“He agreed to let Lilly come live with us,” she volunteered, as if that should make all the difference.
He clinked his glass against hers. “What a guy.”
“Jules, I know Cliff has his shortcomings. But no one’s perfect.”
“That’s true. You could get with a guy who has a debilitating disease, for instance,” he mumbled.
“Where didthatcome from?” she asked with a laugh.
“Just showing you it could always be worse, I guess. Don’t listen to me. I’ve had too much to drink.” He’d had a shot atthe house after receiving an email from his doctor urging him to begin treatment. Since everyone else was in bed, it hadn’t seemed to matter if he numbed his feelings with alcohol. He certainly didn’t have to worry about his health any longer. He was already fucked there. But then Charlotte had asked him to go to Kasai’s with her, and he’d had two glasses of wine in addition to the whiskey he’d been drinking at the villa, and it was all going to his head. “I need to stop.”
He pushed his glass away, but she filled it again before topping up her own. “Why quit now?” she said. “If ever I needed to forget my problems and have a little bit of fun, it’d be tonight.”
Charlotte was drunk. But she didn’t care. The heartache was gone. The worry was gone. The fear that she might make the wrong decision where Lilly was concerned was gone, too. She felt free and fully alive for the first time in what seemed like forever.
“Fuck Cliff!” Jules nearly shouted as they finished the bottle they’d been drinking, and she was actually able to laugh. The more Jules drank, the funnier he got; the more she drank, the more she could appreciate his humor. She was laughing and hanging on to him so she wouldn’t trip on the cobblestone street as they walked away from the restaurant.
He steered her toward home, but she wasn’t ready to go back to the villa. Her problems resided there. The reality of her situation, including the impending loss of her career if she couldn’t overcome the fears and anxiety that were holding her hostage, were waiting for her there. She wanted to avoid that place for as long as possible and simply continue to feel good.
“Let’s not go back quite yet,” she said.
A cat slunk past them as Jules looked down at her. “Where else do you want to go?”
“By the water.”
“What do you want to do there?”
The world spun as she shrugged, so she tightened her grip on him. “Look at the coastline, I guess. Howl at the moon. It’s so bright this evening. Maybe we can get a picture of it.”
“I’m a good photographer, but I’m notthatgood,” he said. “Not without the right equipment.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, it might not be up to your high standards, but it’ll still make a nice memory.”
“Okay,” he relented.
“Do you know how to get there?” she asked.
“To the beach? Yeah.” He winked at her. “I can get you anywhere.”
“I believe it,” she said. “But I wasn’t even sure Praiano had a beach. To me, the coast looks mostly like big rocks jutting out of the sea with no sand around them.”
“There are a couple of tiny beaches,” he said. “And I think I know how to get to both of them. But just in case I’m wrong, I’m going to take you to the one I’ve already visited. It’ll mean several hundred stairs, though. To get to any beach we have to go down.” He swayed before catching himself. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
She heard the bang of a shutter and the whine of a Vespa or two in the distance as she gave him a cocky grin. “I am if you are.”
“It’s climbing back up to the villa that’ll be hard,” he warned. “At least in our current condition.”
She didn’t care about that. They’d make it somehow, even if they had to stay out long enough to sober up. She felt safe and warm and happy with Julian. “Then maybe we’ll sleep down there.”
His gaze seemed to take on a sexual undercurrent. But she told herself she had to be mistaken. She’d made that one comment to him the day he’d helped her carry Sabrina’s things, and he’d distanced himself immediately.
“That’d be okay with me,” he said, but then he paused, seemingly confused, as he looked around them. “Wait. First, I have to figure out how to get to the town square. If I can do that, I’ll be able to find my way from there.”
A couple passed by, talking earnestly. “Scusi,” Julian called out. “Can you tell me how to get to Piazza San Gennaro?”
The man tried to tell them in heavily accented English how to get where they wanted to go, but they were too inebriated to remember his instructions thirty seconds after he’d finished speaking.
“Grazie,” Jules said and as soon as they were gone, he laughed and shrugged. “We’ll find it. I have faith.”
