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Love truly was a beautiful and powerful force.
Dante Giovanni liked to think that love was the biggest motivating factor in his life.
He often heard the label ‘hopeless romantic’ lobbed at him, and while he supposed it was probably an accurate one, he couldn’t help it. Being in love was like the ultimate high. It made him feel giddy and euphoric and like he was on top of the world. Love came in so many flavors and heightened so many experiences that would’ve been so average otherwise.
He found himself even more obsessed with the concept of love ever since he had been Embraced. The idea of spending eternity with the ones he loved and cared about, experiencing all the unique things life had to offer was an appealing one to him.
Love was a motivator too - to be better, to try new things, to learn about others. It truly was a fascinating thing.
But as wonderful and delightful as love was, it wasn’t always simple or easy. Love couldn’t just be sunshine and rainbows.
Love - well, true love anyways - required sacrifice in order to stay alive and thriving. Sacrifices were never easy… but Dante knew they needed to be made every now and then in order to keep a beautiful thing beautiful and for people to grow as lovers.
He kept this in mind as he forced himself to swallow what truly was a terrible excuse for Italian food down, trying not to make any comments about how anything he or any of his relatives made was better than this. All for the sake of the beautiful blonde girl sitting in front of him.
“Thank you for taking me to Olive Garden, Dante,” Stacey said gratefully with a smile as she set down her silverware into her empty plate. Unlike him, she seemed to have no problems devouring and enjoying the meal she had. “I know you don’t like it, but I’ve been craving their breadsticks all week!”
“I’ll say,” Dante teased lightly. “You ate like four baskets by yourself. Plus your meal!”
“Hey, you helped with the breadsticks,” Stacey protested.
“If by help, you mean eating one then sure, I guess I helped,” Dante said lightly.
“Whatever, you definitely ate two,” Stacey said, flicking her balled up straw paper at him. “Oh speaking of the breadsticks-”
Her attention suddenly turned to the new basket of breadsticks in front of them, which had remained untouched by them since their meal came out around the same time.
For a moment, Dante honestly wondered if the mad girl was actually going to polish off a fifth basket, but instead, she did something much more unhinged.
He watched as she grabbed her black cloth napkin and carefully placed the breadsticks on top of them, before delicately wrapping them in said napkin.
“What are you doing?” Dante asked, watching her curiously. He had a sneaking suspicion he was about to bear witness to another absolutely batshit crazy habit of Stacey’s, and he just had to know where the hell this one was headed.
Stacey picked up the bundle of wrapped breadsticks and quickly glanced around the restaurant to see if anyone was looking no doubt. For a moment, Dante actually wondered if she was planning on hurling the breadsticks at another patron of the restaurant, but instead she quickly unzipped her Kuromi mini backpack and stuffed the breadsticks into it before zipping it closed again and returning the backpack to where it was, like nothing happened. Dante felt like opening his mouth to protest several times during that whole display, but nothing came out. All he could do was look flabbergasted until she looked smugly at him with a proud smile like she got away with a crime.
“Ensuring I have free food to take back home for a while,” Stacey said, crossing her arms.
Finally, Dante’s mouth seemed to work again as he said, “You know you can ask for a box right?”
“Yes… but watch this,” Stacey said, suddenly eyeing something behind Dante. Waving her hand, suddenly their server was at their table and she said, “Can we have another basket of breadsticks please?” When the server nodded and walked away, she said, “This is like an infinite breadstick hack. I can take as many as I want if I keep asking for more. In a box, they only give you like, one or two extra. They make you pay if you want even more.”
Dante sat bewildered at her logic. This whole thing was so unbelievably tacky and strange, but so very Stacey that he couldn’t help but be in awe. “What are you, a raccoon stealing trash?! Just pay the three damn dollars they probably charge for an extra basket. Hell, I’ll buy you some extra baskets if it means that much to you.”
“No, no, I get way more for free like this and it’s a lot more fun!” Stacey said. “When they start to get suspicious, I just leave… but if they’re not looking I steal any leftover breadsticks I see left on tables too!”
Okay now that was just too far. How much did this girl love Olive Garden breadsticks?
“You do not. Please tell me you’re lying,” Dante said in shock and horror. That was so… unsanitary and out there if any other person suggested they did that, he would be skeptical on whether they were being truthful or not. But he knew Stacey long enough to know that she truly was a different breed.
She was crazy.
“Oh I totally do it,” Stacey said, giggling at how shocked he was. He had a feeling she liked getting a rise out of him, out of surprising him, which she managed to do nearly every night he felt like. “It started with a dare though. Holly and I had a dare to see who could get away with stealing more bread at a restaurant. Person who got caught and kicked out first lost. I won, of course.”
“I don’t know if you should be proud of that,” Dante muttered.
“Well, I am,” Stacey said undeterred. “But when we realized just how much bread we came back with, we were shocked and I realized that it was all free food. Holly never wanted hers because she thought eating leftover bread was gross, so I took all of her grabbed food and for a while I had never ending bread for days!”
“Okay, I am glad Holly at least knows about the concept of germs, unlike you clearly,” Dante sighed.
Stacey shrugged, “I haven’t gotten sick yet so-”
“Yeah because you’ve put your immune system through the ringer so many times it’s probably comparable to that of a turkey vulture’s now. You could probably eat roadkill raw and not get sick,” Dante began, but seeing the way her face lit up with interest and her pretty blue eyes sparkled at the challenge, he gave her a warning look and quickly added, “ Don’t do that by the way, or I am not paying for our next dinner nights out.”
Okay, that wasn’t true. He probably still would, but still he had to deter Stacey from truly risking her life like that.
She could be as reckless with pathogens as she wanted when he finally worked up the nerve to Embrace her, whenever that may be.
“Fine,” Stacey groaned, pouting, “You’re no fun.”
The waiter returned with the breadsticks, which Stacey and Dante thanked him for. As the server walked away, Dante nodded at the breadsticks and said, “Well, aren’t you going to pilfer them like a cheap ass?”
Stacey shook her head. “We got to wait a bit, make it believable that we ate some of them.”
“You’ve really thought this out.”
“I have experience.”
Resigning himself to the fact Stacey was going to try to take advantage of her breadstick life hack, Dante stared out the window of the restaurant. As much as he despised Olive Garden and didn’t understand Stacey and his other friends’ obsession with it, he had to admit, the building itself had some nice perks to it.
It was a bit secluded and more subtly hidden, meaning it wasn’t constantly overflowing with guests like many of the other restaurants in the Las Vegas strip. It was quiet here, which isn’t something you usually got in the Strip.
The decor was nice enough for a chintzy chain restaurant and it played soft Italian music over the speakers, which if he listened to long enough would remind him of Italy or nights with his family.
And, with it being on the third floor, you got a nice view looking down on the Vegas strip. It wasn’t a scenic view by any means, but still it made for a bit of good people watching or gave you time to admire some of the various lights that lit up the night.
And hey, if it truly made Stacey and his friends that happy, he supposed the restaurant more than earned its worth in staying here.
Suddenly, Stacey knocked him out of his thoughts by eagerly saying. “You and I should have our own bread stealing competition.”
Oh god, Stacey had an idea now. And once her mind was set on an idea, there was no deterring her.
“Now why would I do that?” Dante asked.
“Because it would be fun!” Stacey exclaimed, as if that was a perfectly rational reason to do something so stupid. To her, it probably was. “And because I want to see your face when I totally kick your ass.”
Oh please. Dante was the shoplifting expert. Stealing bread without anyone noticing would be a piece of cake and-
Oh god, he was getting suckered into this.
He had to admit, the idea did sound fun… but it definitely came with the caveat of deciding on a restaurant that not only gave out complimentary bread, but one he was fine getting kicked out of.
As if reading his thoughts, Stacey leaned over conspiratorially and said, “I say we up the ante a bit by doing it at your scary cousin’s pizza place.”
Dante actually felt a stab of horror at the idea. “Are you insane? She literally just got over the last time I brought you guys to her restaurant, and you want to ruin that? She might actually kill us! Or get us arrested!”
“What’s life without a little risk?” Stacey asked. When Dante just gave her a ‘be serious look’ she said, “She’s your cousin and she’s forgiven us this many times thus far so I mean, it’s not like we’ll be permanently kicked out. Plus, she’ll forgive you… eventually.”
That was easy for Stacey to say. She most likely wouldn’t have to face the brunt of Isabella’s disapproval or anger. And depending on how mad Isabella was, Dante could be stuck owing his cousin boons for months. Hell, she might even make him work at the restaurant again for a few weeks like she had one time, which had truly been miserable.
But still, despite every rational part of his body telling him that this was a bad idea and that he was treading into dangerous waters… he couldn’t deny it sounded a bit fun.
Okay, correction, it sounded really, really fun.
They just would have to be really good and not get caught is all. They’ve stolen dozens of times before and clearly Stacey made a habit of this little bread thieving game. They should be good. Stacey might even get bored of it all before they ever got caught…
And he could see by the way Stacey was leaning over and looking so expectantly at him that she really, really wanted him to do it. Was he really going to let Isabella or Hugo scare him from making her delighted?
Even if he got in trouble, well… love requires sacrifice.
And hey, he’d even be securing Stacey some free food since she seemed to care so much.
“We can try for it Saturday night,” Dante said finally.
“Yay!” Stacey cheered, clearly delighted. And seeing how happy she was, made all of it worth it to Dante. The Olive Garden, potentially being indebted to a mafia cousin, the fact they would be stealing bread like a Les Miserables character… if it made Stacey all happy, then it was more than worth it.
‘The things you do for love,’ Dante thought to himself, with a smile of his own.