“Later.” I’m already slipping away.
I cut through dancers, sand and bodies until I’m in her shadow. Up close she smells like orange peel and something I don’t have a word for yet. She sees me a beat before I speak and her mouth softens, then sets.
“You didn’t answer me,” I blurt with no finesse and all nerve. “I sent three messages.”
“I noticed.” Those Irish vowels turn the words into velvet and barbed wire.
Honesty, clean as a knife.
“Why didn’t you reply?”
She studies me like she’s cataloging my flaws for an exam. “I was busy.” A glance at my open shirt, the chain at my throat, and the grin I can’t stop wearing. “Besides, I knowguys like you. Beautiful summer boys with big grins and bigger promises.”
“Ouch.” I slam my hand to my heart. “You wound me.”
“You’ll live.” She tips her chin toward the sea. “I’m not here for a holiday romance. I’m working doubles, and saving up my money. I’m getting out of Ireland for good, and a distraction with pretty eyes won’t help.”
Pretty. She thinks I’m pretty and says it like it’s a problem. My grin widens despite myself.
“What if I’m not a distraction,” I attempt, “but a cultural exchange? You teach me to pronounce your name without insulting your ancestors, and I teach you that not all Italians are trouble.”
She snorts. “You’re absolutely trouble.”
“Give me one dance to change your mind.”
“One?” She’s skeptical, but the corner of her mouth twitches.
Got you.
“One,” I promise, holding up a single finger. “Sixty seconds. After that you can go back to not answering my messages and I’ll go back to being tragically wounded.”
The song shifts to something with a lazy drumline and a soft guitar. She looks at my hand, at the sand, then at the sky that still hasn’t figured out how to get dark here. Finally, she does the bravest thing anyone’s done around me. She trusts me for the length of a chorus.
“Fine,” she mutters. “Just one.”
I pull her into the tideline where the sand is firm and cool. I don’t grab, don’t press, I just fit our hands together and let the music set the rhythm. She moves like she was born to dance. Her hips are sure, chin high, and eyes bright with suspicion she keeps forgetting to wear.
“What’s your name again?” I tease, leaning in so she can hear over the bass. “The long version. I want to get it wrong in at least three languages.”
“Caitríona.” She draws out her name slowly, perfectly, and my body files the sound under sacred. “You?”
“Matteo,” I confess, like I’m offering something bigger than a name.
Her brow lifts. “Mateo.” She flattens the t and I fall a little in love with the mistake.
“That’ll do.” I spin her once and she laughs. It’s sharp, surprised, and unguarded. It hits me in the sternum like a thrown stone, waking every organ I have.
“Don’t forget the rules, Matteo.” Her breaths come a little quick now. “If I dance, you stop texting.”
“Impossible.”
She narrows her eyes. “Then you stop showing up where I am.”
“Also impossible.” I tilt my head toward her friend waving from the bar. “Besides, fate clearly wants us to suffer.”
She tries not to smile and fails. “Flattery won’t work.”
“It isn’t flattery.” I lower my voice without meaning to. “I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about the way you looked on the beach. Like you were listening to the sea, and it was actually answering.”
