Chapter 41
Luisa
London
Luisa stirred at the sound of Amy coming back into the room with their cups of tea.
It was only the third day of that tradition, but she hoped it became one that lasted.
As she dozed, she felt Amy's hand stroke her cheek, pushing back some hair that had fallen loose during the night, and she rolled over, making a noise she didn’t really know she was making.
A memory nagged at her, vaguely, that she needed to talk to Amy about something before she left for Italy, but in her sleep addled mind she couldn’t work out what.
"Buenas dias," Amy said quietly, smiling.
Luisa opened her eyes just a crack and smiled back. "We'll work on your pronunciation... good morning."
"I made you tea. You don't have to drink it.”
Luisa forced herself to sit up, reminding herself that she was leaving for Amalfi later that morning, and as she did, she pulled the duvet up to her armpits for warmth.
She liked London but the cold was taking some getting used to.
Although maybe, she thought, the answer to that was to not sleep naked with Amy, and she didn't want to end that any time soon.
"Genuinely, I'm starting to like it." She laughed. "Not much admittedly, but I think it's good in the mornings. It's gentler than coffee."
"We'll make an Englishwoman of you yet..."
They looked at each other while Luisa took a sip, and as the last remnants of sleep fell away she remembered, the thing that she needed to tell Amy about.
Bel. She felt her pulse quicken, a jolt of adrenaline at the fear that this might not go perfectly, but she knew that she needed to say something.
It just wouldn't feel right to fly to Italy, knowing that Bel would be there, knowing their history, without being open with Amy about it.
She'd been putting it off for days, never finding the right moment, too scared of breaking what they had, and this morning was the last chance.
Luisa opened her mouth to speak, took a breath, but then Amy got there first. "I'm going to have a shower now, I need to get to work. Do you need anything from the bathroom?"
"No, I'm good." Luisa looked at Amy, stood in her short dressing gown, knowing that that fabulous body was beneath the thin layer of fabric. Wanting her so much. But she needed to tell her about Bel, so maybe Amy could delay for a few minutes. "Do you have to go in the shower right now?"
"I'd love nothing more than to get back into bed with you.
.." Amy misunderstood, let her dressing gown fall away, nothing underneath.
She climbed on to the bed, straddling Luisa's lap.
"But I really have to get to work." She took Luisa's cup of tea, set it to one side, then with both hands cupping Luisa’s jaw she kissed her, slowly, deeply, passionately.
When she pulled back it was with a glint in her eye.
"Will this keep you going until Sunday though? "
Luisa grinned and narrowed her eyes, not wanting to spoil the mood. "Until Sunday..."
Amy gave her one more quick kiss, then climbed off and went in the bathroom.
Luisa stayed sitting there, thinking she’d talk to Amy about Bel while she got dressed instead, looking out at the sky through the gap in the curtains, sipping her tea as it cooled down.
She really, genuinely was starting to like it.
Thinking about what she needed to do to actually make it on to her flight to Italy later, her mind was drifting when she saw her phone screen light up with a message. She reached over instinctively to where it was sat on the bed and saw a message pop up:
I can’t wait until tonight, a month is too long x
The sender said Sarah.
Luisa dropped the phone back onto the bed like it was too hot to touch. Fuck, that was Amy’s phone, she realised.
She sat back. The sound of the shower running, Amy singing something quietly and relatively tunelessly, came from the bathroom door. Apart from that the house was silent.
Luisa didn't know what to think. She wished she could unsee that message, scrub it from her memory, because there was no ambiguity there, none whatsoever.
.. without a doubt Amy had plans with Sarah later, and plans that she suspected didn't end with a glass of wine and a friendly wave goodbye.
Plans that Amy had not mentioned to Luisa once, even in passing.
Her heart was racing, and she felt sick, to think of Amy with Sarah.
She knew that it had been the Sarah at the sushi place on Monday…
Amy had hidden her reaction well but she’d noticed the way she stiffened when Sarah approached the table, not to mention the not infrequent glances across at them as the meal went on.
But as Amy had said nothing Luisa had allowed herself to think that maybe that was history, particularly as Sarah was obviously on a date of her own with Rebecca.
A wave of jealousy rolled through her. She wanted Amy for herself, all for herself, she didn't want to share her.
The irony wasn't lost on her. If Amy knew about Bel, about what inevitably happened every time they worked together, would Amy feel this same sick jealousy?
Probably. But that was different, Luisa told herself.
What she had with Bel was an arrangement without emotional strings, a tradition that belonged to another world.
Amy and Sarah seemed to have something much more involved entirely.
The temptation was to pick up Amy's phone and read through the other messages, to see what Amy had said previously, to see how their dialogue was, but Luisa knew that that was a truly terrible idea. Open that door and only bad things came out.
So instead she sat there and, when Amy came out of the shower and started to get dressed, parading her beautiful naked body in front of Luisa, Luisa watched and teased, pretending that there was nothing wrong.
She wasn't even sure that there was really something wrong, so much as something that she needed to think through.
But that message, suddenly it made Luisa have second thoughts about telling Amy about Bel.
Because if Amy was seeing Sarah that very same night and wasn't telling Luisa anything about it, then there didn't seem the same obligation for Luisa to tell Amy about Bel either.
This is just what open means, I guess…
When it came for time to Amy to go to work, Luisa climbed out of bed and despite the cool morning air she walked up to Amy naked, wrapped her arms around her, kissed her passionately goodbye, revelled in the feel of Amy's hands against her naked skin.
She loved Amy. A couple of messages didn't change that.
They just maybe changed the nature of their dynamic a little.
Or maybe just her understanding of the dynamic, and what that could mean over the next few days while they were apart.
***
Luisa liked London, really liked it quite a lot, but why did trying to get anywhere have to be so hard?
She’d decided to use public transport to get to the airport for her flight, a different one this time, somewhere called Gatwick rather than the one she’d arrived at.
When she’d asked Naomi in the living room the day before she’d laughingly explained that London had probably five airports that claimed to be London, but while some of those were tenuous at best Gatwick was definitely a proper one.
Luisa had figured that getting the Tube was easiest, but then she realised that the Tube didn’t go to Gatwick so before she knew it she was on a convoluted journey involving changing Tube line to get to Victoria station where she could get a train down to Gatwick.
She firmly resolved that when she came back on Sunday she’d get a taxi straight to Amy’s house, it would be expensive but save a lot of time.
Sat on the train down to Gatwick, looking out of the window as it rolled through the suburbs of London, Luisa thought. She needed to think, she really did, because despite Amy’s sometime teasing that was how she processed things, it was how she made good decisions.
Luisa thought about Amy. She’d allowed herself to hope over the last few intense weeks that their relationship was moving a little from open to closed almost by default, the time they spent together so special, them both so in love.
That message from Sarah told Luisa that that had been wishful thinking.
She wasn’t mad at Amy, not at all, from what little she knew Luisa understood that Amy’s dynamic with Sarah was complicated and that there was something there that Amy didn’t feel she could walk away from.
It was far from ideal, but she understood.
What those messages did though was clarify for Luisa the dynamic between her and Amy, and what their open relationship meant. It sounded stupid, but open meant open. They were both free to see other people if they wished, with no need to disclose anything. Fine, she got that now.
That clarity brought the next few days into sharp focus.
When she’d seen that Bel was going to be there in Amalfi it had triggered an automatic reaction in her the way it always had, the excitement that came from knowing that this shoot would be more interesting than usual.
She always got a thrill anticipating seeing Bel, and Bel had never let her down.
But… Luisa had quickly tempered that, put it to one side.
She was with Amy now, and while an infrequent night with Bel in some far flung location had seemed fine before, it somehow felt different when she had Amy.
She realised, with a rueful shake of her head, that there is where not having had a serious relationship for nearly eight years left you.
.. no instinct for what to do, having to rely instead on solving these problems as they came up.
With the message from Sarah to Amy that she’d seen and the implications of it, it wasn’t like that changed Luisa’s mind, it wasn’t like she suddenly decided that yes, actually, she’d see if Bel and her could also have some fun.
But… it certainly removed the principal reason to say no, to steer clear of Bel, because it was very clear to Luisa as she watched the London suburbs turn to green countryside that her and Amy’s relationship was definitely still an open one.
And with Bel, she'd never once been able to say no so far anyway, whether she had a good reason or not...