I think I wouldliketo bathe init.
“Stop wandering away,” Theo snaps at me, that muscle in his jaw clenching, his palm wrapping around my wrist. “I’ll handcuff you to my side if I have to.”
“I bet you’d love to use handcuffs on me,” I coo. “Not as much as I’d love it, obvs.”
There’s a flicker of something in his eyes as they sweep over my face and drop to my mouth. A muscle in his jaw flexes once again as he looks away. That muscle’s going to need a massage after the week it’s just had.
Increasingly, I want to be the one to provideit.
• • •
We return to the hotel to change for our chairlift ride to the top of Monte Solaro, which will be the last thing I film with Theo before I head home. I think it’s that, more than anything, that has me longing to curl up on my soft white bed and cry.
It all just went so fast.
Instead, I grab Mindy’s instructions and don the designershorts and T-shirt I’m instructed to wear, along with my own sneakers, though she’s suggested low heels for some insane reason. Once downstairs, Theo and I grab a car and meet the rest of the crew at the mountain’s base.
I’ve just gotten my mic on when Katrina approaches. “Bad news,” she says. “The chairlift just broke, and they don’t know when or if it’ll start running again.”
“Goddammit,” says Lars, fuming. “Well, it looks like you’ve got the afternoon off. Sorry, Bex, I know you were looking forward to seeing the view from the top.”
“We can climb it,” Caden says. “I’ll go with you.”
Ugh.An hour and a half spent with Caden? No thank you.
“I’ll go,” Theo says, as if Caden hasn’t spoken. “Maybe you guys could shoot us taking off and just grab some stock footage of the top?”
“Fantastic,” says Lars. “Take some video too. We might be able to use it. But don’t forget to be ready to leave for the airport by five.”
Theo and I hand our mics back over and turn to head up the gravel path. We’re out of view within minutes, surrounded by trees, and my shoulders settle—it’s a relief to know we’re not being watched. “Thank you for doing this.”
“I wanted to see it too,” he says. “I also don’t trust Caden.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I reply.
His head jerks toward me. “Has he tried something?”
I shake my head. “He’s been a little gross. Nothing I can’t handle.”
After fifteen minutes of climbing, we’ve got a view of Capri below us—umbrella pine trees and white stucco homes sprawling all the way to the deep blue sea. Not long after, the chairlift suddenly begins moving far overhead and I turn to grin at Theo, who smiles back.
I think I sort of prefer this quiet climb anyway, our breath and our sneakers slipping over gravel the only sounds. Hopefully he does too.
Soon we’re high enough that Capri is tiny below us and the sea makes up most of the view, with Sorrento a haze in the distance. It’s drier and cooler here, mostly rocks ahead and little vegetation, the path wide enough and empty enough that we can easily walk side by side. I reach into my bag and offer him the bottle of limoncello I brought. “Go ahead. It’s just alcohol-flavored water.”
He laughs. “Only you would bring booze for a hike.”
“To be fair, I brought booze for a chairlift. Very different. To give you an analogy you’d understand, it’s like when the royal family drinks at Wimbledon versus when they’re playing tennis in the backyard.”
“Nothing about that analogy clarified the situation,” he says, but he takes a swig and so doI.
We reach the top at last and take some video of the view for Lars—the same rock formations we sailed near yesterday, and the yachts anchored close to them. He takes a few photos of his own—I’m pretty sure I was in the shot too, but I seem to be in most of the pictures he takes, and he no longer complains. Apparently, he’s good at editing me out.
We’ll take the chairlift back, obviously. It’s for the best since we both need time to pack and shower. I sort of wish it had stayed broken anyway.
“This trip went fast, didn’t it?” I ask, pulling the limoncello out of my bag again and taking a swig. “Although waiting for your erection to go down seemed like it took a year.”
“Rebecca.”
