But instead, I whispered, “Yes,” and we walked on. I didn’t need to ask him to keep holding me: he threw his arm over my shoulder and I moved close to his side. We fit together perfectly, like two parts yearning to be one.
I looked at the map on my phone. “I think it’s the next right.”
“I think I know where it is,” Lucas said.
And when we turned the corner, I saw it: a tiny shop with a little window decorated with paper garlands and tulle clouds.
I bought leotards, tights, tutus, demi-pointes and flats, with ribbons and with elastic straps. The shopkeeper was nice and patient, and she even gave me a sewing kit on the house, which I thanked her for profusely.
“Do you have everything you need?” Lucas asked once we were outside.
“Yeah. We can head back to Sorrento whenever you want.”
“Or we could spend the day here…”
“Do you really want to?”
“I do,” he said. “Do you?”
I shrugged, trying to feign indifference, until I couldn’t contain myself and started hopping up and down.
“Yes I do!”
I discovered that day it was impossible to get bored with Lucas. Before we’d finished doing one thing, he was already proposing the next and planning whatever we’d do afterward. All you had to do with him was let yourself go and enjoy the conversation, the laughter, and the crazy thoughts that passed through his head.
I loved hanging out with him. He was so charming. His cheekiness, hiswhateverattitude, the way he looked at me. One minute I felt he was stripping me bare, and the next it was as if he were wrapping me in a big, warm blanket. Beside him, I stopped thinking and focused on the moment. On the now.
We bought ice cream and headed to the Piazza del Plebiscito. Once there, Lucas was set on making me cross the square blindfolded, from the gate of the Royal Palace to the entry of the Basilica of San Francesco di Paola. It was a tradition, and the idea was to go in a straight line and pass between two equestrian statues. I managed it on the third try and took a bow before a group of tourists that applauded me.
We ate at a place called Sorbillo. Lucas told me they made the best pizza in the world, and he was right. Then we went to a nearby pastry shop for sfogliatella, a kind of puff pastry filled with ricotta. I’d never had anything so rich in my life.
We spent the afternoon in Spaccanapoli, an area dividing the old city into north and south, running from the Spanish neighborhoods to Forcella, the soul of Naples, a labyrinth of tiny streets full of artists and artisans, scents and little portraits of the city’s daily life.
We were stopped at a stand selling trinkets and jewelry when all at once, the sun vanished. I looked up and saw black clouds covering the sky. Thunder roared overhead, and a current of air whirled around our feet. A drop of water struck my cheek.
“We need to get to the car,” Lucas said.
He took my hand—he was doing that more and more lately—and we walked away, hugging the buildings as the rain started to come down. There was a crack of thunder, and a bolt of lightning lit up the sky.
No sooner than we’d jumped into the car than a storm overtook the city. Rain struck the glass with a deafening sound and it was impossible to see outside.
“Let’s wait for it to die down a bit. I don’t think it will last too long,” Lucas said, wiping off his face with his T-shirt’s tail. He turned in his seat, eyed me over, laughed, and said, “You’re soaked.”
I looked down and saw my skirt, almost transparent, sticking to my legs. My T-shirt was clinging to me, too. I’ve never been one for wearing a bra if I didn’t need to, and most of the time, I don’t. But the realization that I didn’t have one on then, and that thanks to the rain, I wasn’t leaving much to the imagination, made me feel timid. I crossed my arms and rubbed them, pretending to be cold.
We sat there watching the rain. I could hear Lucas breathing audibly, and his left leg was bouncing up and down. He seemed tense, and he wasn’t the only one. I didn’t know what to do around him anymore.I was a bundle of feelings and sensations, and I couldn’t stop asking myself if he felt the same way. If attraction flowed both ways between us as friendship clearly did. If the intensity was the same. If he was holding back as much as I was.
“Lucas,” I asked him, “the other day on the beach… How come you asked me to stay?”
He grabbed the wheel and slid his fingers down one side of it, tensing his jaw.
“I don’t get the sense that anything important is waiting for you back in Madrid, and it seems like you like it here.”
That wasn’t the answer I’d expected, and it was a little bit disappointing. But then, what had I wanted? A declaration? An admission that he liked me? Yes, of course that was exactly what I was dreaming of.
“Am I wrong?” he added.
I shook my head. “I mean, I don’t even have a home to go back to. My grandmother tossed me out on the street without blinking.”
