CHAPTER 196: GIRLS’ DAY OUT: SLICES OF SOMETHING DEEPER

The scent of melted cheese and fresh basil hit the moment we pushed through the glass doors. Warm chatter filled the small pizzeria, families and couples crowded around checkered tables, forks clinking against plates. It was cozy, a little loud, and exactly what my empty stomach needed.

We claimed a booth by the window as the sun pierced through it. Aria tossed her sunglasses on the table like she owned the place. The light had that golden, late-afternoon sharpness, too early for dinner but late enough that the place was buzzing with families in post-school chaos and couples grabbing an early bite. Outside, traffic moved in steady streams, the city not yet at rush-hour frenzy.

The waiter came over, a teenager with a dusting of flour on his brow and a look of sheer, unadulterated awe on his face. He fumbled with his notepad, his eyes darting from Aria’s perfectly coiffed hair to my admittedly paint-flecked boots. "Hi. Welcome to Enzo’s!" he managed, his voice cracking slightly. "Can I, uh, get you started with something to drink?"

Aria leaned forward, propping her chin on her hands, her expression one of intense gravity. "Young man," she began, as if conferring a great secret. "We have just emerged from a battle of artistic wills. We are victorious, we are famished, and we are in dire need of two things: your largest, most decadent pizza, and a bottle of whatever red wine you would be least ashamed to serve a queen."

The boy blinked, then scribbled furiously. "Largest... decadent... queenly wine. Got it. Any toppings?"

"All of them," I said, surprising myself. The words just came out, a bubble of pure, uninhibited desire. "Every single one. Except anchovies. Even goddesses have their limits."

Aria beamed at me, a look of profound pride on her face. "My protégée learns," she murmured, before turning back to the waiter. "You heard the lady. Unleash the full might of your kitchen upon our pizza. And don’t be shy with the cheese."

He scurried away as if he’d just been given a mission from a divine being.

"Don’t you think we’ve been taking lots of wine?" I asked, a hint of amusement in my voice. It wasn’t a real question, more of a rhetorical observation of the amount of liquid we consumed all morning.

"Not nearly enough," Aria quipped, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

The wait for the pizza felt agonizingly long, even though it was probably only fifteen minutes. The rumble in my stomach had graduated from a polite grumble to a demanding roar. We chatted about the sip-and-paint, reliving our paint-splattered duel with exaggerated gestures and gasps of mock horror. Aria recounted the instructor’s face when her yellow and red paint landed on his canvas, making me laugh until my sides ached.

Just as Aria was reenacting the moment her paintbrush slipped and created an accidental, but surprisingly effective, purple streak across what was supposed to be a serene landscape, a shadow fell over our table. The waiter, bless his flour-dusted soul, returned. But he wasn’t alone. Behind him, struggling slightly, was an older looking boy – holding what could only be described as a pizza the size of a small satellite dish.

It was glorious. Every topping imaginable, save the forbidden anchovy, was piled high: pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, olives, peppers, onions, ham, bacon, pineapple (Aria’s insistence, much to my initial dismay, but now I was too hungry to care), extra cheese bubbling and browning at the edges. It seemed to defy gravity, a culinary monument to gluttony and artistic triumph.

The waiter set down a large, crimson-labeled bottle beside us, deferentially pouring a small amount into Aria’s glass, then mine. "The... the ’Queen’s Ruby’," he stammered, his eyes wide as he looked at the pizza mountain, then at us. "And, uh... your—wow, your friend’s gorgeous."

I snorted while Aria, entirely unbothered, leaned her chin on her palm and batted her lashes. "Thank you, Enzo!" Aria beamed at him, though his name was clearly not Enzo. "The city’s just full of beauty this days." He blushed so hard I thought he’d combust, stumbling away with his tray like he’d just seen an angel.

Aria thrived on it. She always had. Me? I just felt awkward, caught between rolling my eyes and shrinking into the seat cushions.

But then the scent hit me.

My stomach growled so loud Aria smirked. "Hungry, huh?"

We didn’t wait for plates. With a silent, shared understanding, we each grabbed a slice, the hot cheese stretching impossibly long as we pulled.

The first bite was an explosion of flavor and texture. The crisp crust, the salty pepperoni, the sweet pineapple mingling with the earthy mushrooms, all enveloped in a rich, stretchy blanket of cheese. It was messy, it was hot, and it was perfect. The rumble in my stomach subsided, replaced by a deep sigh of pure contentment.

"This," I mumbled, my mouth full, red sauce threatening the corner of my lip, "is exactly what we needed. Total sensory overload, no thinking, just... delicious."

Aria nodded, her eyes half-closed as she savored her own bite. "Indeed. Sometimes, my dear, the greatest art is consumption. The destruction of one thing to create satiation in another. A profound experience, really." She wiped a smudge of cheese from her chin with the back of her hand. "Besides," she added, her eyes twinkling, "after a day spent arguing the philosophical implications of cerulean versus azure, one needs something... undeniable. Something that simply is."

Halfway through her second slice, Aria glanced at me. She chewed slowly, dabbing the corner of her mouth with a napkin, her gaze lingering on me a second longer than felt casual. The chatter of the restaurant swelled in the lull between us. Then, with a deceptively light tone, she set her slice down and her expression shifted. "So," she said, tone deceptively casual. "Spill it."

"Spill what?"

"Spill what?" I repeated, genuinely confused, wiping a streak of red sauce from my cheek with my napkin.

Aria took another deliberate bite, her gaze fixed on me over the towering slice. "Don’t play dumb." Her gaze swept over my arm. "You’ve been giving me half-smiles all day. You’re here, but you’re not here. I can smell it. I can feel it. I can see it. You think I don’t notice? Adrien sounded like someone had ripped his heart out when he called me this morning. I didn’t ask questions, but now—" She tilted her head, her voice dropping to a whisper only I could hear. "Now I can see it. You’re hiding something from me."

I almost choked on a rogue bit of mushroom. My eyes widened, caught in Aria’s unwavering stare. She had that look – the one that saw right through your carefully constructed facades, right down to the twitching nerves beneath.

"I’m not hiding anything," I finally managed, my voice a little higher than I intended. I took an unnecessarily large gulp of the "Queens Ruby," its rich tannins doing little to calm the sudden prickle of apprehension.

Aria scoffed, a tiny, elegant sound that somehow conveyed utter disbelief. "Please. You’ve got more tells than a rookie poker player. Your left eyebrow is trying to escape your face, and you just started nervously rearranging the pepperoni on your slice." She gestured with her own pizza, a dramatic flourish that sent a shower of basil flakes onto the checkered tablecloth. "And you suddenly unleash a demand for all the toppings? That, my dear, is the cry of a soul in distress seeking comfort in caloric abandon."

My throat tightened. I tried to laugh it off, but the sound snagged in my chest. "Aria..."

"No." Aria’s hand shot out, covering mine, firm and unyielding. "Don’t do that with me. Don’t lock me out. You don’t have to tell me everything, Isa. But if you don’t tell me anything? That’s when I’ll worry. That’s when I’ll know it’s bad."