“You almost ready to go?” he asks, like Wes isn’t standing here at all. His voice is flat. Straight ice.
“Yeah, um, I’ll be going. Just let me know, Sora. Okay?” Wes shoots one last look at me before putting his hands right back into his pockets and slinking away.
“Okay. Bye, Wes,” I squeak out before turning to Nico. “Sorry about that. I’m ready.”
“So that’s Wes, huh?” Nico asks dismissively, fussing with the moped to avoid looking at me.
“Yeah. Yup. Crazy running into him here.” I unwrap my sandwich and take a bite so that I have an excuse to not speak in this absolutely mortifying moment. “Thank you for the sandwich.”
“Very coincidental.” Nico grunts.
“Mm-hmm,” I add, my mouth full. “Small world.”
Thank God this is the moment our tour group decides to stream out of the café, distracting Nico and defusing the awkwardness that’s blanketed us.
“All right, everyone! It’ll be a forty-five-minute walking tour, but if anyone gets lost or wants to do a little exploring of their own, just remember to meet back hereat the Piazza San Gennaro,” Nico instructs the group.
I fall into step alongside the group as I do everything I can to make things normal again, but it’s clear that things have shifted in ways that I don’t really know how to handle. It’s not that Nico’s mean or unkind—he still smiles, he still waits for me outside every boutique, he still laughs at my jokes, but there is a politeness to the laughter that feels more like distance. He doesn’t point out silly store names, only chortles dutifully at “Pasta la Vista” when I read it out loud. We pass by a table of the kitschy penis-shaped noodles that are in seemingly every souvenir shop up and down the coast and I try to catch his eye, but he’s looking straight ahead, talking to Michael about the weather.
It’s fine, at least, because I find the most perfect gift to supplement the one I already have for Nico. I covertly purchase it, stealing glances behind my shoulder, then conceal it in my backpack so he doesn’t have a chance to see. Afterward, I find him a block away.
“You ready to head back?” I ask, and he nods. You could hear a pin drop as we walk back to our mopeds. The conversation that typically pours out so easily has completely dried up. The silence that used to feel tranquil is now painfully awkward. Torturous.
After what feels like hours of walking, we finally reach the mopeds. I quickly tick off the head count, and we are off again. But Nico’s back is tense beneath my hands, and when we pause at a pull-off to let some lagging mopedscatch back up, I take the opportunity to move my grip to the sides of the leather seat instead, praying that the sharp mountain turns won’t send me flying off. And I wonder, as he takes another tight curve, if this is yet another friendship that has been ruined by my chronic case of Wes Nile Virus.
CHAPTER 34
Our inaugural ride is asuccess. We take a group photo at the very end of the road in Ravello, holding cones of gelato, but Nico’s arm isn’t over my shoulder like it had been in the preride photo. He stands on the other side of all the tourists, as far away from me as physically possible, and doesn’t look at me once. I try to not let it get to me. I stick my cone up in the air like I’m the Statue of Liberty, plastering on the biggest smile, but the dripping trails of gelato melt down my wrist, leaving me scrambling to clean it all off. Story of my life lately. We take the hour-long moped ride back in silence.
At the hotel, we say goodbye to our fellow riders, distribute the goody bags, and give out hugs to the tourists, who have been great travel companions.
“Highlight of the trip so far, Miss Soraya,” one of our tour group members, Jerry, whispers as we hug. “How will I ever thank you?”
“Well, we’d love for you to leave us a review, if it isn’t too much trouble. This was our pilot, so the more interest it gets, the more likely it is you’ll be able to come back to doit all again!” I pull up my phone and show him the places where the B and B is listed: Tripadvisor, Yelp, Expedia, the whole nine yards.
“Consider it done.”
I keep trying to catch Nico’s eye, but he’s ignoring me. Moody much? With the guests dissipating it’s just the two of us again, and I want to toot our own horns, gush over the highs, commiserate over the lows, walk through the things that need improvement, but while he’s not exactly giving me the cold shoulder, he’s also not exactly warm and welcoming, either.
Sometimes people just need a minute. Space. I get it, I guess, so I get to work on the mopeds closest to me, scrubbing and buffing them so they look brand-new for the next tour, in a few days. It just sucks, to not be able to celebrate this moment together when we’ve worked so hard to pull it off, and as much as I hate to admit it, I start to get kind of irritated. Okay, fine, we ran into Wes, and I know I’ve been kind of annoying about him, but it’s not like I planned it—this time. I want to protest that it’s not fair, thatactuallyI’ve done a lot of growing, don’t you know, but I don’t want to make things worse, so I just huff, loudly, as I wipe down the last moped.
There’s a gentle tap on my shoulder, and I look up to see that it’s Nico, a half-wry, half-apologetic smile on his lips and almost a hundred euro in his hands. “For you,” he says. “The group had such a good time. They were singing your praises.”
I shove them reflexively back at him. “This was all you,” I say. “Your recommendations, your connections, your ideas, all of it. I can’t take this.”
“You earned this,” Nico insists. “This is your share. The tour is as much yours as it is mine, and I won’t take mine if you don’t take yours.”
“But the point of this whole thing in the first place was to make enough to save the B and B!” As soon as the words escape my lips, I know I’ve slipped up.
Nico freezes. “What do you mean, save the B and B?”
There’s no point in lying to Nico. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that my lies can only make things worse. I take a deep breath, bracing myself. “I saw the foreclosure notice, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—it was the wind, and then it was on the floor, and then I picked it up and I couldn’t unsee it.”
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even move. His hand, outstretched before, has slumped to his side as he stares blankly at me. I don’t know if I should keep talking, I don’t know if it’ll make things better or make things worse—all I know is now that the floodgates have opened, I can’t make myself stop.
“But I want to help you! I’m sure we can find out a way, the two of us. This place can’t go under, it’s so special, I see that now, but I don’t want you to give up your fellowship or Rome either, not when it so clearly means so much to you. Between the tours and the renovations and—and all the good reviews from all those peopletoday, Iknowthere’s a way to save it if we just—”
“Is that what all of this was?” he interrupts. There’s something brewing in his eyes, something awful. It looks like he’s coming to a realization. “Pity?”
