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A/N: I've had this story floating around in my head for over a year now but haven't ever really had the energy to sit down and figure out what exactly I wanted to happen in it. But back in February, I replanted the seed and it just started to grow. Before I knew it, I had the plot prepped for an entire fic and I couldn't be happier.
As I was writing, I knew that I needed to have extra help to make this as good as it can be. Of course, I had my two angel ladies, @tttttttaron and @sarahegerton96 but I also found the wonderful, @brayndii, @uniquebeautyqueen, @fietje07. These five ladies have helped me massively already and I can't wait to have them alongside me throughout this journey.
Without further ado, here is the prologue for Mi Rendi Migliore...
Word Count: 2,000 / Warnings: explicit language, alcohol consumption, consumption of animals
“Is there a reason that you’re avoiding him?”
Aretta’s voice was low, a slight gravel to it from where she’d been talking to patrons all afternoon at the restaurant, but full of inquisitiveness. As she spoke, she sliced the sharp knife into the chicken she was preparing for dinner, drinking the last of her wine in the glass on the side. “Has he done anything to hurt you?”
“Oh my goodness, no!” Joey exclaimed instantly, pausing for only a second before continuing, “I’m not avoiding him.”
There was no doubt in her mind that if she glanced over at Aretta, she would be caught out. Aretta wouldn’t need anything more than a tiny glance to know that Joey was buffing more than she’d ever bluffed before. So rather than look at Aretta, she stared at the flour in front of her, stirring in the smoked paprika and cayenne pepper as gently as she could.
The truth of the matter was that she had been avoiding him. She made sure that she was working the opposite side of the restaurant when he was there so that she wouldn’t have to talk to him as she served him. She would change shifts if she knew he would be there and it wasn’t going to be busy. Whenever he texted her, she left him on delivered, and she ignored every single one of his calls when they lit up her phone screen. And she would avoid all conversations regarding him. She didn’t want to think about him, let alone talk about him.
Aretta sighed, “Joey, I know you better than to believe you aren’t avoiding him. I can see it in the way you act, or don’t act, I should say, whenever he’s mentioned. You shut down completely. You’re avoiding him and you know you are. You can talk to me about anything.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you avoiding him?”
Maybe Aretta didn’t need to look at her after all. She already knew.
Joey hadn’t plucked up the courage to admit to herself why she had been avoiding Taron, so knowing that she was going to have to open the wound no matter what made ten thousand tiny creatures erupt under her skin. The last thing she wanted to do was tell Aretta the truth.
“Because-” she lifted her hand, tightening her fist in an attempt to release the tension bubbling throughout her entire body “-because I think I might be falling in love with him, okay? That’s why I’ve been avoiding him. Because I don’t know how to hide my feelings.”
“You’re...in love with...Taron,” Aretta repeated, her voice raising an octave with his name. Joey nodded, physically inept of answering with words. For something that she used all day everyday, right there in that moment, she was unable to string together a single word, let alone an answer that Aretta would understand. “Tell me more, mio amore.”
Filling her lungs with air, and then expelling it slowly through her nose, Joey finally dropped the fork in her hand down onto the work surface, passing the bowl to Aretta.
“Have you ever heard a song a couple of times on the radio or somewhere and you enjoyed it, but then you hear it again and you just think to yourself, ‘damn, this is the best song that I’ve ever heard’? You already knew that the song existed but for some reason unbeknownst to you, it smacks you over the head one time, randomly, when you’re least expecting it.” Joey took a deep breath, and Aretta stayed silent, and completely still. She didn’t move a single muscle in her entire body, far too enthralled by Joey’s description of how she felt. “And after you’ve heard it differently that one time, all you want to do is listen to it again. So you play it again, thinking that it'll be just that once more. But then you play it again. And again. And again. You fall in love with everything about it. You fall in love with the beat. You fall in love with the rhythm. You fall in love with the lyrics. And you fall in love with the melody. You can’t get enough of it. It’s the only thing that you can think of and the only thing you want is to feel the way that you feel when listening to the song…” she trailed off, the corners of her lips turning up at the thought of _him_. “That’s how I feel about falling in love.”
Aretta, who had long since forgotten about the food she was preparing, dropped the fork in her hand that had chicken on it into the bowl of flour below her, creating a little explosion of lightly coloured powder. Joey had a way of painting a picture with the words that she spoke, and they were always vivid, with a lasting impact. No matter who she told them to. Everything she said made complete sense to Aretta, and she wondered how she hadn’t thought of falling in love that way before herself. It was simple, really. Yet it was difficult all at the same time.
“The person you fall in love with, you’ve known about them for a while, usually, but then one day something about them catches you completely off guard. You start to see them differently, not just as this person you’ve known of for however long. Talking to them after that realisation is like hitting play on the song. And wanting to keep talking to them is like putting the song on repeat. You just want them. All of them. And soon enough, you start to fall in love with them. You fall in love with their eyes and the way that they shine when they’re happy. You fall in love with their smile and the way their lips twitch gently. You fall in love with their personality and the way they make you laugh. You fall in love with their voice and the way that it gets deeper when they’re tired. You fall in love with everything about them and you can’t get enough of them ever. They are constantly in your head and all you want is that person, and for them to want you the same way you want them.”
Joey paused, finding it hard to say the only six word running through her mind. She knew that admitting it to Aretta wouldn’t be the worst thing to ever happen. Not once had Aretta ever judged her for anything, and she knew that it wouldn’t be any different when she said the truth about how she felt about the man who had so effortlessly waltzed into her life and left her wanting more. He was different.
“That’s how I...how I feel about Taron.”
“Joey, you need to go and get him,” Aretta whispered quietly as if not to scare Joey who stood staring at the wall in front of her. Even just with one single glance, Aretta knew that she was thinking about Taron and how she could ever be around him again. “If you feel that strongly about him, you have to tell him how you feel.”
“It’s just not that easy, Aretta.”
“Why? Why isn’t it that easy?” She questioned, turning back to the food in front of her.
“Because he doesn’t want to listen to me on repeat,” Joey sniffled, diverting her gaze further away from Aretta. “And he isn’t the kind of person that I should be with. He’s dangerous, he’s got contacts with people no one should ever have contact with, he’s-”
“Nothing like you’re used to,” Aretta finished for her, earning a small nod. “I understand. I really, really do. But there’s something else that you aren’t telling me. I know there is. And you should know by now that you can tell me literally anything and I’ll be here for you. No matter what.”
Joey glided over to the fridge, pulling the door open just enough that she could squeeze a bottle of white wine from the middle shelf. When she got back to the spot where she had been standing for the past hour, she twisted open the bottle and poured a large glass for herself and Aretta, sliding Aretta’s over to her before putting the wine back.
“It took me a long time to get used to the idea of loving Enis. Before him, I’d never let myself love anybody because I’d seen the breakdown of too many relationships. I was scared that by allowing myself to fall in love, I’d be putting myself in the firing line of heart break and I didn’t want that.” Joey stopped, taking a long swig of the wine in front of her, relishing in the burn down her throat. “Enis was a good guy. He gave me butterflies throughout our entire relationship. Taron doesn’t. Taron’s like a bridge.”
“A bridge?”
“Yeah,” Joey nodded. “It’s like when you’re in a car and it’s pouring down with rain outside. Really lashing it down. And then you go under a bridge and everything goes silent, and it stills for a while. It’s the most peaceful time, just being in a car knowing that the outside world is being pelted by droplets of water but you’re safe. You’re covered, you’re not being hurt by the world outside. Taron is that bridge. He makes me feel calm, peaceful, and completely safe.”
“Joey,” Aretta breathed deeply, reaching a hand out to touch Joey’s forearm, “you need to go and get him.”
“I can’t. He doesn’t feel the same way I do.”
“Okay, first of all, he is absolutely madly in love with you. Trust me, I’ve seen the way that he looks at you when you’re around. I’ve seen the way he comes into the restaurant more often, and he always makes sure that he sits at your tables so that he gets to talk to you. I’ve seen the way that he lingers just a little when he greets you with a hug. And the fact that he actually gives you a hug when he walks in. I’ve known him for a little over seven years and not once has he ever hugged anybody before.”
“Aretta…”
She walked away from the kitchen and towards the living room where her phone sat on the coffee table by the fireplace. Though she wouldn’t tell Aretta, she wanted to see if Taron had text her back after their exchange earlier in the day. And to say she was elated when she saw that he’d text her back, even though it was just a simple two word answer, would be an understatement.
“Go get him, mio amore. I know you want to.”
“You really think that I should?” She asked, already walking to put her shoes on to go to his house. But she was scared at the same time.
In fact, she was absolutely petrified of the possibility that she would turn up at his house and he would turn her away because he didn’t feel the same way that she did. Or worse yet, a secret girlfriend would answer the door and she would have to lie about why she was there.
“If you don’t go and get him right now, you’re going to regret it and I won’t let you mope around for him.”
“Okay, I’m going. I’ll text you soon!”
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