Chapter Seven
MILES
PAST
It’s so loud here in Sorrento, the buzz of activity never stops. With tourists hopping from bar to bar and locals heading to the beach after a day of work, there isn’t much silence. The only silence I get is in my summer house, but I like it more out here.
A small smile creeps onto my face as I watch the lady in the small stall on the side of the road grinning from ear to ear as she hands over a generous slice of tiramisu to the couple in front of her. Their eyes glimmer as they look down at it.
I can’t help the way my feet walk myself over to the stall. “ Ciao .”
“ Benvenuto, signore!” She smiles wide.
“I’ll have a slice of that, please,” I say, nodding towards the dessert right in front of me.
“ Certamente! ” She dishes me up a slice into a cardboard container and passes me a wooden fork.
In return, I give her all the miscellaneous coins I’ve collected over the past week since I arrived and told her she could have all of them.
I hate having spare change, especially when it’s in a currency I still haven’t mastered the art of knowing yet .
I spy a park bench and sit down, opening the box and not wasting a second before digging my fork into the dessert. I groan in delight as the flavours hit my tongue. Damn, that’s good.
I lean back in the seat, resting my ankle over my other knee, letting myself relax for a moment. I close my eyes against the bright sun and lean my head back.
Maybe this whole work break thing wasn’t such a bad idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I miss flying, but I feel a different level of content sitting here on the side of the street with some homemade tiramisu.
As I breathe in the fresh air, my mind flashes back to a memory of my sister and me when we were young, sitting on a bench just like this in Central Park, eating our ice cream like we did every Sunday after seeing our grandparents.
It was this little tradition our family had, and in those moments with Isla, I always felt comfort and peace.
That was back before either Isla or I grew up and felt weighed down by our parent's expectations.
As soon as I hit high school age, things changed for me.
I did less sports, had less friends, I spent more time at the kitchen table doing homework than anything else.
The focus changed from me being a kid to me being a prodigy.
My grades were the most important thing, the most talked-about topic.
I went to career expos when I was fifteen, my parents taking me around, asking me what I wanted to do.
I wasn’t interested in being a firefighter, a surgeon, or an accountant, like my dad.
The only thing that caught my eye was the guy in the pilot’s uniform, who had the biggest smile on his face, like he was excited to be there, talking to me.
So that’s what we went with. A pilot. That became the dream.
The thing my parents clung to from that day until I got my acceptance letter to the Paragon flight school in Florida.
Maybe that’s why this break feels okay to me. For once, no one is watching me, I can just be Miles, eating a gigantic slice of tiramisu on the side of the street.
I think back to my sister. She’s been at college for two years now studying fine arts. My parents were never happy with her decision to study that, but she’s there nonetheless. I just hope she follows her own path when she graduates.
I should really call her, I haven’t heard Isla’s voice in months.
I open my eyes, the sun seeming brighter than it was before I closed them, and shovel another fork full of tiramisu into my mouth.
Now, instead of closing my eyes, I keep them wide open, watching the world go past. Two young girls go skipping past me, seeming like they’re on a sugar high. I can’t help but smile, seeing kids happy makes me happy.
I’ve always imagined having a few of my own, always imagined the big smiles on their faces when I take them into the cockpit of a plane.
In the time I’ve been sitting here, a queue has formed at the lady’s stall, everyone wanting a piece of the amazing dessert. I don’t blame them, it’s fucking delicious.
Italian chatter surrounds me now, and I pay attention to it even though I have no clue what they’re saying. But I like to listen to it nonetheless, the language is enchanting. But my eavesdropping is quickly interrupted by the sound of a motorbike rumbling through the busy street.
A dark, sturdy bike swings around the corner and as the sun catches on it, I see the stripe of red along the side, but not before I notice the abundance of curls hanging out of the back of the helmet.
Marina .
I haven’t seen her since that night in the bar. The night where I kissed a woman the day after I met her. The night where she kissed me back.
Well, if we’re being specific, she really started it, but god . I’ve never felt more alive than the moment her lips touched mine.
I know it’s crazy that we’ve only just met and yet I’m thinking about her more than I care to admit.
I avoided the bar for a couple of nights after that kiss.
Not wanting to scare her, not wanting to walk in there and have her tell me that it was a mistake when all I can think about is how perfectly her lips felt against mine.
She rolls her bike to a stop right in front of the bench I’m currently sitting on. I look around to see if there’s someone else who caught her eye, but when she pulls her helmet off her head, the only place those hazel eyes are looking is at me.
“Hey, hotshot,” she says, fixing her hair from her helmet as she rests it on her thigh that’s wrapped in black leather pants.
I think I’m living in a fantasy. Amazing tiramisu, a sexy woman on a motorbike speaking to me? Definitely a fantasy.
“Hey,” I say stupidly. “You ride a motorbike?”
She just tips her head. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
I just sit here dumbfounded. I didn’t think she could become any more attractive, but here she is riding a motorbike, and looking sexy as hell while doing it.
She grins before nodding towards the tiramisu I’m still holding. “You a dessert guy, are you?”
“Uhh,” I look down at the mostly devoured cake, “you could say that.”
Why do I forget how to simply speak when she’s around?
She just chuckles to herself, like she can see right through me. She meets my eyes again. “Can I join you?”
I nod. “Of course you can.”
She climbs off her bike and saunters over to me, settling on the bench next to me.
She just grabs the fork and digs into the tiramisu without invitation.
Not that I have any complaints, especially when my gaze narrows in on her lips closing around the fork, not as she groans in pleasure just like I did.
It feels deeply erotic watching her eat a dessert.
I clear my throat, readjusting my position on the bench, shuffling an inch away from her because being this close to her makes me hot.
“Aren’t you overheating in that thing?” I ask, nodding towards her full leather outfit.
“Fucking boiling,” she says with a laugh. “You know, if you like this, you would love my ma’s desserts. Carina is good, but nothing compares to my ma’s panna cotta.”
“Ooh, I do love a good panna cotta,” I say.
She hums to herself, taking another fork full of the dessert. “Maybe one day you can try it.”
“I hope so,” I say as casually as I can, considering the fact that we are talking about me meeting her mother.
“Do you want to go for a swim?”
My head whips towards her. “You gonna swim in that?”
“I’ve got a bikini under the seat,” she nods to her bike. Of course she does. I think the universe is playing a game with me, because I think I might die if I see Marina in a bikini.
But instead of getting myself out of this situation, I say, “I have a pool at my place.”
“At your hotel?” she asks.
“No, uh, at my house. My summer house.”
Her brows furrow together as she smiles. “You have a house here, pretty boy?”
“Yeah.” I snatch the fork from her hand and scoop up the last piece of dessert before she finishes it off for me. “Wanna see?”
“Are you fucking for real with this right now? This is your summer house?”
I chuckle as I throw my keys on the kitchen bench.
“I was imagining some small villa on the beach front or something, not a mansion . Jesus.” Marina pokes around my house with no shame whatsoever, checking out each room in her vicinity.
“Oh my god, look at this kitchen!” She spreads her arms along the bench top as if she’s giving it a hug.
“Tell me you cook some bomb ass meals in here.”
I chuckle again. “I try to anyway.”
Her eyes widen. “Do you know how many brownies I could make in here? I could salsa in here while I wait for it to bake. It's that big.”
“You can salsa?” I ask, rounding the island to lean against the bench next to her.
“Not at all, but I could if I really wanted to.”
I just smile back at her, not having anything to say. “You are…”
“Remarkable?” she suggests with a small smile before her eyes catch on something behind me. “Oh my god, that’s the pool?!”
“Remarkable,” I mumble when she’s out of earshot.
I feel so connected to this girl in such an absurd way. But I just feel like our lives were meant to collide. Like we were meant to meet. Like the universe coordinated with my bosses just so I could stumble into that one bar the night that she was working.
“Where can I get changed?” she asks, turning around to look at me with those wide eyes of hers.
“First door on the right,” I say as she skips past me, eager to get her clothes off.
Good lord.
I scrub a hand over my face. There’s no way I can get in a pool with this girl.
Nonetheless, I turn and make my way to my bedroom, stripping off my pants and changing into a pair of swim shorts, ignoring the semi I’m sporting just at the thought of seeing her body wet.
As I’m walking back out toward the pool, I hear Marina’s voice through the door. “Miles?”
“Yeah?”