‘She shouldn’t have made you feel that being sent away was a possibility in the first place. Did you tell her that was what you were afraid of?’
‘No. I didn’t want to put the idea in her head in case she hadn’t already thought of it.’ He took a gulp of wine. ‘I’ve never toldanyonethat before, actually.’
‘Not even Ali?’ She frowned.
‘God, no. Especially not Ali.’
Claire wondered why especially not her, when he was so close to her. But he got up then and went to the table, leafing through a pile of papers. Confession time was clearly over.
‘So, what do you want? Pizza? Thai? Indian? There are menus here somewhere.’
She drank some wine and decided that this was as good a moment as any. She knew it was cowardly, but she didn’t want to be facing him when she told him her news.
‘I’m going over to stay with Mark next weekend,’ she said to Luca’s back.
‘Oh?’ He stilled, and now she wished she hadn’t been so spineless because she wanted to see his face. She had no idea what he was feeling. His hands resumed their searching.
‘It’ll be our fifth date on the Saturday.’
‘Right,’ he said, turning to her slowly. ‘So, this is it, then?’ he asked, leaning against the table and folding his arms.
‘I guess so,’ she said, plucking nervously at theupholstery of the sofa. Even though he was facing her now, she still couldn’t tell how he felt about it.
He came to sit beside her on the sofa again, looking at her with concern. ‘Are you ready for that?’
She shrugged. ‘I think so. Don’t you?’
‘Well, I don’t think there’s much more I can teach you,’ he said, with a wry chuckle. ‘Not after that performance on Saturday.’
She smiled.
‘But don’t let him pressure you. If you need more time, just tell him to back off. Take it as slow as you like. Make him go at your pace.’
‘It’s not that I need more time… I don’t think.’
‘You don’t sound very sure.’
‘It’s just – I don’t know…’ She struggled to explain how she was feeling.
Luca was silent, waiting patiently for her to say what was on her mind.
‘It’s just that I’m fine now withyou. I feel like I know what I’m doing. I’m confident, and I’m relaxed about being naked around you. I can take the initiative.’
‘Boy, can you!’
‘But that’syou. I know you and we’re friends—’ She pulled herself up. ‘Well, I think we’re friends?—’
‘We are friends.’
‘So I feel comfortable with you. I don’t feel like I have to perform and you’re judging me. I don’t have to try to impress you. I can just be myself. But I’m afraid that with someone else I’ll be back to square one and it’ll be like starting all over again.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. And it won’t be like starting again. It’ll be like… riding a bike. Just a different bike.’
She laughed.
‘And don’t worry about impressing him – just be yourself.’
‘But what about us?’ she asked, blurting out the thing that was worrying her most.
