Chapter 18 Ravenna, Italy
RAVENNA, ITALY
ONE WEEK LATER
ALEXANDER
The last time I eagerly anticipated the sound of an arriving car was when I was ten years old, the year the Xbox was released.
My father had gone to America for a business trip and couldn’t be home for Christmas, and to make up for it, he was bringing home an Xbox.
It was newly available in the States, but not slated to make it over here for several more months.
I spent that rainy day in a fever of anticipation, prowling back and forth to the windows looking out on the drive leading up to our big house on the hill, my ear trained for his Lamborghini Diablo (he was “in the throes of a midlife crisis” at the time, as my mother put it).
Tonight is much the same—I’m pausing even at the hum of insects, determining whether it’s an approaching engine.
I arrived at the villa in Ravenna yesterday and immediately sent for the occasional housekeeper, Cinzia, who does for us.
The landscaping is kept up even when no one is staying here, so the outside looks tidy—pink sandstone paths swept, seasonal blooms and trees in order, fountain clear and musical.
The interior is aired, spick-and-span, all surfaces shining.
When Sage’s sporty little Mercedes—one of the Emerald vehicles that upper team members have at their disposal—roars into the circular drive, I can’t help glancing nervously down at myself, checking to see if I look both attractive and sufficiently casual.
I check my hair in the mirror in the foyer, then adjust the cuffs of my linen shirt, rolled to the elbows.
Opening the front door, I go down the path to meet Sage, who’s pulling an army-green duffel bag and a tailor’s garment bag from the boot of the car.
She looks up at me as she slings them over her shoulders, and her genuine smile makes my heart trip.
“Hey, Sandy-boy!” she calls out, coming around the car.
She’s wearing a simple black halter dress that ties behind her neck, hair upswept and pinned atop her head, baring the sculpted column of that gorgeous, tattooed neck.
Even in wedge sandals that add several inches, she’s petite, nose-height relative to me.
I’m struck with sudden anxiety over the greeting.
I’m likely still not allowed to kiss her.
Perhaps a one-arm hug? If I obeyed the dictate of impulse, I’d pull her into a fierce embrace and kiss her breathless.
But as she draws up beside me, my body is pulled in so many directions at once that I make a complete prat of myself.
My arms do something hesitant and graceless that concludes in sweeping Sage’s head toward myself in the crook of my elbow and almost kissing her forehead, then fearing it wouldn’t go well and laying my cheek briefly against her pile of aqua hair instead.
She laughs, looking up at me from inches away.
“I’ve really fucked you up with the no-kissing thing, haven’t I?” she teases.
“Hopelessly.” I reach for the duffel bag, the heavier of the two items, and she twists away with a sly smile before handing me the garment bag.
“Take this one,” she tells me. “It’s technically yours.”
“Really? Hmm, I’m intrigued.”
“You may not say that once you see it.”
“What is it, vinyl trousers and a ball gag? Sequined gown and cha-cha heels?” I joke. “Full of mischief, you.”
I keep an arm around her as we go up the path and into the house. The skin of my forearm feels electric from touching her warm, bare shoulders. As stilted as the greeting embrace was, walking like this seems natural. When we get inside, I point toward an arched hallway leading off to the left.
“Bedrooms are there. You’ve your pick, of course.” I don’t want to assume, so I had all three guest rooms made up with fresh linens and floral arrangements. An assortment of pricey toiletries and thick towels are in every en suite.
She tilts a sardonic look at me. “Obviously I’m sleeping in your room, dumbass.”
I lead her to the open doorway of the first and largest room. “In that case, this happens to be the ‘primary dumbass chamber.’ Make yourself at home, pet.”
She saunters in and drops her bag on the floor before turning a full circle, inspecting. “This is swanky.”
“Thank you.” I half close the door and hang the garment bag on the back. “May I open this?”
“You can change into it for dinner. I made us reservations at a nice trattoria.”
“Oh? There is food here, if you prefer to stay in. Our girl Cinzia made a baked pasta dish and left it in the fridge this morning.”
Sage takes a short backward flying leap onto the bed, giving a few extra bounces for good measure.
“Our girl?” she echoes, amused. “What century are you from?” She puts her hands between her knees and leans forward in a Marilyn Monroe posture.
“If she’s our girl,” she says, sotto voce, “she’d better be hot as hell. ”
Despite Sage’s bisexuality, nothing like this has occurred to me before now, and it must show on my face.
She laughs, leaning back. “Aww, did I unlock something there, Sandy? I don’t suppose you’re good at sharing.”
I rest both hands in my pockets and lift one eyebrow. “I’m not. Though it’s a nice mental picture, to be fair.”
She pulls the pins from her hair, tossing them carelessly behind her to tick on the tile floor. Lifting one foot, she directs, “Take my shoes off, lovely boy.”
I walk over slowly, our eyes locked. Sage rolls her ankle in an enticing circle. I cradle the heel of her foot and work the silver buckle open. The shoe drops, heavy, and I run both hands up her calf. When my fingers dip into the hollow at the back of her knee, Sage’s eyes flutter closed.
“I suspect,” I tell her quietly, “that you and I are going to have a very good time getting to know more about one another.”
I turn my wrist and massage two knuckles into the soft, slightly damp valley behind her knee and note the way she sucks in a breath.
Removing her other shoe, I grasp her behind both knees and pull her to the edge of the bed, legs on either side of my chest. My hands glide up her thighs.
When I reach her hips, I realize she’s not wearing knickers.
My eyebrows lift as if I’m scandalized, and Sage grins.
“Italy is so hot,” she says with a pout.
“You’re so hot.” One of my hands migrates to skim over her appendix scar and go to her belly button, circling it with my thumb, then slowly dropping until I reach the downy strip of hair adorning her mound.
“How hungry are you for dinner?” I follow the soft line lower.
“I’d love to taste you as an appetizer.”
“Impatient boy,” she croons, putting two fingers over my lips. “I actually am starving. And our reservation’s in forty-five minutes.”
She scoots back and executes a windmill move with her legs to disengage, rolling onto her stomach and sliding off the high mattress, flashing the curve of her bare arse as her dress rides up. Dancing away, she goes to the duffel bag and bends pointedly low to yank it open.
I shake my head. “Merciless.”
She stands with a crumpled handful of pearl-gray fabric in one hand. “I’m gonna rinse off.” As she walks into the en suite, she calls back, “You can open the bag now! Put it on.”
She leaves the door open and peels the dress off, then does something I’ve never seen anyone do in my life: steps into the shower before turning it on, then starts the water.
She shrieks, then laughs, as the cold water hits her.
Once it’s adjusted to her satisfaction, she breaks into her bold, off-key singing.
It feels oddly like home—I’m so happy to hear it again.
She’s bawling out the Pogues’ “A Pair of Brown Eyes,” injecting it with an affected drunken drawl.
I lean through the doorway, savoring the din of her complete lack of inhibition (or sense of pitch).
Her arms shoot over her head and she dances, hips bobbing side to side, rotating in the spray of water.
I go to the garment bag and pull the zipper down.
“Bloody Nora,” I mutter, my expression falling. Returning to the bathroom doorway, I ask, “Salvi, darling… you cannot be serious with that suit.”
She peeks around the edge of the frosted glass divider, her body fetchingly covered in suds. I try not to gawk, but those tiny rose-petal tits dripping handfuls of white foam… dear God. Give me strength.
“A hundred percent. And I put a lot of work into thinking about it, not to mention paying my tailor in Korea and having it overnight-shipped here.” She disappears behind the glass wall, then ducks back to add, “Oh, and there’s cologne in the pocket. You gotta wear that too.”
I pause, wrestling with how I might plead my case and escape the mischievous humiliation Sage has engineered. “It’s a very, erm… thorough prank—I’ll give you that. Point taken. But I’m not wearing that getup in public.”
She peeks out again. “Dude. Remember in Melbourne you said something about how you’d ‘burn the world’ to have me? Consider this the final payback. You’re a vain guy, right?”
“I can scarcely deny it.”
“All right. So are you willing to feel as embarrassed as I was when you wrote that shit about me? This is pretty fucking mild, comparatively—walking around for a few hours in an ugly suit.”
“It’s more than ‘ugly,’ pet. It’s aggressively clownish.”
“Yeah, I know.” She turns away and resumes washing. “The day you made that blog post, I was literally throwing Skee balls at a clown-face target and pretending it was you. This closes the circle. No complaining.”
I look over at the unzipped garment bag, which appears to be disgorging a poorly digested meal of colorful patterns. “If I do this, we’re even?” I ask.
“Yes. The slate is clean.”
With a sigh of defeat, I return to the garment bag. Fishing out a brown-glass bottle of sample-size cologne, I inspect it: something called “Chaps.” I twist the top open and sniff, then recoil. “There are fuckin’ limits,” I growl, capping the abomination and dropping it back into the pocket.