36. THEO
36
THEO
Dante and I arrive before everyone else. The villa is big, all stone walls and windows with green shutters.
‘That’s my girl!’ Dante beats his hands on the steering wheel as we pull up to the place Anika rented for the weekend. ‘How many fucking bedrooms do you think there are?’ We both try to peer up at the three-storey house through the windscreen, but it’s so tall we can only see the first floor.
‘Shit. Six, maybe seven?’
‘Obviously, we have to take advantage of this.’
He parks the car by the garden and peers over at me, one eyebrow raised stupidly. I try to muster a smile but give up halfway and open the car door instead. With my back to him, I stare at the sun, the house, the permanence of a building like this.
‘How do you mean?’
Dante bangs the roof of my father’s car and I jerk around. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘Our sisters are going to be in the house with us.’ I roll my eyes and open the trunk to start unloading the groceries and luggage, eager to divert this conversation in another direction.
‘Hellooo?’ he gestures, arms wide. ‘Big house. Lots of room. Discretion. Secrecy. Hot. As long as we come home when they’re all sleeping, they won’t know shit.’
‘Oh my god, can we at least get into the house first, before we discuss ravishing the village girls?’
Dante jogs up to the front door and overturns the cement urn at the side of the entrance, per Anika’s instructions. ‘New York has made you so boring.’
‘I think the word you’re looking for is “mature”.’
‘Different,’ he mumbles, but it’s loud enough so I can hear. I haul out Lucia’s luggage and ignore it.
Dante wiggles the key with frustration but finally opens the door, immediately gasping. ‘My god, Anika. I would kiss you if you were here!’
‘Despite what you may think, I don’t love you talking about my sister like that, dickhead.’
He clicks his tongue. ‘As if you’re not eye-fucking my sister, too,’ Dante says behind his shoulder as he steps into the house. The baguette I’m holding slips out of its wrapping and onto the driveway. Dante steps back out and searches for a cigarette in his pocket. ‘You got a light?’ He puts the smoke in his mouth and raises his hands over his head, stretching casually.
‘Eh, yeah.’ My mind feels melted; my hands move of their own accord to find the lighter.
‘Not even gonna deny it, then?’ he says between slanted lips, walking in front of me.
I find the lighter, my thumb misses the spark wheel the first time and I try again. Dante leans forward as the flame finds the end of the cig.
‘Dante.’ My voice is hoarse. I try to muster up an excuse, an apology, anything to fill the silence. But nothing comes out.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘For what?’ He exhales the smoke, looking at me expectantly.
‘I should have told you.’
‘You should have.’ He nods his head in agreement and walks past me to get more bags from the trunk.
‘Nothing happened,’ I lie, because how can I not try to cover it up?
‘Bullshit.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘She doesn’t fucking date. Never happened. Never did.’
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ I turn to face him, forgetting the baguette in my hand, and it slips to the floor again.
Dante looks at me like I’m the stupidest person alive. ‘Let’s see.’ He pulls out Magdalen’s luggage and throws it at my feet. ‘You drool every time she’s around. You take her home from the club. Then you fuck Chiara the next day – don’t think I don’t know what that was . You’re alone with her all night out on the streets. Then the next week she’s going on a date with Roberto motherfucking Almeno. I swear to god, it’s like you people think I’m actually blind.’
‘Listen, I didn’t pla—’
‘You should have just fucking told me.’
My mouth opens to defend myself. To blame the gods and the mystic power of red wine for making me want his sister.
‘You’re the one who said I wasn’t allowed near her.’ My brain feels too slow, his words and mine muddle together in a thick fog that I can only seem to pluck out letter by letter.
Dante rolls his eyes and slams the trunk shut. ‘ Cazzo , you complete and utter idiot. I said BE CAREFUL. I said don’t pull the same shit you did in secondary school. She’s my baby sister – am I not allowed one protective big brother speech? Or are you the only one fucking entitled to it?’
I bend down to pick up the beaten-up baguette, mumbling something like ‘of course’, but I’m still so stunned I can’t be sure what words I’m saying.
‘You would have told me once.’ He rests one hand on my shoulder, keeping me bent down so I can only stare at Magdalen’s luggage. His voice is low, serious. ‘Once, it would have killed you to keep a secret from me.’ Squeezing tightly for just a moment, he tosses his cigarette near the wheel of the car before releasing me with a shove.