She opens the door and when I pull her close, she grips the back of my dressing gown with both hands. I cradle the side of her neck with the burning peacock feather tattoo and touch her chin, tipping her up for a kiss that turns into a half dozen. Finally she steps back, shouldering her duffel bag and taking the container of pasta off the credenza.
“It’s been real,” she says with a crooked smile that’s a little sad.
“Very much so.” I lean in the doorway, trying to appear unbothered. “See you in Spain.”
“Maybe,” she says. Just as the ambivalence of the word is killing me, she winks. “Probably.But don’t go counting on it.”
I put a hand on my chest, comically. “Dagger to the heart, that.”
And then she’s gone with a backward wave, and I’m left to overthink the past twelve hours, wondering how I’ll live without her if she’s forgotten me next month.
21
RAVENNA, ITALY
SAGE
I make it three miles before my stupid fucking tears make driving unsafe and I have to pull over. I’m overwhelmed. When Sandy mentioned telling a woman he loves her… shit, the last time I was that scared was when I had a big crash at Interlagos in the wet and got T-boned. The second before contact, it was like I could feel myself being fatally crushed, and… well, the L-word thing wasn’t much different, even though Alexander wasn’t technically declaring it.
I still don’t know why he said that. Was it a warning:I’m incapable of love, so don’t hold your breath? Was it an overture for a dialogue about our respective hopes for whatever the fuck we’re doing? Or was he test-driving how those words feel? Because this has gotten serious whether we wanted it to or not.
And worst of all, I think I actuallymightwant it.
I turn off the engine and start doing breathing exercises. The car’s top is down, and above me a huge laurel tree is shrugging in the breeze, making shadow patterns on me, and I focus on that because I have to stop thinking about turning around and going back to the villa. There are screechy bugs trilling off in the distance, so I switch to concentrating on that as I take five more measured breaths.
Oh, fuck it…
Snatching my phone from the console, I tap the top of my text thread with Alexander and call him. It rings four times and I get nervous and almost hang up, but then there he is.
“Salvi? Are you all right?”
It’s all warm and nice in my chest, because for one thing I’m hearing his voice, and for another, he’s obviously concerned, and… thecontinuityof that fact is pleasing. I don’t hang out with sex partners enough for them to have an investment in what I’m doing from one moment to the next, once we’re not in bed anymore. But something here feels comfortingly unbroken, real, like there’s a string tied between us. I have to swallow hard before I can speak.
“Yeah, there’s no crisis,” I tell him. “Like, not with the car or anything.” The lump in my throat strangles me and tears leak out along with a sort of emotion-hiccup.
“Oh, pet,” he says quietly.
Through the phone I hear a noise I recognize, the plink of a single piano key, and it makes my heart ache even more, becauseI know that sound, and things about Sandy are getting familiar and that both elates and terrifies me.
“Are you crying?” he asks.
“Of course not,” I snap.
He chuckles, and I love the sound in my ear. “No, because you’re ‘nails,’ wasn’t it?”
I sniffle, reaching for the glove box to see if I can find tissue. There’s a cocktail napkin from some Italian bar, and I swipe at my nose with it before realizing there’s a girl’s phone number on the back. Who the hell writes their number down anymore? I hope it wasn’t important to whoever used this car last. This time it wasn’t me.
Thinking about it makes me realize that I don’t want to meet people in bars anymore. I just want to lie in bed with Alexander and talk and have sex.
Goddammit, I fucking like him so much…
“Sandy,” I start tentatively, “I’m sorry I was bitchy about Julian this morning, and it’s not true that I don’t want to talk to you about it. I majorly do. But I’m not good at talking to people I sleep with. I mean, most of the reason I stick to hookups is so I don’t have to talk. It’s like, ‘I don’t speak Greek, and you don’t speak English, so let’s just get down to business,’ y’know?”
After a pause, he sighs. “I do know. All too well.”
I’m not sure if he means me or himself, but I press on. Now that I’ve started, I need to say it all, or I might never be brave enough again.
I take a controlled breath. “As for how Jules is doing, I don’t know because we aren’t allowed to talk with him, and… I was relieved about that, becauseit means I don’t have to. I think I’m a big coward that way. But also I’m really trying to understand what he’s going through. I got some books and I’m learninga lot. Truth is, the day he was supposed to go in, he went AWOL and had a junk bender in some Swiss hotel room. I’m worried.”
