Lovelight Farms: A Holiday Romantic Comedy by B.K. Borison

Author:B.K. Borison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

THANKSGIVING AT LUKA’S house is pandemonium. We let ourselves in the front door to a chorus of shrieking and laughter from the kitchen, armed with enough bottles of red wine to take down a small militia. I have one in each of my hands and another tucked under my arm, a fourth in my bag next to the flask of whisky Luka snuck in just before we left. Luka is laden with bouquets for his mom, grandmother, and each of his aunts, a veritable walking greenhouse. He pauses in the hallway, Italian and English and David Bowie drifting in from the kitchen. I hear his Aunt Gianna yell something about stuffing without oysters and Luka winces.

“I’m having some second thoughts,” he mutters just as all the women begin to cackle, his mom yelling something in Italian. Luka’s ears turn bright red. “Quick, I think we can turn around before anyone notices us.”

I go to rub his shoulder with my hand, but I’m still holding the bottle of wine. I tap it against him in what I hope is a comforting gesture. He frowns down at me. “It’ll be fine. This isn’t the first time I’ve been around your family.”

But it is the first time I’ve been around them when they think I’m dating Luka. Whatever goodwill I’ve built up over the years disappears as soon as I step foot in the kitchen, five sets of startling gray eyes narrowed in on me. This must be what it feels like to be trapped behind enemy lines. I wave with a wine bottle and Aunt Eva shuffles over.

“Are you late because you were having sex?” She grabs the bottle of wine out of my hand and nods at the label. I hear Luka mutter a creative string of curse words behind me. “Just because you two are humping like bunnies now, doesn’t mean you can just show up late to things.”

A bouquet of mums is thrust between us, Luka’s eyebrows slanted low.

“We’re twenty minutes early, Aunt Eva.”

She reaches up and pinches both of his cheeks, following with kisses.

“I’ll be the judge of that, Cucciolo. You,” she points to me and then points to an empty place at the counter where there looks to be about 76-pounds of potatoes. “Peel.”

“She’s a guest, Aunt Eva.”

“She is not a guest. She is family and she peels potatoes.”

I go to peel the potatoes. After he makes his round of greetings, cheeks a bright red from being pinched incessantly, he’s put to work as well, arranging and rearranging the table setting under the careful direction of his mother. Luka’s grandmother comes to me at the sink, peeler in hand.

She grabs a potato and makes quick work of it, nodding in the direction of the dining room as Luka moves the gravy boat half an inch to the left, jaw clenched.

“It is tradition to make him flustered,” she winks at me. Poor Luka, the only son for all these women to torment. His aunts are intentionally and somewhat notoriously single.

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