Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series (10 page)

Chapter
Seven

Serena walked up the steps to the
front door of Steven’s house. The sea’s turquoise waters beckoned
on the horizon, the white waves crashed against the shore of the
narrow island. She saw a school of porpoises out in the deep water,
their backs going up and down, up and down, in and out of the water.
That was a good sign. This was her first visit to Steven’s house
and might be the first time they were really together. He had come
into Rossetti’s every night since that first night, but they had
never been truly together. She wanted that, more than anything. When
she was with Steven, she felt herself come alive. Her whole body
vibrated when she was near him.

Steven opened the door and led
her into his living room area. The room was surrounded by large
windows, framing the ocean as a never-ending painting. She sat on the
couch and he brought her a glass of wine. She was a little nervous,
knowing they were probably going to take a major step in their
relationship that night.

“
Something smells good,” she
said to Steven. He was standing in the kitchen, which was open to the
living room.

“
I can’t believe I’m
cooking for you, a chef,” he said. “I hope it’ll be good.”

“
What is it?” Serena asked.

“
It’s Reuben sandwiches. My
father used to make them all the time when I was growing up. It was
his specialty and not too hard to do. Even I can handle it,” he
said laughing.

“
It’ll be a few more
minutes,” he said, sitting beside her on the couch with a beer.

“
Do you cook a lot?” Serena
asked.

“
Not really. I know how to cook
this and a few other things, but just enough to get by.”

The sandwiches were gooey with
melted Swiss cheese and thick with pastrami. Steven put a bag of
potato chips and a jar of dill pickles on the table. It was an
unpretentious and delicious meal.

The dusk turned to night while
they were eating. When they were finished, they sat on the couch
looking out at the black, star-filled sky, the nighttime surf, and
listening to the sounds of the waves as they hit the shore and pulled
back out again. The rhythm was hypnotic. Steven was sitting very
close to her when they started kissing. His hands stroked her arms.
He gently grazed his hands across her breasts. Serena was on fire for
him.

“
Do you want to get more
comfortable,” he whispered in her ear.

That’s all she’d been wanting
since the night she met him. She wanted to tear his clothes off and
her own. She wanted to feel his smooth naked body against her. She
was ready. She was a burning ember.

The blinds were open in the
bedroom and the moonlight offered enough light to see each other. A
window was cracked and Serena could hear the waves. She could smell
the salty air from the sea. Steven began to unbutton her blouse and
it fell loosely to the floor. He kissed her freed breasts before
unzipping her jeans. They slid to the floor along with her panties.
She reached out and undressed him and together they fell on the bed,
kissing and rubbing and licking each other. Serena was barely
conscious that she was panting. Steven spread her legs with his knee,
then got on top of her. She felt him begin to enter her, tentatively,
teasing. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him in.

When she woke up she glanced at
the clock on the bedside table. It was two-thirty a.m. She looked
over to the other side of the bed. It was empty. She jumped up and
put on her clothes, which were still on the floor. Steven was sitting
in a chair in the living room, staring out one of the big windows. He
turned when she came into the room.

“
Hey,” she said. He held his
cell phone loosely in his hand. “Did somebody call?”

“
Huh?” He looked down at his
hand. “Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep. I was looking
something up on the Internet.”

She walked over to him and he put
his arm around her, pulling her down into his lap. He kissed her.

“
I need to get back home. I
told Nonna I might be late, but I don’t think she thought it would
be this late.”

“
I’ll walk you to your car,”
he said. She got off of his lap and located her purse, which she had
put on the floor beside the couch. Together, they walked down the
steps of Steven’s gray house on stilts. He kissed her again at her
car. “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

When Serena got back to the
cottage, she tiptoed inside and up the stairs to her room. Everything
seemed quiet and peaceful in the house and she fell asleep thinking
about her evening with Steven. Thinking about the feel of his body
next to her, inside of her.

She woke up the next morning to
the smell of coffee. Nonna was at the stove when she walked into the
kitchen. She motioned for Serena to sit at the table.

“
I guess I got in a little
later than I planned to,” Serena said.

Nonna turned to look at her, a
spatula in her hand.

“
It’s okay, cara. We come
from the land of amore. I understand.”

“
I went out with one of our
customers that I’ve been sort of seeing after work.”

“
I know,” Nonna said.

“
How do you know?” Serena
asked.

“
Heard it through the
grapevine,” Nonna said giving her a knowing grin.

Nonna put their plates of eggs
and bacon on the table and sat down.

“
I’m really proud of you,
cara,” she said. “You brought new life to Rossetti’s. I know
that when I meet my maker, I’ve left it in good hands.”

“
Don’t say that, Nonna,”
Serena said. They looked at each other and laughed.

“
Don’t worry. I’ve still
got a lot of life left in me,” Nonna said.

“
I’ve been thinking,” Nonna
continued. “I’d like to add something to the menu—at least try
it out.”

“
What’s that?” Serena
asked.

“
Remember how much your mother
loved spaghetti puttanesca?” Serena nodded.

“
I want to put it on the menu,
but I want to call it Spaghetti Adrianna.”

Serena felt tears well in her
eyes.

“
I think that’s brilliant,
Nonna,” she said.

“
It’s one of the famous
dishes from our region of Italy, you know. The Campania area.”

“
I know. Didn’t it used to be
on the menu?”

“
When I was growing up, it was
a favorite. I can’t remember why we stopped serving it. Maybe
peoples’ tastes changed or something. I don’t know.”

As Nonna was leaving the kitchen
to get ready for work, she said, “Don’t worry about staying out
late. I know you’re a grown woman.”

“
Thanks, Nonna.”

Steven came to Rossetti’s every
night for dinner and stayed afterward to sit with Serena. Some nights
they went back to his house, and other nights they walked by the bay.
But every Saturday night, they definitely went back to Steven’s
house and Serena stayed all night. Nonna had come to expect that.

On Sunday morning, Serena would
get out of bed early and make breakfast, the same way that Nonna
always did for her. It felt good to make breakfast for Steven, and
she realized that making breakfast was an act of love. Something you
did for someone you really cared about. And she definitely cared
about Steven. She was already in love with him. She could hardly
concentrate at work, thinking about his touch, thinking about how he
would be there soon and she would be kissing him.

One Sunday in late June, Steven
suggested they go out on the water in the company boat. He packed a
cooler with beer and wine and a big bag of green grapes. Steven drove
the boat, which was moored behind the institute, out through the
sound and toward the horizon. After a while, he turned the engine
off. They sat in chairs, drinking their drinks, looking at the
endless blue sky and water. Serena was so happy she had returned to
Luna Bay. It seemed her world had opened up. She felt the sun caress
her arms and shoulders. The sea brought its familiar salty fragrance,
but it was like a new perfume to her new self.

She and Steven talked about their
former lives often. He was telling her about his years in college one
day on the boat when his cell phone rang. He looked at it and put it
back in his pocket. “It’s my coworker,” he said staring out at
the water. He seemed distant in that moment.

“
Oh?” she said. What kind of
coworker would put him in this mood?

“
He’s having problems with
his girlfriend. He calls me all the time, but I’m getting pretty
sick of hearing about it,” he said sitting back down.

“
That’s sad,” she said.

“
Let’s not talk about him,”
Steven said. “He’s a downer.”

When they got back to Steven’s
house, he said he guessed he should call his coworker. “Do you
mind?” he asked her. “It’ll just take a few minutes. If I don’t
call him, he might come over here or something.”

“
Okay,” she said. She sat in
the living room while Steven was on the phone in the bedroom. When he
came out, he seemed agitated.

“
Is everything all right?”
she asked him.

“
Yeah. Just more of the same.”

“
What’s his name?” she
asked.

“
Carlos. He’s Cuban. Well,
his parents are from Cuba. He grew up in Florida.”

“
How old is he?”

“
He’s in his early twenties.
I’m not sure how old. He was already working here when I got here.”

Serena was curious about Carlos.
She was curious about anything that had to do with Steven.

“
What kind of trouble is he
having with his girlfriend?”

“
Oh, you know. The usual. He
caught her in bed with some guy who works on a shrimp boat. Carlos
got into a fist fight with the guy.”

“
Is Carlos still with his
girlfriend? I mean, he must be if he’s still having trouble.”

“
He’s been trying to work it
out with her, but it’s not going well. He started talking to me
about it. I guess he thought an older man could offer him some
advice. But he never likes my advice.”

“
What advice is that?” Serena
asked.

“
I told him to dump her. I keep
telling him to dump her, but he doesn’t.”

Steven’s cell phone rang again.
He looked at it and turned off the ring. He sat down beside Serena,
but he was distracted.

“
I need to get home,” she
finally said. Steven clearly needed to work something out, and Serena
felt she was somehow stopping him from doing that.

“
I’m sorry, Serena,” he
said as he reached for her hand. “It’s been a long week.”

“
It’s okay,” she said
giving him a light kiss. “I need to spend some time with Nonna.
We’ve got some work to do in the garden and this is my only free
day.”

They walked downstairs to her car
and he opened her door. He kissed her before she got in, then closed
her door. He didn’t linger. Serena definitely got the vibe that he
wanted to be alone.

Over the next several days,
Serena stayed at Rossetti’s after the dinner hour expecting to see
Steven. She turned expectantly whenever anyone came in the door, but
he never showed up. What was going on with him? They had been seeing
each other almost every night for several weeks. But she refused to
call him. If he wanted to see her, he would have to come to
Rossetti’s.

After an excruciating week of
sitting and drinking and waiting and hoping, Serena decided she would
not sit there another night. Sandy was beginning to look at her with
pity. She would not be there on Saturday night, when she and Steven
always saw each other. If he came to Rossetti’s on Saturday to find
her, she would not be found. After dinner was finished and the staff
was cleaning the kitchen, Serena went home.

Nonna was sitting in her recliner
drinking brandy and watching television. “Is that you, Serena?”
she called.

“
It’s me, Nonna. Who else
would it be?”

“
I don’t know. I’m not used
to you being here on Saturday.”

Serena realized she still had her
chef’s apron on and pulled it off. She got a glass of brandy for
herself and sat down on the couch.

“
Is everything all right?”
Nonna asked.

Serena couldn’t hold her tears
back any longer. She didn’t want to worry her grandmother, but she
couldn’t keep herself from crying.

“
What is it?” Nonna asked
with concern. She turned off the television. “What is it, cara?”

“
I’m not out tonight because
I haven’t seen or heard from Steven all week. He hasn’t come to
Rossetti’s, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted. I think it’s
over.”

“
Have you called him?”

“
No.”

“
Then how do you know what’s
going on if you haven’t even tried to call him?”

“
I guess I have too much pride
to do that,” she said.

“
That’s silly,” Nonna said.