“We have nothing to wear in the morning.”
She smiles, warm light spilling from nearby homes and businesses and playing over the crests and hollows of her face. She knows I’m not objecting. I just need to know the details.
“I took care of everything. Our things are waiting for us. Ryan is already there,” she says.
“Where is there?”
“Not much farther.”
We continue through the quiet shadows until we reach a charming slate-roofed flower shop with a bright blue door and overflowing window boxes beneath large paned windows.
Franki raps the doorknocker and an older man, maybe sixty, opens the door. The woman beside him is as round as an apple and shorter even than my sister. The two of them beam at us and clasp one of Franki’s hands.
My Italian is passable, but the excited chattering between my wife and the woman is far too rapid for me to make out more than a word or two.
Still, I manage the gist as the two of them lead us through a hallway, the floral scents of the shop surrounding us. We follow them up a flight of stairs where they enter through another blue-painted door, leading us into an apartment. Ryan, the guard on duty, sits at the round kitchen table with a tiny cup of strong black coffee and raises his hand in greeting at my nod.
The woman points out the kitchen and bathroom, then sweeps open a door to a bedroom.
Nothing about the apartment is particularly elegant. The villa we left behind was polished and expensive. “This place is homey.”
Franki grins. “Rustic.”
I sweep my knuckles down her spine. “I love rustic.”
“I know.”
The woman drops a set of keys into Franki’s palm, wiggles her eyebrows at me, then nudges Franki with a giggle.
I’m nearly positive her words translate to something about making babies.
“Where are they going?” I ask when she and her husband exit the apartment with Ryan close behind.
“Ryan will work the usual detail. He’ll be downstairs. Lucia and Giovanni are going home. They keep this place for their adult children when they come from the cities to visit. Their house is too small for all of them with the grandchildren and spouses. They hold out hope one day their youngest daughter will move in permanently, but the children all work away.”
“How do you know them?”
“I met them the last time we were here when I bought flowers.”
This is the essence of my wife. More than a year ago, she had a conversation with a flower seller, and now she knows their life story, and they’re welcoming us to stay like we’re family. “How did she know about our plans to attempt procreation?” I ask curiously.
Color rises in Franki’s cheeks. “She didn’t know. I said we wanted time away from the crowd at the villa. She inferred from there.” She bites her lip. “Are you really going to call it procreation?”
“It’s an excellent word. Accurate.”
“But not a sexy one,” she says.
I close the bedroom door and lean against it, knowing Ryan would have run a security protocol before we arrived. Loosening my tie and unbuttoning my shirt, I assure her, “I can make it sexy.”
She hooks her cane over the knob of the closet door. “Not even you.”
“There you go again, issuing a challenge.” Finished with the last button, I shrug off the tie and white cotton shirt, tossing them to the wooden rocking chair in the corner. My glasses are next. Then I prowl toward my wife.
She backs up, matching my steps in reverse until she runs into the bed. I advance until my body presses flush against hers.
Though the room is warm, she shivers, the hard little points of her nipples grazing my chest through the filmy fabric of her strapless dress. With a twitch of my lips, I lift one hand and give her a gentle shove.
Laughing, she lets herself fall backward onto the white chenille bedspread, her hair falling loose to frame her in soft ribbons of brown and caramel.
