Zara starts laughing, and Evan yells, “Bullshit!” Loudly.

“There is a kid in the room,” Zara says, and now Evan grabs the phone from her.

“I want to speak to Dylan,” he says, and Justin hands Dylan the phone.

“How old are you?” he asks Dylan.

“Eight,” Dylan says.

“What level do you play?” Evan asks him.

Zara is in the background. “Would you stop harassing the child, Evan?”

“I play forward,” Dylan says proudly.

“When I’m down in two weeks, how about we play one-on-one?” Evan says, and I hear dogs barking in the background.

“You just threw down to a child,” Zara admonishes.

“It’s on,” Dylan says, and I shake my head as he hands the phone back to Justin.

“Okay, just thought I would share that with you,” Justin says when he gets the phone back.

“I’m sure you did.” He laughs. “Where are you?”

“We are at Cicionni,” Justin says.

“Who is we, Justin?” Zara asks, and I see Justin give the same smile he did when he was talking about his family.

“Dylan and Caroline,” he says and comes closer to me. “Caroline, say hi to my bratty number one.” He turns the phone on me, and I try not to panic, but I swear my hands start shaking, and I have the sudden need to drink another gulp of wine.

“Oh, shit,” Evan says in the background and comes closer to the phone. “It’s about to be real.”

“Hi,” I say, and Zara’s eyes open wide.

“Hi,” she says, “it’s so nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” I say, and I don’t know what else to say so Justin takes over.

“Okay, squirt, call you later,” he says.

“I’m so telling everyone,” Zara says, and he laughs, then he hangs up. Before I can ask him what she means, the door opens, and Lara comes back with another waiter, both of them carrying trays.

“I hope you guys are hungry,” she says, and I don’t say anything else because two pizzas and two huge plates of pasta are set down on the table.

Dylan digs into the spaghetti and then eats a slice of pizza, and the only thing that I can fit in my stomach is two slices of pizza. But Justin eats us both under the table, and when I look at him, he just winks at me.

When Lara comes back in, she takes the remainder of the food and offers to box it up for us. “I’m stuffed,” Justin says, stretching backward and then putting his arm around my chair to pull me closer to him.

“Did you eat enough?” he asks, and I look over at him and nod.

“Okay, you two,” Lara says, coming back in with a tray. “I made this special tiramisu and then a Nutella cheesecake this morning,” she says, putting the dessert in the middle of the table.