Chapter Eight
chapter eight
CAIO
I never knew that watching someone else enjoy my town would be so exceptionally fun. Isla’s eyes light up each time we come to a new stall. I’m aware that Ruby Cove is unlike any other place in the world—most places don’t have ‘best jam’ awards or cheese sniffing competitions—but sometimes it slips my mind what this place must seem like to outsiders. Seeing it through Isla’s eyes reminds me of what a special place I get to call home.
God, her facials during that cheese sniffing competition had me nearly doubling over. I could just imagine the puzzled look in her eyes under the blindfold.
Every time she sees a stall she wants to go to, she squeezes my bicep before dragging me over. Not that she really has to drag me. I think I’d willingly follow Isla into a bloody Sephora if she squeezed my arm like that and looked up at me with those big brown eyes. The puppy dog eyes work on me apparently. Or maybe it’s just her.
We’ve nearly done the whole fair by now, and there’s only a few stalls left before we’ve circled back to where we started.
I’ve seen glimpses of Isla’s personality being here with her. Don’t get me wrong, she still has this whole independent thing going on, but it’s cute. I’ve learned the way to her heart is a good pastry, and that she knows absolutely nothing about cheese. Mind the fact that all those facts are about food, but I’ll take anything I can get.
There are only a few stalls left on our way out, one of them being Nora’s.
“ Come va, Nora ?” I say over the sound of excited children around us. Nora loves to get involved with the community, so every year she does face painting from her stall, giving some parents a chance for some alone time to peruse the fair. Plus, she loves hanging out with the kids—she claims it keeps her young.
Her eyes light up when she sees Isla at my side. She flicks me a look, raising her eyebrows, before turning her attention to Isla.
“Ciao Bella ! How are you?” She grabs Isla by the arm and takes her back under her tent, leaving me standing here with a gaggle of children running around my feet.
“I’m good, thank you. Caio has been showing me around,” Isla says as she gestures toward me, taking her eyes off Nora for the split second Nora needs to look at me with mischief glinting in her eyes. Nora has known me since I first rocked into town with nothing but a wad of cash and an idea for the hotel on the hill.
That was the last thing I did before I left. I went to the bank and extracted as much of my trust fund as I could. As much as I’d hated the idea—I didn’t want anything from my parents—I needed a way to get started. I packed my life into my suitcase at twenty-one and never looked back. I haven’t been back since I opened Hotel Dolce, not that there’s anything there for me anymore. My father made it clear when I left that I wouldn’t have a family to go back to. A small part of me felt like he might have been bluffing, or that my mom would stay in contact.
He wasn’t, and she didn’t.
If anyone in this town knows what I’ve been up to over the last six years, it’s Nora.
I haven’t had many relationships over those years, and any I did have I kept to the confines of either their house or mine. God knows this town loves a bit of gossip, but I can’t help but want to take Isla out. Her energy is sucking me in like a whirlpool that I can’t seem to escape. I can’t swim out of the rip, but I’m not sure that I want to. I want to spiral all the way in and see where I land.
Nora and Vanessa have been trying to find me a bride for years, telling me I’m getting too old. So I know exactly what those sneaky looks mean when she sees me with Isla.
“This is all pretty…interesting, to say the least,” Isla continues.
“Oh, I have something for you,” Nora says, walking further into the tent to rummage through her bag, before pulling out a sketch pad and a pencil and handing it to Isla.
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t?—“
“I recognized that glint in your eye when Caio mentioned my studio. I can recognize a creative mind when I see one.” Nora pushes the supplies into her hands with her signature I-know-better smile. I’ve been subjected to that one more than a few times.
“Just in case you get the urge,” she adds.
I thought Isla was a fine arts major. Why is she so hesitant?
“Thank you.” Isla smiles back this time. I feel like I’m on the outside with these two, and they only met yesterday.
I feel a soft tug on the bottom of my pants, and I look down to see a little lion looking back up at me, her beautiful blue eyes curiously roaming my face.
I crouch down to meet her height. “Hello,” I say.
“ Ciao , Mr,” she responds.
“What’s up?”
“You need a face painting to be here,” she says. “We all have one.” She gestures to her friends running around the tent. “You need one too.”
She’s a sassy little lion.
“Oh, do I?”
“Mhm,” she nods, crossing her arms in front of her.
“What about her?” I point to Isla, who’s looking over at us like she might melt at the sight. “Does she need a painting too?”
The little girl nods. She’s adorable, she can’t be over five years old.
“You better pick us out a design then. What do you think? I could be a lion like you?”
“No,” she counters, and her eyebrows draw together, as if she’s using all of her concentration to study my face. “A butterfly,” she says with confidence, nodding her head and assuring herself of her decision.
“A butterfly it is.” I smile. “And what about for Isla here?”
The girl waves Isla closer and she comes to crouch next to me so the little lion can make her decision.
“A tiger,” she says, her eyes glittering as she imagines it.
“A tiger?” Isla says. “I like it. Will you help turn me into one?” The girl’s eyes light up at the prospect of doing Isla’s face painting as she nods. “Why don’t you go ask Nora for the paints then?” The girl skips off to Nora, tugging on her pants to get her attention.
“How is it that you get to be a tiger and I’m the butterfly?”
“She can obviously feel the power dynamic between us,” Isla replies with a little smirk.
I scoff a laugh as our little lion comes running back to us, face paints and brush in hand. She uses the paint brush to point at my face. “You first.”
“Don’t you forget the doors to my studio are always open to you,” Nora says as we make our way out of her tent nearly forty minutes later. It took the little lion half an hour to create the messy masterpiece that is Isla’s tiger face, and ten minutes to rush my pink and blue splattering of a butterfly before her parents came to pick her up.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Isla says.
Nora’s studio used to be one of the more popular places in town, with people always wanting to purchase art on their way through. But Nora has had fewer artists coming to work out of the studio in the last few years, so I know she’d appreciate the company.
We say goodbye and start to wander back to the hotel. It’s an uphill battle, and we are definitely losing in this heat. Summers on the coast are always warm, but this year is scorching.
“Let’s stop here,” I say when we reach a patch of shade under a tree. Looking at us, you’d think we ran a marathon. I always underestimate this hill.
“Why are you puffing? Don’t you work out like every day?” Isla asks in between breaths. “I have an excuse here. Exercise was never my calling, but you look like you should be better at this.”
“I don’t actually, but I’m glad to know you appreciate my body.” I smile down at her.
She stands upright, her tiger stripes crinkling as she frowns. “You’re lying.”
“Nope, genetics unfortunately.”
“Well genetics won’t do. I was hoping for a piggyback the rest of the way. Where’s a real hunk?” She puts her hand up to her brow like she’s really searching.
“Funny,” I say before I pick her up and chuck her over my shoulder. She screams in protest, but I just keep my hand on the skirt of her dress so she doesn’t flash half the town.
And that dress...she looks fucking good in that little blue dress. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her when I first saw her in the lobby. My feet walked over to her before my brain could catch up. Like I said, whirlpool.
“Caio! Put me down!”
“This is your fault.” As if she’s going to backhand insult me and not expect me to prove her wrong.
Her phone buzzes in the pocket of her dress—I didn’t even know that dresses had pockets—conveniently saving her. I put her down so she can answer. She puffs looking at the screen before she quickly declines the call, turns her phone off, and puts it back in her pocket.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but she waves me on. “Let’s go, Hercules.”
For most people, the start of the business week is a big sigh. Sunday evening is spent thinking about the fact that tomorrow is Monday and come 9:00 a.m., it's back to work.
But Monday mornings in my world are quiet and calm. I like to start the week off well, so in the last couple of years I’ve made it a priority to leave Monday mornings for myself. The meetings and budgets can wait till midday, and instead, I spend my mornings slowly, reading the local newspaper before making sure to dedicate some time towards keeping my apartment clean. It’s an important part of my routine as I work better in a clean space. If I have paperwork or mess littering my space, I get distracted from the task at hand and spiral into overworking mode. Which, if I’m honest, I’ve been doing too much of lately. Yesterday was the first day in months that I’ve gone out for something not entirely work related. I had been debating going since getting home on Saturday, but my mind was made up as soon as I saw Isla standing in the lobby.
I grab the few coffee mugs that I have lying around, stacking them in the dishwasher before letting out a satisfied sigh. All done.
I never used to do it. In fact, I used to work seven days per week on a regular basis, so the whole work-life balance is a concept I’ve only implemented in my life over the last few years. I can admit I’m a workaholic, but honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way, even if my friends do feel like they have to drag me away from this place every now and then.
I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I didn’t get here by chance or luck, and I’m proud of that. But earlier in the piece, when I was still establishing the place, I got to the point where I would rarely leave the hotel. I took on too much and the burnout hit me harder than I’d expected. To be honest, my head was so buried under the pile of work that I didn’t even realize I had burnt out at all. I was running on coffee and determination for far too long.
It took Rafael being a fucking dick and dishing out some harsh words for me to get my shit together and realize I had crossed the line into overworking. I hired more staff and was able to share all of the responsibilities I’d been carrying by myself for too long.
It’s a fine line I was walking and sometimes I still cross it, but now I’m able to recognize it for what it is and regain my balance again. Prioritizing taking time for myself, even if that means going for a run, or simply getting out of the hotel for a change in scenery. But nothing has ever meant more to me than this hotel.
Sometimes I still feel like I have something to prove. When I left home, I wanted to prove to myself and to my parents that I could do it, that I could build a life for myself, away from their influence and their expectations, and I did. I proved it, and I know it’s crazy, but sometimes I still feel like it isn’t enough. Like maybe if I work just that little bit harder, I’ll be worthy of more. And then there’s that pesky little gap that still bothers me. Even though I feel like I’ve done all I could do, something is still missing. Despite all of the hours I’ve put into Hotel Dolce and the success I’ve found with it, it’s not as fulfilling as I always thought it would be.
But I can’t look back. It’s not my family that I miss. I grieved for them, and for the young boy who wanted their validation so much that he would do anything they asked of him, but any trace of that boy is gone. He disappeared the day his parents abandoned him. As I built my life here, I found a new family, found a new home, built a life I’m endlessly proud of myself for making, and realizing their validation wasn’t needed for me to succeed was one of the best lessons I ever learned. But sometimes, I still look back at that boy and wish he didn’t have to go through what he did to learn that.
I find myself on the floor beneath mine an hour later. After cleaning my apartment, I was itching to busy myself. I’d already dusted, mopped the floors, and cleaned all the hard surfaces, leaving my place spotless. So I left, wanting to give myself something else to do before I started scrubbing the baseboards.
I’m standing in front of Isla’s door contemplating what I’m doing here. I saw Isla yesterday, and I shouldn’t necessarily be here, but…whirlpool.
I rap my knuckles against the door, and step back to wait.
Isla opens the door, surprise written all over her face when she sees me standing in front of her.
“Hi.” It’s almost a question.
“Hey,” I say, feigning confidence.
“What are you doing here?”
I hear May’s voice yell from far away. “Who is it?”
“It’s Caio,” Isla yells back before looking back to me.
“I forgot to ask you when I saw you yesterday, how are you finding the room?” I ask her about the one thing I can without my appearance seeming weird—the hotel.
“So good!” May’s voice shouts back, causing me to chuckle.
“It’s perfect, thank you so much.”
“Good, good…” I scramble for anything else to say. “No issues with room service or anything? Everything’s good? Has your room been getting cleaned every day?”
“Caio,” Isla starts, reaching her hand out and placing it on my arm to stop my rambling. My skin sparks where she touches it, and by the way she quickly pulls her hand away, she felt it too. “Like I said, it’s perfect. More than we could have asked for. Thank you again.”
God, when she looks at me like that it’s pretty convincing. It’s like she’s speaking to me through those pretty brown eyes of hers. And right now, they’re telling me that little spark surprised her more than it did me.
“Okay, good.”
“Good.” A small smile plays at the edge of her mouth at this somewhat awkward interaction. It hasn’t really been awkward with us before. Maybe some tense moments here and there, but never awkward. But that’s my fault—I’m radiating uncertainty because I don’t really know why I’m here other than wanting to see her and talk to her again.
“Well, I better go.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder.
“Important business stuff to do, hm?” Isla’s eyes glitter with a look that says she can see right through me.
“Exactly.”
She smiles. “Okay. See you later, Caio,” she says before shutting the door between us, leaving me standing here in the hall.
I’m not sure if you could call that a good interaction, but she smiled, and that’s good enough for me.