Last week it had been Elena’s new boyfriend. The guy was Irish, and with the way Tony and Maria had responded to this news, last week’s breakfast was a scene out of Gangs of New York. Tony Moretti was born in New York, but from his fierce Italian upbringing, he might as well have been born in Italy. And Maria Moretti actually had been born there, which meant…well, an Irish boy for their only daughter had not gone over well, even though neither parent would admit their reasons were old biases.
The week before that, the fuss had been over Anthony’s announcement that he was headed to Florida over Easter weekend to run a marathon and wouldn’t be around for Easter. The week before that…well, Luc couldn’t remember, but it was probably something to do with Vincent and the fact that the man had zero life outside of work and had turned down yet another of their mother’s blind date attempts.
But this week? This week was all about Luc. Luc and the damned CBC nightmare that awaited him tomorrow morning.
The only possible silver lining in this whole mess was that Nonna had a stomach bug and had opted to skip the Sunday-morning histrionics. Luc loved his grandmother—desperately—but the woman had made it her life’s mission to stir the Moretti family pot whenever possible. A tendency made even worse by the fact that, in a rather shortsighted move, the grandkids had bought her an iPhone for Christmas the previous year.
Now the woman didn’t just stir the pot, she recorded the aftermath.
His grandma was a menace. A wonderful menace, but still…Luc was a tiny bit glad she wasn’t here on his particular Sunday to shine.
“’Kay, seriously, though,” Vin said, leaning back in his chair and fixing Luc with his usual serious gaze. “Dad’s got a point. I would have thought all this hoopla with your heroics would be dying down.”
“You and me both,” Luc said.
His coffee cup was blessedly refilled, and he smiled thanks at Helen, the white-haired waitress who’d been serving the Darby Diner—and the Morettis—longer than Luc had been alive.
“Am I your favorite today, Helen?” Luc asked, intentionally turning his attention away from the too shrewd eyes of his brother.
“Depends, who’s tipping?” she said with a wink.
Then she leaned down and whispered in Luc’s ear as she refilled Anthony’s cup. “’Course you’re my favorite.”
“Heard that,” Anth said.
“Heard what, baby?” Helen said, blowing Anthony a kiss. “That you’re my favorite?”
“That’s not what you told me when I fixed your cell last week,” Vin said.
“And by fixed her phone, you did what exactly?” Elena said, propping her chin up on her hand. “You hit the Power button? Turned if off and then back on?”
Vin lifted a shoulder. “Whatever works.”
Helen refilled everyone’s coffee and moved on to another table, having assured them individually that they were, in fact, her one and only favorite.
Luc reached for the bill Helen had dropped off, but as usual, Tony was too fast. “Your mother and I have this.”
Luc lifted an eyebrow. “But you’re retired.”
“And I’m your father,” Tony said in his usual no-room-for-argument tone.
Luc and Vincent exchanged a look across the table. Neither of them particularly liked their parents paying for their four grown siblings, but pride was an important element in the Morettis. And nobody had more of it than the patriarch.
“They’re not going to put makeup on you, are they?” Anthony mused.
“What?” Luc asked.
“For this story. Do you have to get all dolled up?”
Luc rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, annoyed that the conversation kept coming back to the damned CBC thing. “No. No makeup. It’s just a reporter following me around for a few weeks…”
“Which reporter?” Elena asked.
Just as Tony broke in, “What do you mean a few weeks?”
“Oh my God,” Luc muttered, taking a drink of his coffee. He looked across the table at his best shot at escape: his mother.
But Maria Moretti looked every bit as dismayed as his father, which was something Luc didn’t fully understand. He knew why he was annoyed about the story, but he didn’t get why his parents were all worked up about it. It didn’t even have anything to do with them.
“Her name is Ava Sims,” Luc said, glancing at his sister as he answered her question.