Chapter One

She was killing him.

Torture.

And yet, perversely, he wanted it. He wondered if he should take that as a bad sign. But regardless of his own proclivities, if she was vacillating and being indecisive (like usual) then it meant he was in the running.

Their relationship was like those chicken curry sandwiches on deli rolls that he made. Surprising. Testy. Flavorful. And dare he say it, kinda sexy. But still, the sandwich had good old chicken – loyal to a fault.

He looked around at the folks milling about near the airport gate. What was it about airports that made it look like people were lemmings? The men in business suits just kinda ran together. Some of them made Mark and Amanda look deep. The tourist families were incredibly annoying and loud. (The gate really wasn't going to change five frigging photos later!) Although he had to expect it. He didn't think Italians had quiet in their vocabulary. His family dinners always operated at an eight on a scale of one to ten.

He fleetingly wondered if he was turning into an old fart.

It would have been nice if Betty was here – then maybe the Starbucks sign he had been staring at for the better part of an hour would have been something more interesting than a Starbucks sign. (Although he wondered if they had ever misprinted that mermaid without her tail. That would be interesting.) Betty would have made being at the airport fun – maybe played a travel game or two (definitely travel scrabble), or made him sit through pages and pages of travel books and plans, or just talked about what they were going to eat. And eat. And eat. He would have made a crack about sun-dried tomatoes.

For him it would have been his first trip out of the United States. For her, her first to Europe. She had at least been to Mexico. He had yet to make it out of the tri-state area.

Damn Henry.

Gio had to admit that it had been impulsive of him to ask Betty to join him in the first place. He hadn't expected a yes. She was so cautious. He had expected to just give her a signal. Hey, I'm interested. Please note this, look how romantic I am. Instead hope sprang eternal when she said yes, and was promptly extinguished when Henry showed up on the scene.

And yet, she had said yes. And she seemed to be blushing and flustered an awful lot lately…

He was still looking forward to his trip – it would help him decide what his five-year plan was going to look (or taste) like. He just couldn't decide what to do when he got back. What exactly were they? Friends? Non-friends? And what did he want them to be? Did he want to deal with the drama?

The fact that he was moping probably should give him a clue – right?

He ran his hands over his head, recalling the phone call he and Betty had the night after the ballgame.

"Hey Gio – it's Betty. Um…well you see…I wanted to call to talk about Rome. And…things." She sounded hesitant, yet not. She sounded like someone who had made up her mind, but was afraid to have this conversation. He sighed. She was probably manhandling her glasses right now in sheer terror.

"You should have told me about Henry being back." He said flatly. "I didn't appreciate finding out like that. I thought you and I were closer than that." Or maybe he had read too much into their friendship lately – the excited phone calls, the visits to the deli, the happy expressions that had finally come around again. The expressions he thought he helped cause.

"I'm sorry, you're right. It's just… I wasn't ready. It was too early. I was so surprised. I was swept up in the whole not being safe thing." She paused. "God, why is it I can be a writer yet when it comes to conversations I feel like a Sherpa in the desert?"

"A Sherpa? That's what you came up with just now?"

"Shut up, you know what I mean. Yes, I should have told you about Henry. But I just seemed to run out of time. Claire was right – I need to be risky. But I need to be risky on my own for now."

"What? Tricky? I must have bad reception." He mock pressed buttons on his phone and smiled, knowing she'd get exasperated at his teasing.

"Risky! Risky! Get your mind out of the gutter!" She laughed, and he almost thought he could hear her relax into the conversation. "Anywaaaayyyyy, I think Claire was right." There was a long pause and he finally realized that she was waiting for him to respond.

"Betty, it's not like I was asking you to spend the next 100 years with me. I get it. You just needed to tell me what the hell you were doing, and that was it. But instead, it was like I suddenly had the plague. You can't go to Rome, then you can't go."

"But you're disappointed."

"Of course I'm disappointed. What else do you expect me to be? But you gotta be you. And that's what I like about you. Well, you." Yeah Gio, that was eloquent.

A small, "okay" followed his last statement.

"Okay then. Face your fears, Suarez."

"You've told me not to be a chicken."

"Damn straight."

"Have you faced your fears?"

He thought about telling her how he was afraid that Nella would make his same mistakes. Or how he was afraid his five-year plan would get him nowhere and that he'd be the owner of one deli and one deli alone. Or about how he couldn't come up with new 'wiches ideas from time to time. Or that her kiss had been different than any other woman he'd kissed before, and that he hadn't been this dimwitted around a girl since high school and the appearance of hormones.

He cleared his throat. "I do the best I can. It's a growing process, right?"

"Damn straight."

"Look at you with the swearing! I'm such a bad influence on you."

"Uh, yeah. I managed to deal with perfume drugs, backstage shenanigans, stalker girlfriends and needy bosses all on my own thank you very much."

Gio laughed. "Huh – you know, I think you've been a bad influence on my life now that you put it that way!"

"I gotta go, Gio."

He didn't want her to go, he wanted to listen to her voice on the line, cradle it, take it to Italy with him, and see how low it could go under…duress.

"Betty?" He had to ask.

"Yeah Gio?"

"What did you decide to do about Henry?" He winced. Did that sound as pathetic as he thought it sounded? When did he become such a wuss? Seriously. His uncles would disown his Italian ass. Although now that he thought about it most of his uncles were pretty much pussy-whipped anyway. Did men just go through stages of denial in relationships?

"He's going home to Tucson. By himself. I'm just not ready."

He wanted to ask if there was a "for now" at the end of that statement. He wanted to ask what that meant for them. But he decided to let it go. For her sanity, and for his. He couldn't go to Rome thinking constantly about this woman, or he'd never get any work done.

"So much of this past year has been about somebody else. My dad, Hilda, Henry, Justin…you."

He did a mental dance that he had occupied some of her mental space.

"Huh…most of this year has been about discovering me. My five year plan, you, my sandwiches, owning my own business, you."

"I noticed I was in there twice."

"No comment."

"I gotta go."

"So go."

They both paused on the phone, neither one wanting to lose the connection that seemed so fragile at this moment in time.

"Where are you going anyway?" He succumbed and asked.

"I'll tell you when I get back." Betty said.

That was what he needed to hear.

"Damn straight."

And with that, he hung up.

So now he just plain 'ol missed her. But he thought of the stories he could tell her - she deserved stories. And the history he could relate. And the requisite photo slide show. In a perverse way, he wanted to enjoy the trip…for her.

That was the trick. This trip was like…a Betty information gathering session. He could build a treasure trove of little moments to share. Moments he knew would leave her with baited breath. He hated to brag (well, not really), but he knew he was a great storyteller. His family made him tell stories every Thanksgiving round the table. It was a pain in the ass coming up with stories (last year he basically told stories about Mode – at the time wondering why it was on his mind so much), but he got by.

As he gathered his things to board the plane, Giovanni Rossi thought: yeah, I have my five-year plan.

And a certain Suarez is in it.