seat, but…I don’t have one.”
“No worries. I’m tight on time.” Amber pulled her cell from her pristine apron and typed a message.
“What’s this idea?” I prodded.
“A bake-off.” She had the nerve to grin like a loon.
“Huh?” Mateo and I shared matching befuddled glances.
