“Wait a minute.” He leaned toward her and seemed to be searching her face for evidence. “You believe me, right? You don’t think that I would intentionally take something that was banned and then go lie about it?”
“Let’s pretend I don’t know anything about you, Cris. I only know that you need to rebuild trust with people.” It sounded bizarre. There was a time when she would trust him above anyone else in the world. The summer they were eleven, they’d read an article in theLevante Newsthat said a Spanish galleon had been found underwater a short distance from the coast of Chiavari. They became obsessed with the idea of finding treasure and began trying to dive down as far as their lungs and plastic snorkel masks could take them. When Ellie had gotten water in her mask and panicked during one of the dives, she didn’t want to go down anymore, treasure or no treasure.
“What if we hold hands the whole time? Will you come then?” he’d asked. Before she had a chance to say no, he added, “I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” She was still scared after that, but they’d devised a system of communication: two hand squeezes meantI’m okay, let’s keep going, and one tight squeeze meantGet me out of here now, so he’d tug her right back up to the safety of the surface. It never failed.
But she had also trusted him once to take the leap with her from friend to something more and was left to fall alone. That was why itwas so much easier to put him out of her mind entirely: she could convince herself that she didn’t know this new version of him that couldn’t be trusted. His mistakes became the rule, not the exception, allowing her to draw upon purposefully biased evidence to convince her that he would only bring trouble into her life. But it wasn’t really who he was. She knew it. She just didn’t want to admit it.
“Fair,” he said, stepping back. “And you’re sure this won’t mean you’re sticking your neck out there?”
“I’ll risk it.”
“For me?” He waggled an eyebrow at her. She allowed it.
“No, Cris. For me. Believe it or not I have a few demons of my own to slay,” she said, examining one of the partially submerged shells under her foot she had been intent on unearthing during this conversation.
“Got it. Not that I believe you on the demon thing, but it’s good that you have your own reasons for doing this. The last thing I’d want you to do is have to focus on me too much.” Cris pulled off his T-shirt. Gone was the fat-free version of elite athlete body composition. This version was definitely 2 percent. Cris had filled out in all the right places since retiring, all right. His chest, shoulders, and arms were thicker, wider, and commanded even more space. His midsection looked like he could take a roundhouse to the solar plexus, get up, and curl his fingers at the kicker, beckoning for more. A fine dusting of dark hair covered his chest, collected in a patch, and dipped down into his board shorts.
In the split second when the fabric of the T-shirt was up over his face, she screamed internally. Thank goodness he had a very serious, very successful, very cover model-y girlfriend or she’d really be in trouble. Where was she, anyway? It was slightly odd that he hadn’t mentioned her yet. Maybe when a couple had been together for so longthey were comfortable enough to not need to talk about each other. Or maybe he figured mentioning her would bother Ellie?That concern would be a waste of neurons, she thought, dragging her blurry gaze away from him. There was no way she could be jealous. He was sonota possibility, he may as well have been another species.
“You coming in?” he asked, backing away to grab one of the foam noodles that was hooked up under the umbrella.
“Nah,” she said, composing herself and looking around for a solid excuse to avoid being around him until her vision cleared. “My parents might need me.” Ellie gestured back at the beach chairs, where Gio was already asleep with his mouth open, a wet bandanna draped over his bald head, and Peggy sat frowning at a novel, having glazed herself with so much zinc oxide it looked like she was ready for a kiln.
“Yeah. Okay,” he said. “Suit yourself.” He smiled, looking just like the twelve-year-old boy that would have replied in exactly the same way when she tried an equally lousy excuse for why she didn’t want to do something.
“What areyouusing a noodle for?”
“Less work,” he said, backing into the water with a grin. He reached down and tucked the noodle under his butt, then leaned back and started flicking his arms through the water to head deeper into the sea.
“We’ll make a meeting schedule! Okay? I need to know the details, Cris. I want to do this right.”
“What?” Cris called back, cupping his hand to his ear against the shouts of three kids floating by in a giant blow-up flamingo.
“Meetings!” Ellie yelled back. Cris nodded his head, now deep into the water and in the middle of the noise. He turned to her, dunked hishead down under the surface, and raised two hands up straight over his head moving his thumbs in the universal sign fortext me.
Ellie stood on the shore watching as Cris maneuvered himself over to the ladies. They yelled their greetings, calling his name and clapping. He grinned and chatted back, clearly basking in their adoration. Even Lucrezia cracked a smile as he bobbed up next to her and joined in on their conversation. She couldn’t hear who said whatever comment that made him laugh so hard he threw his head back, but she felt a little buzz watching him have fun with the grandmas.
It was definitely the heat.
She turned back toward the lounge chairs and eyed the freshwater outdoor shower that bathers used to rinse off the salt after getting out of the sea. That would do. Ellie walked over and pulled the metal chain, gasping a bit as the cold water smacked some sense back into her.
CHAPTER 9
Tomorrow AM:
Piccolo Bar/Piazza Mazzini @10
The texts had come in after he fell asleep. He was still jet-lagged to hell and, of course, three Campari Spritz and two glasses of grappa probably didn’t help. Those predinner drinks led into nightcaps and he never even made it to an actual meal.
It was 9:45A.M.and the café Ellie would be waiting in was at least a fifteen-minute walk from where he was still lying with his feet hanging out of the sheets. Cris scrubbed his hands over his face. He wasn’t exactly motivated to go talk about his problems for the next hour, but he had to suck it up.
Leo texted him last night asking him what the hell was going on and why everyone was asking him about his big brother’s scandal with the “horny goat weed.” That, of course, prompted his walk toget some air, which turned into ordering the first Spritz. The second one was sent over by a table full of Pro Chiavari water polo guys who recognized him at the bar. The last one was a combination of sheer momentum and the promise of more snacks that came along with it. He’d known everyone was off at dinner, but he wasn’t in the mood, so freetorta salataand potato chips were going to have to suffice.
Damn, he really had to get up if he was going to start off on the right foot with Ellie.
The smell of jasmine chased him down every street in Chiavari as he charged toward the piazza, just as it had for as long as he could remember. The bushes studded with white flowers exploded from every park and garden in the city. He didn’t even know what the smell was when he was a kid, only that it meant summer. Eventually, it also meant Ellie. He’d followed that scent to her on more than one occasion, but he remembered one of those times like it was yesterday.
He was sixteen. He’d woken up too early because of the time change but also because some part of his sleeping soul knew that Ellie was there. He knew she had flown in the night before—he’d heard his dad on the phone with her dad after dinner asking how their flight was and challenging Gio to an open-water swim the next day.
