Chapter 40
It’s quiet for literally forever as we sit in the dark, the only sound the hum of the boat motor.
I glance to my side and confirm that Aurora’s boat made a hard right turn—they’ve completely abandoned us.
My eyes hang heavy as the boat slaps against the water.
My sleepless night is catching up with me, but I feel jittery, anxious.
I like Nico, I can admit that now. I’ve liked him for a while, maybe even since that first day, when he took my tantrum in stride. But it scares me.
We ride for almost thirty minutes until Nico cuts the engine.
The boat idles close to a rock formation by the island of Capri.
I’ve stared out at it so many times, gazing at the rocky peaks that break up the horizon.
But as we approach, I see it’s a lush paradise of jagged cliffside and flora.
Nico preps the fishing rods and the baits in silence so heavy it’s as suffocating as the humidity.
I kneel next to him, by now somewhat comfortable around a tackle box, and help him bait the hooks.
“I’ve been such a bitch,” I say. It’s not really the eloquent speech I have been rehearsing in my head, but Mari was right.
Sometimes, the truest things can only come from the moment.
“I didn’t mean to be, but I have. I’ve been self-centered and self-absorbed and self-obsessed, and it hasn’t been fair to you, to anyone.
I’m sorry. For all of it, but especially for what I said yesterday.
You didn’t deserve that, not any of it.”
Nico freezes for a moment, then laughs, the tension easing from his shoulders.
“But I did.” He turns to look at me, finally, and his eyes are careful but sincere, warm pools of chestnut I could float away in.
“I was also, as you say, such a bitch. It was petty and small and jealous, what I told you.”
“Jealous? Why?” I bite my lip, holding my breath, finding it suddenly important not to make any sudden movements or sounds.
Nico cocks his head at me like the answer is obvious. “Come on, Sora. You know why.”
Oh.
Okay.
But he continues. “You weren’t wrong. Maybe you could have been nicer about how you said it”—he raises his eyebrows and I let out a breathless laugh—“but I went from this place, where everyone in a ten-kilometer radius knows my family and everything about me, to these massive lecture halls where the professors didn’t even know my name.
It was uncomfortable. I was afraid of disappointing everyone, and I was most of all afraid of disappointing myself.
But God, I do want that great big world out there.
I want my fellowship. I want…” He trails off, but his eyes linger on mine, then dip very quickly to look down at my lips, and something in my stomach clenches.
Nico changes the subject. “Last night…”
“Yes?” I swing my legs over the side of the boat to cast my line and Nico follows suit, sitting so close that our shoulders graze. The hairs on my arms prickle. It’s only been a day since I last touched him, and I find that I’ve missed this, his heat, the place where he presses against me.
“Did you really dump an entire pitcher of beer over Wes?”
I laugh, letting my head fall onto his shoulder. “You can’t say I do things by halves,” I tell him. “There was cake involved, too. He was picking candied fruit out of his hair all night in that little cell.”
“And no one thought to film this?”
“I wish I’d had the presence of mind to remember. But I’m sure someone else must have. Who knows, maybe in a week it’ll go viral, and you can see for yourself.”
Nico shakes his head, chuckling, but then his fishing line goes taut, and we are both distracted as he reels in a fish.
It’s another pezzogna, large and beautiful.
I help Nico take it gingerly off the hook and ease it back into the water.
The sun is close to rising, and now that the first fish has been caught, I reel in my line and set my fishing pole to one side. Nico rests his near mine.
“This place is gorgeous,” I say honestly, “but it wouldn’t have had half its magic if it weren’t for you.”
Nico shrugs, a gentle friction as his sleeve eases along my arm. “Couldn’t have your trip to my beautiful home be ruined by this dumb American frat boy you were so hung up on.”
“Touché.”
Nico gets serious. His voice is quiet when he asks, “Do you think you’re over him now?”
I don’t answer right away. I glance out at the water, at how the sky is starting to lighten along the edges, and turn to face him. “Do you know what the craziest thing has been, out of everything that’s happened?”
“Tell me.”
“I haven’t gotten in the water one time since I’ve been here. Not once. Not fully, at least. I’ve dipped a toe in, waded up to my calves, lounged on a float. But I’ve spent all this time here, and I have no idea what it feels like to actually swim in the Mediterranean.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It is,” I insist. “I’ve been so busy chasing the past and the future that the present’s absolutely slipped me by.”
And as if he can read my mind, Nico says, “You’re about to jump in, aren’t you.”
I grin. “You bet I am.” Before I can chicken out, and before it gets any brighter, I peel off one article of clothing after the next.
I get down to my bra and panties and hesitate.
What am I doing? Isn’t this exactly how I got myself in trouble last time?
Except Nico is not Wes, not at all, not even close.
Maybe it’s Italy, maybe it’s the water, or maybe it’s Nico and the fact that our moments together are so very fleeting. Fuck it, I tell myself.
I take it all off.
I unhinge my bra and peel off my panties, standing straight up on the back of the boat, completely naked. This new version of me is bold and confident and only a tiny bit terrified. I shoot one glance at a shocked Nico before swan diving into the placid water.