Chapter Forty
chapter forty
CAIO
Isla sighs from beside me as we look at what we made last night at the fundraiser.
“That’s not as much as I thought it would be,” she says.
“That two grand that Alessia lost us really fucked us over,” I sigh, resting my head in my hand.
“Who is she anyway? I’ve never heard of her, yet you guys all knew her.”
“Alessia is…well she’s basically Leo’s fuck buddy,” I tell her plainly. “They’ve been casually hooking up for years. Every time Leo has come back to town or when Alessia goes away she usually stops in to see him on the way back.”
“Oh.” She frowns. “Well, she seemed pretty upset that he was going on an innocent date for charity.”
“Yeah, well, I think those two have differing opinions on their relationship status, no doubt it was a topic of conversation for them last night.”
After the scene that Alessia created, Leo pulled her to the side of the room where they were whisper shouting for the good part of an hour before he left early, his mood ruined.
Isla’s phone buzzes on the tabletop. “It’s Miles,” she says, getting up to go answer her brother's phone call.
I watch her as she stands against the open balcony doors with her phone to her ear.
Ever since her parents arrived, she’s been different, and I know she’s freaking out internally. I just wish she’d talk to me about what’s going on in that head of hers. All that she’s told me is that she’s confused, but I don’t know how to help her.
She’s pulled away from me.
She’s given me more fake smiles in the last two days than in the last two months. I can tell she feels like everything is slipping away from her. I want to help, I just don’t know how.
It’s as if her parents showing up threw a mist bomb into her world and she can’t see through it. And all I want is to be her guiding light.
“Apparently I’m needed,” she says, grabbing her purse off the table in front of me. “It’s Miles’s last night, and he wants to go out for dinner all together. I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah,” I say before she presses a chaste kiss to my lips and hurries out the door, leaving the apartment feeling empty without her presence.
I made my way down to Main not long after Isla left, I couldn’t sit there in my empty apartment alone with my thoughts for a minute longer.
I open the side door that leads straight into the studio side of Nora’s place to see her organizing her canvases, she’s shuffling around packing things into boxes.
“ Cosa stai facendo Nora? ”
“ Oh! Mi hai spaventato Caio,” she presses her palm to her chest. “What does it look like I’m doing?” She shrugs. “I need to prepare for the possibility that I’ll be out of here very soon.”
“This is wrong,” I say as she continues packing up her stuff.
“How much did we make last night?” She asks. She knew about our fundraiser, but she didn’t want to be there herself.
“Not enough,” I say, pulling out my phone to show her the profits.
Ruby Cove is a small town, but the owners of this building marked it up high, knowing out of towners would easily pay the higher price for the prime location of the property along the waterfront.
Her shoulders drop as she realizes what I did this morning, the fundraiser wasn’t nearly enough, but I didn’t want to tell Isla how bad it is. She doesn’t know the price of the property, so she didn’t know how far off we are.
“I’ll just have to find another space,” Nora shrugs, not that there are many other spaces around. I’ve never seen Nora’s energy so down. She loves this studio with her whole heart, she’s been here twenty-five years. It’s become a part of her, she can’t lose that.
“Or, hear me out. I’ve got another idea, but you’re not going to like it.”
“ Oddio.”
I swirl the ice in the bottom of my glass, focusing on the sound of the cubes clinking against the sides of the cup in my hand.
“You want another?” Rafael asks, nodding toward my glass in front of me.
“No, grazie,” I place the glass on the soft coaster in front of me.
The cold breeze sweeps across the back of my neck as the door to Olive&Vine opens.
I’m sitting down the back at the bar, but I’m sitting in the exact position where every time the front door gets opened, the cool evening breeze floats down to greet me. It’s a refreshing break for my flushed skin.
“It’s your girl,” Rafael nods to the door.
I spin around in my chair to see the entire Beckett family being seated by their server.
Isla’s gaze catches mine. Her eyes whisper a hello from across the room, and I hope mine whisper back.
I watch as she takes a seat next to Miles, their parents across from them. Miles takes after Graham, with his tan skin tone and his light brown hair. Where Isla looks more like their mother, who’s short dark brown hair sways above her shoulders as she settles into her seat. She takes off her coat exposing her pale complexion as she wraps it around the back of her chair. Her shoulders set as she looks down at her menu, elegance radiating off of her.
I find myself imagining all the times they’ve done this together, all the dinners they’ve had around a table like this. Imagining the dinner that propelled Isla to fly across the world and rent a shitty little car that broke down just outside the small little town I call home.
I’ve never given a second thought to fate or ‘meant to be’ but Isla makes me question it. I can’t help but feel like she was made for me, and I her. She fits so perfectly into my life, from the way her hand fits in mine to the way she understands the deepest parts of me without effort. It’s like she was always meant to be here by my side, like fate intentionally left a gap in my life that I didn’t even know existed until she seamlessly filled it.
I never thought falling in love would be so effortless. I fell in love with Isla so seamlessly, it crept up on me without me even noticing it.
“Anyone would think she hung the moon the way you look at her,” Rafael says from behind me, leaning over the bar towards me.
“I don’t want to lose her Raf.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “If I felt for someone even a fraction of what you feel for that girl, then I’d be doing everything in my power to keep her. Don’t let this one slip away Caio, don’t let her go.”