“You don’t have to move in,” he says. “Nina and Leo are happy to have you here.”
“And what about you? Are you going to keep missing dinners and soccer with Maso because I’m here? I’ve had to pick up all the slack from your absence. She’s making me milk sheep, James.”
He presses his lips together and lifts his gaze back out to the hills, and I’m left staring at the way the light leaves a fleck of white in his iris—the way his five o’clock shadow creeps down below his collar. He lets out a breath and his fingers seem to tighten on my back, urging me closer. Not close enough.
“What do you want me to do, Ava?”
His voice is so low that only I can hear him, but the question sounds pained. Like I’ve twisted and wrung him out, then hung him on the clothesline.
And maybe I have.
“I don’t know,” I tell his chest. “I don’t want you to miss time with your family.”
“I have plenty of time with my family—believe me—”
“And I don’t want you to miss time with me.”
It’s out of my mouth before I have time to think about the consequences. There’s that voice telling me how foolish I am in my brain—berating me for being selfish and reckless and seventy shades of stupid. But there’s something bigger hammering inside my chest, growing louder by the second, drowning it out—something that sounds just like Nina. Something that sounds like my mother.
Silence slips between us as the song comes to a close, leaving my words to echo in the empty space. His hand lingers at my hip as he steps back, his eyes on mine the entire time, deep and dark and filled with something I can’t name. There’s a moment when I think he’s about to lean in, to tell me something important, but then he shakes his head.
“Thank you for the dance,” he says.
He lets go of my hand and turns and walks out into the dark, up the path that leads back to Urbino.
TRENTADUE
James
La Festa del Duca has descended on the streets of Urbino. Knights on horses, musicians playing harpsichords, and women dressed in full Renaissance garb meander through the crowd greeting locals and tourists alike. Street vendors selling handmade jewelry and antiques haggle across the table, while the squealing and laughing of children bounce off the cobbled stone as they gather near the archery exhibit to try their hand at the target. A fencing match breaks out to the left, while a jester juggles brightly colored fruit from a stand on the right. On any given day in this city I feel as if I’ve just stepped into the past, but today that feeling is compounded exponentially.
Even in my angry stage as a post-American preteen, this festival lit up my soul—the experience so heady and authentic that I became obsessed with everything about the period, most particularly the art. For the last eight years, I’ve been in charge of the photographyfor the Historical Foundation’s media pages. But no matter how hard I work and how closely I pay attention to the details, I’ve never felt like my photographs have done the event justice.
I step into the doorway of Signore Galuscio’s pelletteria as flag throwers fill the street and launch their bright banners into the air. The lens never leaves my eye as I snap away at the show, working to capture the movement of color against the bright sky as the flag spins in the air. The sound of drums crashes through people’s chatter, and I snap several shots of a little boy running through the procession waving his own miniature flag—his smile equal parts joy and mischief.
The festival is a perfect distraction from the pit in my stomach about last night. I barely slept thinking about the way she looked in my arms as we danced. The way her eyes widened imploringly when she admitted she wanted more time with me and showed that rare vulnerability. The way she chewed on the corner of her lip, making me want to kiss right where she worried. But I walked away. Almost ran, really.
Coward.
I take in a deep breath, and the smell of roasting meat mingles with the scent of leather coming from the open door behind me, sending a wave of nausea from my gut to my head. I haven’t eaten since early this morning. It’s time to take a break.
I make my way back down the hill toward Vincenzo’s trattoria, sidestepping a bard as he recites a poem to a group of women having negronis on their hotel balcony.
“Gi!”
Nina waves over the heads of a group of students huddled around a snake charmer. I smile and wave back, squeezing through the crowd headed up the hill toward the piazza. As I draw closer, I see that Nina’s elbow is linked with the freshly reddened skin of the woman I can’t seem to escape.
Ava turns away from her conversation with Signore Turino and fixes her narrowed eyes on me. She looks pissed.
“Hello, Zia. Ava.” I nod in Ava’s direction.
Nina looks between us and lets out a dramatic sigh.
“Dove vai?” Nina asks.
“Ho fame. I’m heading to Vincenzo’s—”
“Perfetto. Ava was just saying how hungry she was. Weren’t you, cara?”
