For a long moment, we lie there, a tangled, sweaty mess, our bodies still joined. The only sounds are our ragged breaths, the pounding of our hearts, and the wind in the leaves.
Then, slowly, carefully, I pull out of her. She whimpers at the loss, her body still trembling.
I roll onto my side, pulling her with me, spooning her from behind. I pull the wool blanket over us, a warm, cozy cocoon against the cool night air.
She sighs, a contented, sleepy sound, and wiggles back against me, her soft curves fitting perfectly against my hard planes.
I tuck her head under my chin, her hair tickling my chest. My arm wraps around her waist, holding her close, my hand resting possessively on her hip.
We don't speak. There's nothing to say. The world is quiet, the stars are out, and she is here, in my arms.
This is peace. This is contentment. This is everything I've been searching for, and I never even knew it.
I press a soft kiss to her temple, and she sighs again, her body relaxing against mine, her breathing deepening as she drifts off to sleep.
I lie awake, watching the stars, listening to the quiet rhythm of her breathing. And for the first time in a long, long time, I feel a sense of rightness. A sense of coming home.
The thought is terrifying. Exhilarating.
I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair, breathing in her sweet, clean scent.
Chapter Thirty Three
Bianca
The car is silent as it moves through the late-day New Jersey landscape. The window is cool under my temple. I keep my eyes on the smeared reflection there because it’s easier than watching the streets I know slide by.
It’s rush hour, so there’s a constant ebb and flow. Brake lights flare and soften. A deli awning flickers by. A kid on a scooter shoots down a side street like he’s immune to consequence. Somewhere, a siren fills the air, then fades into the distance.
Italy is still in my body like heat after you’ve been in the sun too long. I can still feel the nip of the cool nighttime air on my thighs. I tell myself not to, but memory is a sneaky thief in my mind, opening doors I’m trying to keep shut.
Gio.
I try the word in my head, and it does the same low pull it did on the balcony, in the kitchen, everywhere. A week. That’s all it was. A week and I’m not the same person who hauled a suitcase up Nonna’s steps, hair in a messy knot, jaw set, pretending a tight plan could keep me on track.
That girl measured herself in discipline and debt. This girl—this woman—has other numbers to count now, and none of them are neat and easy.
The car takes the turn past the old post office, the one that still smells like dust and rubber bands. I’m home, technically. The word doesn’t fit right now, and that bothers me more than I care to admit.
“Home” should be simple and unambiguous. It should be cupboards you can open without thinking, and a mattress that knows the shape of your body.
Instead, I have a suitcase I need to unpack, boxes stacked where the entry rug should be, a kitchen that doesn’t smell like lamb or lemon or warm cherries, and a house that has been too quiet for too long.
I told the driver my address when we landed. He didn’t need the reminder; of course he didn’t. Conti drivers don’t get lost. I didn’t look at Gio when I slid into the back seat. I didn’t have to. Awareness has a way of sitting between two people.
He didn’t kiss me at the airport. He didn’t touch me at all. He said, “I’ll see you in the morning,” then closed the car door, shutting me in. That helped, and it didn’t. “In the morning” makes tomorrow real: breakfast, his kitchen, my hands on his stove. It also makes tonight feel like a bridge I’m supposed to cross without looking down.
The car slows for a light. I watch a woman on the corner adjust a bag higher on her shoulder, mouth moving into a phone. She could be saying anything. She could be telling someone she’s coming home. She could be saying she changed her mind. The light goes green; the driver rolls us forward smoothly.
I try to line up my thoughts like knives in a block. None of them wants to stand at attention.
Debt first. Always debt first. It’s still there. Numbers don’t dissolve because I took a tumble in someone else’s bed. I still owe, and I’m going to work, and I’m going to pay, and when it’s done, I will be the one to decide what door I walk through.
That’s the narrative I keep repeating: agency, proof against any future version of me that tries to pretend there aren’t any choices.
Desire next. I can label it clinically if I want to, but it doesn’t change the facts. I want him. I don’t want that to be the same as owing him. Those are parallel tracks, not a tangle or braid. And they will be, if I insist.
Can I insist? Last week says yes. My body says yes. My morning brain—the one that plays the worst-case reel—says be careful. It always says be careful. It has not prevented me from having anything I actually wanted.
