Chapter 6
It’s just like a scene from the movies.
The crowd parts, the smoke clears, and there he is.
I see him first, of course, because it always happens like that.
He’s talking animatedly with his friends, laughing.
The collared shirt he’s wearing is unbuttoned two more than normal and his chest is all dewy from the stickiness of the room and bronze from the five-day head start he’s gotten here in southern Italy.
His light linen pants are fitted and cuffed.
Damn.
He looks good.
Better than he’s ever looked. His hair is short on the sides but longer on top, golden with streaks of white from the sun, slicked haphazardly like he just tossed it back on his way out of a pool. Every time I see him it feels like a miracle that he hasn’t yet been plucked to be on Love Island.
A miracle that he doesn’t belong to anyone but me.
Wes and I are… complicated. We consist of almost two years of lore, complete with edge-of-your-seat twists and turns, gripping suspense, passionate romance, and crippling heartbreak, all culminating in the night of my junior prom.
A night I intentionally never think about.
A night that ended with me pinkie-promising Mari and Anya that I’d never talk to Wes ever again, sealing the sacred oath by kissing the fleshy part of my palm.
I kept the promise for a while. When Wes left for college, I sat for months in the pain of his silence.
When he eventually reached out, I let him sit in mine.
But I’m a year older, and I see now what I couldn’t see then: the timing had been all wrong.
Back then, it hadn’t been reasonable to try to lock him down when I had a year of school left and he was about to graduate.
But this time will be different. This time we are different.
This time, Wes will ask me to officially be his girlfriend.
He’d practically promised. And the timing is finally exactly right.
He turns through the white haze of the nightclub like he can sense my presence. He grins when he sees me. Even after so long, it’s fireworks. That has to mean something.
We walk toward each other, getting bumped by dancing bodies and smacked by wayward limbs, until I’m there, right in front of him, in the cloud of his smoky cologne.
From a hundred feet away he’s a sight to be seen, but from six inches away he’s flawless: full lips, poreless skin, and a lone freckle under his right eye that could hypnotize you right into oblivion.
I waste no time crushing my body into his chest.
“What took you so long!” he shouts over the music when we break apart.
“Had to cross an entire ocean to get here.”
“I meant tonight.” He bops my nose with his index finger.
I know what he meant.
Wes pulls back slightly. “Hmm.” He scrunches his lips together as he pinches my chin, turning my head from side to side to drink in every contour of my face.
“Yep, still as gorgeous as ever, Soraya Soltani,” he says, his voice velvet as his face breaks into a lopsided smile, planting a warm kiss on my left cheekbone. “God, I missed you.”
I laugh nervously. “I missed you too.”
Wes takes a seat on a nearby ledge, pulling me between his legs. His arms hang on my hips and soon the heat from my cheeks is pulsing through my entire body as he runs a finger down my bare forearm. “The travel was good?”
“It was great.” Suddenly I’ve forgotten it all—the delay, the lost bag, our death-defying bus ride. Wes has that superpower.
“All day I thought about how I get to see you tonight.” Wes stares at me and I have to zero in on his freckle to keep my balance, just how they instruct you to pick a spot on the wall to stare at in yoga to keep from toppling over during tree pose.
“Is that right?” My throat is suddenly dry.
“Sure is.” Wes leans in like he is about to tell me a secret. “There’s no one like you, I’ll have you know. Searched this whole country for anyone who could compare. And guess what? No one does.”
“Searched the whole country? Door to door? This sounds extremely time-consuming.”
“It was. I have the war wounds to prove it.” Wes holds up his hands.
“Blisters—hundreds of them—from knocking. So thank you for showing up. I can finally start the healing process. I have a long road ahead of me.” Wes grins, revealing a perfect line of white teeth.
“Come on—I want to introduce you to everyone. They’re all dying to meet you.
I talk about you nonstop.” He grabs me and leads me through clusters of sweaty people.
We wind up at a table in the far corner of the nightclub. It’s cluttered with stacks of glasses, a row of flutes, and a bucket of ice with a magnum of champagne stuck in it. The surrounding bench is packed with Wes’s friends and their companions, and I feel a dozen sets of eyes on me, assessing me.
“Sora, this is Freddy,” Wes yells our introductions over the music, pointing to a guy with a mop of brown hair and droopy eyes.
“He is the beer pong champion of the southeastern United States, our reigning king of barbecue, and campus sports bookie. Freddy, this is Soraya. She is literally the smartest and funniest person I know, but also the culprit for the mirror massacre of ’24, because her terrible driving skills resulted in the sideswipe amputations of eighteen car door mirrors on our high school campus.
” Wes winks at me. “But as they say, perfection is overrated.”
“None of that is true.” I roll my eyes and lightly smack Wes in the side. “Hi!” I stick my hand out like we are fortyfive years old and at a board meeting because I have no chill whatsoever.
“Quite the list of accolades.” Freddy turns to me. “Nice to meet you, Soraya.” His clammy, sweaty hand meets mine, but he is quickly back talking to the girl next to him with such ferocity that I wonder if he believes the future of the human race depends on getting her number.
Wes spits out, “Sora, Graham. Graham, Sora,” and I’m pleased his next friend shows a little more enthusiasm.
“Finally, Sora!” Graham throws his hands up before wrapping me in a sticky hug.
It feels good, knowing Wes’s friends knew about me.
That they’re excited to get a glimpse into this portion of his life.
It makes me wonder what exactly it is Wes says.
How he describes me. How much he talks about me when I’m not around.
Soon the alcohol is making me light and dizzy.
Happy. Warm. Wes is grazing me, touching me.
His arm is either around my waist or flung over my shoulder, refusing to break physical contact.
Like he wants to make it known I’m his. As we move through his group of friends, no matter how hard I try, I cannot wipe the stupid, toothy grin off my face.
“I can’t believe I’m here with the perp responsible for the mirror massacre of ’24,” Wes yell-whispers over the bass.
“You’re ridiculous.” I laugh. “I hit one mirror. Where do you come up with this stuff?”
“Deep, dark corners of my twisted mind.” Wes brushes a strand of hair back from my face. “I’m so happy you’re here. I’m dead serious. You mean so much to me.” Wes stares so intensely at me that the purple flecks in his turquoise eyes glow neon violet. Lines of goosebumps appear where he touched me.
“Me too. I’m really happy to be here with you,” I say back. I tilt my face up to his.
The way Wes is staring into me makes me think he’s going to kiss me. Right here in front of all his friends. But abruptly, he breaks eye contact. “Come on. Let’s go make everyone jealous.” His eyes twinkle as he pulls me behind him.
They don’t play slow songs at nightclubs in Sorrento like they do at prom back in Georgia, but that’s okay.
Being out on the dance floor with Wes still makes it feel like it’s only him and me in the crowded room.
The club is a cloud of fog, and the haze smudges everyone around us out into the background.
Wes’s hands are on my waist, pulling me in close.
His finger skims against the inch of bareness between my top and skirt, making me shiver in this eighty-degree room.
I gaze back up. His lips are parted, and I want him to kiss me more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
He dips his head and I think it’s about to happen, but then he moves to my ear and says, all breathy and hot, “Want to go out on the patio?”
“Okay!” He leads me to the outdoor terrace, fingers interlocked with mine.
It is packed, but Wes and I find a pocket of space where we can stare out toward the sea.
He leaves to get us another round of drinks and I save our spot, staring at the moon.
I take a moment to let my heart breathe and body temperature calm.
The sky is pitch-black by now, but hundreds of lights are flicked on inside the cliffside homes, and it makes the coastline look alive, like it’s speckled with fireflies.
It is so romantic and as the breeze gently blows my hair back, it hits me that I’m here, on the Amalfi Coast with Wes. It had been such a journey—and not just literally.
In the big picture, I realize that the reason for all the hot-and-cold was Wes being young and immature, but it was so worth the wait for him to grow up if the culmination was this.
“Finally. I can hear you better out here.” Wes is back. He hands me a drink before running his hand through his hair.
“Thank you.” I take a sip and immediately cough. “There’s Sprite in here?” It’s potent—a mix of vodka and some kind of orange Italian liquor and a milliliter of Sprite, max.
“Supposed to be?” Wes shrugs.
I choke it down without a grimace because I’m grown now. Alcohol should start tasting good any day, or so I’ve heard. I can force myself to pretend for a little longer until it does.
“It doesn’t even feel real. I love having you here,” Wes says, grinning.
It doesn’t escape me that Wes just used the L word.
It pierces the softest part of my heart.
I know he was simply using it to describe my presence in Sorrento, but he doesn’t throw that word around loosely.
I know what he’s doing, testing the waters, so when he says it for real, there’s no chance of rejection.
“It’s wild, right? Us here at the same time?” Wes says, before grabbing both of my shoulders and gently shaking me in disbelief. “I mean, it’s you!”
“It really is,” I say, racking my mind for another subject. Wes might believe it’s fate that our time in Sorrento is overlapping, but I’ve always been a firm believer in pushing fate along.
Things always work out for a reason, Dad says. And maybe that’s why I didn’t get into any of the colleges I so badly wanted to. Why I’ll be heading to my safety school, where Wes is already enrolled. Maybe that was my fate all along.
I stare up at him, at his perfectly symmetrical face, trying to convince myself that I’m not crazy at all for jumping a hundred steps ahead. I hook my index finger through one of his pant loops, tugging ever so slightly. “Let’s dance.”
“You got it.”
We start dancing again right as the song changes, my body pressed up against his.
I wrap my arms around his neck—it’s sticky and hot and all I can think is that even though there’s hardly any space between our bodies, it’s still not close enough.
Wes dips his face over mine, his eyes stormy.
Kiss me. A pocket of warmth radiates from my belly.
He presses his chin to my temple, breath hot against me.
Everything gets light and dizzy again. As Wes runs his hand from my lower back all the way down to my upper thighs, I slip into the dreamiest daze.
All I can think about is how I want more.
More of everything. I don’t ever want this night to end.
At some point, Wes’s friends pull us off the floor to leave. I have no idea if it’s been ten minutes or ten hours. I’ve been completely lost, swirling around in the present.
Wes keeps an arm slung around my shoulder the entire way back.
Someone insists we stop at one of the late-night gelato vendors, where Wes buys me a double scoop of pistachio and chocolate in a cone.
As we walk down cobblestone streets, me licking my gelato in front of the Mediterranean, I have one of those moments in life that is so precious and rare, where you stop and realize how happy you are.
I’m not thinking about the pain left in the past or the pressure of the future.
I’m thinking about how everything is finally so aligned.
This. This is what it’s like to be in love.