Page 65 of My Unexpected Surprise
I don’t.
His mouth finds mine again, and his hand slides higher, and the careful, professional, six-feet-of-distance version of Valentino Ferretti is nowhere in this hallway. What’s left is just heat and longing rising so close to the surface that the words are right there, right on the edge of my tongue – it was me in Venice.
I almost say it. God help me, I almost say it, with his mouth on mine and his hand splayed against my ribs and every part of me leaning into him like gravity has shifted and he’s the only solid thing left in the room
“Mommy?”
The word cuts through the haze like a blade.
We freeze. Both of us.
Valentino’s hand goes still against my skin, and for one suspended second neither of us moves, like if we just stay perfectly quiet the moment might rewind itself.
“Mommy, I had a bad dream.”
Nico’s voice again, small and thick with sleep, coming from down the hall.
And just like that, it’s over.
Valentino steps back so fast it’s almost violent, putting a full arm’s length of space between us in the time it takes me to blink. His chest rises and falls hard, his hair mussed where my fingers had been, and for a moment he just looks at me, his expression raw and unguarded for a moment before the wall slides back into place.
“Go,” he says, voice rough. “I’ve got it.”
“Valentino, you don’t have to—”
But he’s already moving past me, down the hall, toward Nico’s door, and I’m left standing against the wall with my heart slamming and my lips still tingling and absolutely no idea what just happened, except that it happened, and it was the best and worst five minutes of my life.
I follow him down the hall on legs that don’t quite feel steady.
Nico’s door is cracked open, soft lamplight spilling into the hallway. When I reach it, I stop.
Valentino is sitting on the edge of Nico’s bed, his large frame folded carefully so he doesn’t take up too much space, one hand resting lightly on Nico’s back. He’s speaking low, in Italian, the same gentle cadence I’ve heard him use exactly once before, in another lifetime, in another city, when he didn’t know I understood half the words.
“...non sei solo, piccolo. Ci sono io.”
You’re not alone, little one. I’m here.
Nico’s breathing evens out almost immediately, his small hand curling into the fabric of Valentino’s shirt, and Valentino doesn’t pull away. He just sits there, steady, patient, present, in a way that has nothing to do with exit routes or evacuation drills or anything else he uses to keep the world at arm’s length.
I press my hand against the doorframe and watch them, my whole chest aching with melancholy.
I am not afraid he will be a bad father.
I am afraid he will be a good one.
Because if he’s good at this, if he’s gentle and steady and exactly what Nico needs without even trying, then I don’t knowhow I’m supposed to keep standing here, three feet away, pretending none of this is real.
Valentino glances up and finds me in the doorway. Neither of us says anything.
There’s nothing left to say that the last five minutes haven’t already said for us.
Chapter Sixteen
VALENTINO
Nico falls back asleep within minutes, his small fist still curled into the front of my shirt, and I sit there longer than necessary before I carefully unhook his fingers and ease him back against the pillow.
I should leave. I should go to my own room, put a wall between myself and what just happened in that hallway, and let the night pass, quietly, without consequence.
