Chapter 19
COLE
We climbed back onto the boat, but before coming aboard, Marco stopped us.
“I will finish a chapter. Sit there,” he said.
“There” meant the swim deck. Great idea, except… it was a small platform. Too small for us both to sit without nearly touching. Marco clearly thought we were a couple, and why wouldn’t he? By most standards, this looked like a date.
But it wasn’t.
I leaned into the boat to grab two of the provided towels.
“Marco’s apparently finishing a chapter,” I said, the boat gently swaying. “He said we could sit here.”
I handed her a towel. We each dried off and used damp towels as makeshift seats. I sat and held a hand up to her without thinking.
She took it. No hesitation.
“Don’t topple back in,” I warned, keeping my voice light, or attempting to anyway.
The touch of our hands should have been nothing more than a polite gesture.
Instead, it was a jolt neither of us needed.
As soon as Juliette was sitting, I pulled back.
Stared straight ahead. But I could feel her still looking at me.
“What?” I asked, turning to her.
“I kind of do want to know.”
It took me a second to understand what she was asking.
Earlier, when we’d been sitting on the rock. Our “past relationships” discussion.
I sighed, because she clearly wasn’t going to stop looking at me like she didn’t want an apology for pinning her hands above her head and nearly kissing her in that stairwell. While I knew it was wrong—would go nowhere—I also… liked it.
But she wouldn’t like my answer.
“I can’t tell you,” I said finally.
She opened her mouth to push back.
“Because I don’t know.”
Juliette blinked. Our legs were inches from each other. An awareness of that fact, that I was sure she also noticed, was a good reason to be honest. With her that close, lying felt impossible. Or useless. She’d see right through it anyway.
“I don’t do second dates, usually. And there’s been… a lot of women.”
But none of them I’d wanted to kiss this badly.
“So many, you can’t count them?”
“Enough that I’ve never tried,” I clarified.
“You’re telling me,” she said, “you’ve never been on a second date?”
“Not… never. Just not usually.”
“So mostly one-night stands.”
“Mostly.”
“Why?”
It wasn’t a question I had to answer often.
The guys knew how I was, probably could guess at the reason too, but they never asked or probed too deep.
My mother certainly had asked, many times, why she’d never met any of my girlfriends.
(Because I didn’t have any, high school notwithstanding.) And the women I’d been with?
They weren’t around long enough to ask questions.
“You don’t want to answer.”
“It’s not that.”
Thing was, I did want to answer. Sure, it was a good way to cool the fire between us, telling her what I just had. But I also didn’t want her to think badly of me either.
What the hell was I supposed to do with that revelation?
“What is it then?”
Fuck.
“It’s… complicated. Let’s just say, I’ve never really wanted to be in a relationship. And the few times I’ve done second, or third, dates…” I shrugged.
“I’ve met men like that—your friends, especially Mason—for instance. But most of them are at least open to the possibility.”
“Mason,” I muttered. “He never stood a chance. Pia was made for him.”
“That’s how it works,” Juliette said. “You open yourself up a little bit, fall in love, and then boom… relationship.”
“Exactly. Hence rule number one. Never fall in love.”
“Oh my God, that stupid pact. Even you never fully believed in it.”
That’s where she was wrong. “I might not have believed the guys would all stay bachelors for the rest of my life. But I never said I didn’t believe in it. For myself.”
“Scusate, ragazzi, è tempo di andare. We should get moving.”
I leapt up and held out my hand.
She took it.
But just before I let her go, Juliette gave my hand a little squeeze, as if to say, I’m not afraid of you.
She should be.
I watched her climb back into the boat, grab lip balm from her bag and put it on.
I was sure as hell afraid of her.
* * *
The day went more quickly.
Too quickly.
After lunch and a coastal cruise, Marco took us to another swim spot.
Juliette had cracked herself up asking if we should play a three-person game of Marco Polo and invite the “actual Marco.” We dried up again before he steered us into the small harbor at Manarola.
He explained it was the best place to refuel before our final stretch when we’d hit open water right as the sun began to fall.
Ten minutes later, we were back on board, coasting out of the inlet.
Marco idled the boat, letting it drift until the cliffs framed the horizon like a postcard.
The way the water reflected the sunset was too pretty, too calm…
too damn on the nose for the way my pulse kicked when Juliette moved beside me after Marco set down a bottle of Prosecco and two glasses with a knowing nod.
“For sunset,” he said before disappearing to the helm, giving us space I wasn’t sure I trusted myself with.
I popped the cork, Juliette smiled, and just like that, every line I’d drawn for the day blurred at the edges.
“Sciacchetrà. Prosecco. Who even are you?”
Fair question. And not one I wanted to answer.
“I’m adaptable,” I said, handing her a glass. “To trying new things.” I lifted my glass between us. “On the Ligurian Sea, at sunset.”
With her broad smile and tousled sea-dried hair, Juliette put the sunset to shame.
We clinked glasses.
A simple toast, except it wasn’t. I knew it. And by the way Juliette looked at me, she did too. We drank, the bubbly liquid not one I’d particularly enjoyed in the past. But tonight, as I took another sip, it was as if I wasn’t really here. On this boat. With this woman.
“If you keep looking at me like that, Cole… I’m not going to be able to pretend this is nothing.”
She was right to call me out. Looking away, I stared instead at the way the remaining sun created cliffside shadows on the water.
Juliette moved back, just out of my reach, tucking her legs under her on the seat. A cross-legged sea nymph… her mischievous smile perfectly in balance with the rest of her.
“I was thinking that it won’t be easy to head back to the city after this.”
She took a sip of Prosecco, thoughtful. “You don’t love it there.”
“No.” My answer was automatic. “But it would’ve been hard to pass up a tenured-track position at Columbia. Those aren’t easy to come by. I was lucky to get the offer, close enough to Cedar Falls that I could drive home periodically.”
“Funny, you call it home still.”
“To me, it still is. We moved out when I was twelve when my dad got his job at Yale. My parents still live in New Haven, but Cedar Falls is…”
“I get it. There are so many incredible places in the world, and I do want to travel and see things.” She waved her free hand toward the coast. “This. But I’ll always have a home there.”
I shivered, though not because it was cold.
“I love it there too,” I admitted.
“Then come back,” she said, as if it was the easiest thing in the world. “I assume you applied at Cornell?”
“I did. Talked to the department chair who said their history department was stable, with no potential openings in the near future.”
“Ithaca? Syracuse? Or your alma mater?”
This is where it got complicated. Where I’d usually say something to steer the conversation to another topic.
But Juliette had racked up points for a reason. And I… wanted to tell her. At least some of it.
“My alma mater…” I started, remembering the day I’d committed to paying my own way, despite the fact that my parents had a college fund for both my sister and me.
Having decided, and telling them over dinner one night, I was going to the University of Rochester, and not Yale…
it was a fight from hell. And in my family, that was saying something.
“… was an issue, for my dad. He still hasn’t forgiven me for going to U of R over Yale. ”
“That’s where he teaches?”
“Yep. I’m not sorry I did it, but looking back, choosing a college because your buddies were going there… maybe not the best idea.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Hell no. And in the end, it didn’t matter. I got into the PhD program at Yale which opened the door for Columbia.”
She glanced at the open bottle of Prosecco on the table. I stood, grabbed it, and refilled us both.
“Your goal was to teach at an Ivy League university?”
I hesitated. And then shared the truth. “My father’s goal was for me to teach at an Ivy League university, like him. Maybe even move into his spot as department chair at Yale when he retires.”
“No pressure,” she teased.
“Tell me about it.”
She waited, expecting more.
There was a hell of a lot more, but we wouldn’t be going there. Not today.
Not ever.
“Scusate, ragazzi, è tempo di andare. We should get moving.”
Saved by Captain Marco.
On the way back, there was no more talk of my father, thankfully. When we docked, and said goodbye to Marco, thanking him for a perfect day, Juliette took the hand I held out to assist her and stepped off the boat.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The touch left me rattled enough to suggest we skip a long dinner in favor of the pizzeria near the hotel. A good call, as it turned out, because even that had me accidentally wondering what we would do tomorrow. Accidentally looking forward to it.
Accidentally, my ass.
Neither of us suggested getting another bottle of wine or another late night on the hotel roof. When I walked Juliette to her room, before there could be any awkwardness, I told her I’d come by to grab her the same time tomorrow.
It was only back in my room, showered and lying on the bed, staring at my ceiling, thinking of the day, that I admitted to myself what I’d known all day.
That had certainly felt like a date, even if it wasn’t. When I’d begun to fantasize about another trip to Italy with her, a more extended one, that had been the moment that scared the shit out of me most.
One more day, and then we’d be heading to Milan, joined by Parker and Delaney.
I just had to hold on for one more day, and then it would be back to Cedar Falls.
Back to normal.