My gaze traces his face, waiting for his reaction, and his eyes do that thing again. The thing where they paint my body like it’s a canvas. The thing which kickstarted all these feelings all those years ago.
It’s exactly what we need. A little time to escape reality properly. Time I can spend with Luc without worrying about who’s watching. Time to decide whether these feelings are here to stay.
Whether I really don’t want our arrangement to end in a few weeks.
Whether I’m really going to let my heart win this time. To let Luc in for good.
My brain replays the wobble of his lip on the plane, after we’d already started descending and the seatbelt sign was on, when I told him that we were in Tuscany for a surprise birthday trip.
‘You brought me to Tuscany for… my birthday? For a surprise?’ Luc had shaken his head, voice shaking. ‘I don’t have anything with me.’
I told him that his sister had let me in to his apartment when he was at a meeting with his agent, and that Kareem has been pretending the bag I’d packed for Luc was his the whole time. Babies need a lot, but they don’t needthatmuch.
‘If I could unbuckle my seatbelt right now… I would give you a huge hug, but I’ll settle for this.’ He’d reached his hand across the plane and intertwined his fingers with mine. ‘Thank you, Sienna.’ Even the memory of his words drips down my skin like melted butter.
‘You’re insane for this, by the way.’ Luc shakes his head, laughing. ‘Who books their…’ he trails off. ‘A holiday to a Tuscan villa as a surprise for their birthday.’
‘Me, apparently.’
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Luc didn’t finish labellingme. That he didn’t call me his fake girlfriend or friend as we’ve been doing.
‘I was a bit worried when you didn’t mention your birthday,’ I say.
‘I don’t really go in for birthdays.’
‘You used to,’ I point out, remembering the photos with Rose on Instagram.
He swallows and his Adam’s apple bobs with the effort it takes. ‘Well, sometimes other people want to celebrate your birthday.’
It’s a reminder of what Luc’s mum said which sowed a seed of an idea to do something nice for Luc. That Luc’s too nice and lets other people’s wants and needs overtake his own. Maybe doing something for his birthday was more to settle my own desires rather than his. Maybe I’m another person who wants to celebrate his birthday while he doesn’t. We can pretend it’s any old holiday though, a couple’s trip, if that’s what he’d prefer. I don’t mind what we do over the next few days so long as it’s what Luc wants.
The springs on Dennis’s bed creak. Luc and I take our suitcases upstairs, where I grab my bikini and he finds his trunks from ‘Kareem’s bag’.
I change into a red gingham bikini, with little frills on the straps and the top of the briefs. I don’t hide away from Luc, but I change quickly.
I take my phone down to the pool and arrange myself on the sun lounger in the early evening sun while Luc jumps straight in.
‘Mimi and Jess still need us to hint that we’re away together… obviously without giving away where.’
It’s an unwelcome reminder of why we’re here. That while we might be living our arrangement differently than how we thought, no one else knows that and we do have rules we need to follow. Even if we’re breaking them the moment the door is shut.
Luc holds onto the side of the pool, looking up at me. He shakes out his curls and they bounce back into their pattern and then looks back towards the villa. I lift my phone, and take a photo, the camera shutter disturbing the peace.
Luc swims a few lengths, and I pretend to read in the last hours of sunlight, when really, I’m watching him over the top of the pages. When he gets out, his shorts cling to his thighs, and it’s like I notice his body for the first time. It’s softened, even though he still takes care of it in the same way, and there are a few grey hairs peeking through the back of his head. A more mature version of the man I fell in love with ten years ago.
I put my book down and Luc lies on the lounger next to me.
‘This is the best surprise,’ he breathes and closes his eyes, reaching his hand over to me and resting it on my thigh. I could sleep.
When I wake up, the umbrella has been positioned so I’m in the shade even though the sun is setting, and Luc has disappeared. He can’t have been gone long because the water next to me still has ice floating in the top. The cubes are now tiny pebbles on the surface, a few moments away from melting completely.
I go back into the house and Luc is standing over the hob.
‘Where did you get to?’ I ask, leaning against the kitchen island. He’s changed out of his trunks into some denim shorts and a t-shirt.
‘Biked down to the shop,’ he says. He pulls a litre bottle of water out of the shopping bag and guzzles it greedily before offering me some.
I shake my head and take a sip from my own glass.
