Nata took two small plates out of the cupboard, setting one in front of each of her daughters so that Marco could distribute the pastry.
“I wike cannowi,” Bella told him.
“I knew that about you,” Marco agreed, kissing the top of her head.
“Your uncle Marco spoils both of you,” Renata said.
He lifted his brows as he handed her the bowl of tiramisu.
“Uncle Marco spoils all of us,” she amended.
“Sit,” he told her, nudging her toward a chair.
“I was going to get you a cup of coffee.”
“I can get it,” he said, moving over to the counter. He selected a pod, inserted it into the machine, then pressed the button to start it brewing.
“Can we have milk?” Anna asked her mother.
“Of course.” Renata started to rise from the table.
“I’ve got it,” Marco told her, easily locating the girls’ favorite plastic cups and filling them with milk, then pouring a glass of the same for their mother.
“Thank you,” they chorused, when he set the drinks in front of them.
Marco carried his mug of coffee to the table and sat down beside his sister.
“So how are you feeling these days?” he asked her.
“Hungry.” She dipped her spoon back into the bowl.
He chuckled. “I guess that means the morning sickness has passed.”
She nodded.
“Mommy’s got a baby in her belly,” Anna said, in case he’d somehow forgotten that fact. “And it’s gonna grow really big and she’s gonna get really fat.”
“Wike dis,” Bella said, stretching her arms out in front of her as far as they could reach to demonstrate.
“Well, hopefully not quite that big,” Renata said drily.
“But Daddy says that just means there’ll be more of her to love,” Anna added.
Marco had to give his brother-in-law points for that response, because he knew his sister was already self-conscious about the weight she’d gained and she was only four months into her pregnancy.
“And soon, you’ll have another sister or a brother to love,” he said, hoping to shift their attention away from their mother’s belly and to the baby she carried.
“I wanna sisda,” Bella said. “I don’ wanna be da widda sisda anymo.”
“I wanna brother,” Anna countered, rolling her eyes in the direction of her younger sibling. “Sometimes one sister is one too many.”
“I want both of you to go wash the powdered sugar off of your faces and hands, and then brush your teeth,” Renata said.
“We aweady bwush our teef,” Bella sad. “Befo Unca Mahco comed.”
“Which was also before you ate the cannoli he brought for you,” her mother pointed out with patient firmness.
“Oh.” Bella sighed as she slid off the chair to follow her sister upstairs to the bathroom they shared.
Nata pushed her mostly empty bowl aside and rubbed her tummy. “Hopefully that will settle him down for a while.”
“Him?”
She shrugged. “Nonna hasn’t been wrong yet.”
“Are you hoping for a boy?”
“I know I should say that I just want a healthy baby—and I do. But if I had a choice, yeah, I’d like a boy this time.”
“Well, you and Craig make beautiful babies, so if it’s not a boy this time, there’s no reason you can’t keep trying.”
“Even if this one is a boy, we’re probably going to go for one more.”
“You’re a brave—or maybe crazy—woman.”
His sister laughed. “Probably both.”
He heard the water running in the bathroom upstairs, proof that the girls were brushing their teeth again.
“Can I tuck them in when they’re ready?” he asked.
“They made you feel guilty about not visiting for so long, didn’t they?”
“It hasn’t been that long,” he protested.
“More than three weeks.”
“But who’s counting?”
“We missed you,” she told him.
“Rebecca—the new waitress—asked for a couple of weeks off in July to go home to Minnesota because she hasn’t seen her parents since Christmas.”
“Because they live in Minnesota,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Maybe I should move.”
His sister chuckled. “As if. When you moved out, Mama cried for three days, and you felt so guilty, you almost moved back home again.”
“No one knows how to guilt a man like his mother,” Marco agreed.
“We done bwushed our teef,” Bella called down.
“Uncle Marco’s on his way up to tuck you in,” Renata told her daughters. Then, to him, “They’re going to want a bedtime story.”
“I haven’t forgotten the routine in three weeks,” he assured her, already heading for the stairs.
He sat on Anna’s bed, between both of the girls tucked under the covers, and read them a bedtime story. They giggled at the different voices he gave to the characters and responded with gasps and sighs in appropriate places. When the story was finished, they were both fighting to keep their eyes open. He slid off the bed, returned the book to its shelf, kissed Anna’s forehead, then scooped Bella up and carried her across the room to tuck her into her own bed.
He loved sharing the nighttime routine with his nieces—and with his nephews, when he was at Tony and Gemma’s house. But it was always a little sad to go home to his too-quiet apartment afterward and crawl into an empty bed.
It wouldn’t be much of a hardship to find a woman to share his bed for one night or even a few. The harder part was finding the woman he wanted there for the long term. He wasn’t one of those commitment-shy guys who was only looking for a good time—he wanted to fall in love and get married and read bedtime stories to his own kids at night. But until that happened, he had be content spending time with his nieces and nephews.
When he returned to the main level, Renata was in the living room folding a load of laundry with the news on TV.
“Are they asleep?”
“You know they won’t fall asleep until their mom kisses them good-night.”
She pushed herself up from the sofa. “Then I’d better go do so.”
While she was upstairs, he busied himself washing up the plates and cups the girls had used.
“You’re going to be a great father someday,” Renata said when she came back downstairs. “And a great husband to some lucky woman.”
“You’re only saying that because I’m tidying up your kitchen.”
“And because you brought me tiramisu.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“The right woman is out there,” his sister said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“I just don’t want