Chapter 13
COLE
It was as if the train to Florence had been charged by some rogue electric current I kept pretending not to notice.
We sat in a four-way compartment facing Parker and Delaney, the former having fallen asleep with his fiancée reading a book on her e-reader.
That left Juliette and me to quietly act as if everything was normal.
Which… it wasn’t.
Touching a woman’s arm with my own, sometimes accidentally, should not have been a turn-on.
Never mind seeing her in broad daylight after all that we’d shared the night before.
It had been a most unsettling morning, one I had no right to enflame by encouraging Parker and Delaney to stay in Florence.
It was reckless. Playing with fire. And I already regretted it.
“Wait a minute.” Juliette pointed out the window. “Is that snow? How is that possible this time of year?”
I knew before I even looked what she’d noticed. “No.” I leaned toward the window, toward her, and said, “Look closer.”
She smelled like raspberries. I imagined burying my face in her neck, her hair tangling around me. Would she taste as good as she smelled?
“You’re looking at the Apuan Alps. What looks like snow is actually Carrara marble.”
She leaned closer to the window. “Marble?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.
“Yep. The same white marble that Michelangelo used to carve various statues, masterpieces.”
Juliette turned back toward me. I leaned away, her closeness sending signals to my brain that had no business being there.
“Including David?”
“Including David.”
“How do you know all this?”
I glanced at Parker. If he were awake, he’d have commented something like “Because Cole knows everything” or something equally smart-ass.
The non-answer I’d have given Parker, or any of the guys, if they asked, sat on the tip of my tongue. But Juliette’s whispered words from last night came back to me.
I like deep conversation too, but only if the person I’m talking to trusts me. Otherwise, it’s just lip service. I’ve learned to keep my circle small in favor of real connections. Of course, I’m still fun at a party too.
It was a surprising answer from someone so young, though I was only a few years older than her. Insightful. And yeah, I bet she’d be fun at a party. Juliette was the walking abatement of fun, wrapped in chaos, of course.
“I took my sabbatical in Florence,” I said quietly.
“To analyze the Medici archives, tracking the complex finance and logistical control required to transport the stone from the Apuan Alps. I argued that the decision to use the prestigious Carrara marble for works like David was primarily a strategic display of economic and political power.”
“Wait a minute. You studied this. For your work?”
“I did.”
“So you didn’t just look up a few Italian phrases on the plane.”
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t respond.
“Why didn’t the guys know any of this? Know you’d come here for an extended stay? Delaney tells me all the time how close the four of you are. Like family.”
The Italian landscape whizzed by as I contemplated how to answer her question. Expecting Parker to pop his eyes open at any minute, and with Delaney glancing up from her book at us every so often, her headphones presumably preventing her from hearing us, I landed on the truth.
“There were some things going on with my family at the time I didn’t want to get into.
The sabbatical was a last-minute decision, and the guys know me well enough to know I don’t make last-minute decisions.
So instead of lying to them about my real reasons for leaving, I flew under the radar for a few weeks. ”
She wanted to ask more.
I prayed she didn’t.
“I… see.”
The silence that followed wasn’t as uncomfortable as it should have been. But the same couldn’t be said when Juliette, realizing we were getting close to our stop, announced her intention to use the on-board bathroom.
Delaney took off her headphones. Parker jolted awake. And I sucked in a breath and did my best to appear unaffected as Juliette shimmied past me, giving me an up-front view of an ass I could play with all night. Jaw ticking, I fought for control as Delaney packed up her stuff.
“You alright?” Parker asked, knowing me well.
“Perfectly,” I said, lying through my teeth.
A few minutes later, when a ruckus at the end of the train car demanded our attention, I knew instinctively Juliette was involved.
Popping out of my seat, I found her kneeling beside a crying child, Juliette talking softly like she’d done it a hundred times.
The mother cleaned up a spilled drink with an annoyed-looking passenger beside her.
Forgetting she spoke English to an obviously Italian child, her efforts weren’t having the desired effect. But since the mother was finished, she took over, ushering the child back to her, and thanked Juliette for attempting to help.
“Were you headed to the bathroom?” she asked on her way back.
No. I knew you were somehow involved.
I was coming to check on you.
Neither response would work. “Yes,” I said instead. “But I’ll just go at the station. We’re almost at our stop.”
She didn’t question me. Had no reason to.
Which was fine.
I had enough questions for the both of us.
* * *
“That was a lot easier than I expected it to be.”
Delaney pushed the button on the embassy’s elevator, the same one we’d ridden up two hours earlier. If by “easy” she meant inefficient, then I agreed.
It was marginally better than the police station in Monterosso, but that was about all I could say for the process. But at least the ladies had their temporary passports.
“Anyone else starved?” Juliette asked as we exited the building.
Thankfully, as we made our way to the center of town to eat, we had no more close calls. No brushes of the arm or asses so close to my face I’d be tempted to groan aloud.
Granted, dinner was as pleasant as the night before. We found a restaurant tucked away in one of the side streets after I explained to Parker, who was ready to pay double at one of the tourist traps in the first piazza we’d seen, how to eat more like a local.
We were surrounded by Italian-speakers, and the restaurant food was as good as expected.
And so was the company.
“I think he’s in love with you,” Delaney said to Juliette, talking about the owner.
Leave it to her to meet the guy while standing in line for the ladies’ room, and chat him up, eventually getting us an extra serving of arancini and a free bottle of wine.
“Get out of here.” Juliette waved a hand at her friend. “He’s just really friendly.”
From any other woman, I might have thought she was just being modest. But Juliette really didn’t seem to understand her appeal.
She truly didn’t notice the way the restaurant owner, or any other admirer, had looked at her today.
And that was while accompanied with me. What were they like when she was alone or with girlfriends?
Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to, Cole.
“Friendly,” Parker quipped. “And just happened to be divorced, a fact we only know because he made it a point to share that particular fact.”
“I bet he gives free food and wine to all of his customers,” Delaney teased. “He’s actually pretty good looking. Imagine, a boyfriend in Florence.”
I’d rather not, but unfortunately the man in question was heading our way. He was probably in his mid-forties… a good-looking guy who likely hit on more than his share of American tourists.
“How are you liking the wine, bellisima?” he asked Juliette.
“Delicious. Thank you so much for everything,” she said, her smile genuine. That I preferred her smile directed at me than Rico-Suave had me tossing my napkin on the table.
“Excuse me.”
By the time I found the men’s room and headed back, he was gone. It wasn’t until we were a block away that I learned the restaurant owner had taken his shot.
“I can’t believe he gave you his email.” Delaney and Juliette walked in front of us.
When Parker’s hand shot out, slowing us down, I knew what he was going to say before it came out of his mouth.
“Don’t.”
“Park—”
“I’m not kidding. Jules is Delaney’s best friend. I see the way you’ve been looking at her. How annoyed you were tonight.”
“Tell me you want her to contact that guy?”
“And I’m sure Jules is smart enough to tell the difference. Although…” He frowned. “Maybe not. She suddenly seems to have a thing for you.”
I’d have asked, like an eighth grade boy, if he really thought so, if I thought Parker could appreciate the joke.
“There’s nothing going on,” I assured him. “But if you throw us together in a hotel room and expect me not to notice her…” I left it at that, reminding him where this had started.
“Cole,” he said firmly, in a tone I rarely, if ever, heard from good-natured Parker. “You’re a great guy. One of my closest friends. Do I care if you date Juliette? Or better yet, do I get an opinion on it? No. You two are adults. But that’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
I did. Parker knew my track record with women. He knew I liked sex. A lot. But had an aversion to the morning after.
“Just don’t hurt her.”
“I’ll have you know, not one woman I’ve ever been with has actually been hurt. I mean, not in the traditional sense.”
He wasn’t in the mood for a joke.
“You’re not fucking helping.”
Clearly.
“I won’t hurt her.”
It wasn’t the words but my tone. I was being serious now, and Parker knew it. Our exchanged glance was a contract. No more words were needed.
“Train station is that way.” Juliette stopped at the corner.
Smiling, bubbly, happy.
I shouldn’t have agreed to stay. But it was too late now. I just had to make sure the helium balloon that was Juliette, flying high with a world of possibilities below her, didn’t run into the thorn that was my life.
Arm’s length.
Friend of a friend.
And nothing more.