Chapter Six #3
“I think they only let me leave money to get me to go,” I say to Marina as we exit out onto the street.
She laughs. “Probably.” She doesn’t tell me how we didn’t have to pay. I don’t push. For now. “So?” she asks as we stroll leisurely down the street, in no hurry to get where we’re going. “Did you find some inspiration?”
“I think I might’ve felt a bit, yeah.” The street is bustling, dusk beginning to settle over the city.
“Well, I have some other ideas as well. But I will leave—” She makes a face like she’s thinking, then looks at me, her brow adorably furrowed. “The phrase has to do with a ball?”
“You’re leaving the ball in my court.”
“Yes!” She points at me. “That’s it. I am leaving the ball in your court.”
“Got it.”
“So, you text me if you’d like to be inspired more. Okay?”
I realize as we walk that I have mixed emotions about that. Ultimately, though, it’s probably a good thing that it will be up to me to reach out. I’m not okay verbalizing that. At all. Even in my head. But I know it’s true. Another thing I know is true? I’m probably going to text her again. Yeah.
“Gelato?” Marina asks, pulling me out of my spinning thoughts. She’s stopped at a little gelato shop and indicates it with her thumb.
“Absolutely,” I say, even though I am stuffed beyond belief. “I’m so full, but I am never going to pass up gelato in Rome. Never.”
“This is a decision I approve,” Marina says and holds the door open for me.
The shop isn’t terribly busy, but the wonderful smell hits me the second I enter. Why does Rome smell so good all the time? This place smells like chocolate and coconut and almonds, and I inhale deeply as the door closes behind me.
“Nice, eh?” Marina says, noticing my sniffing.
“Amazing.” There are easily fifteen flavors under the glass display, and they don’t look like ice cream at home at all. The tops are wavy, like the gelato has just been poured into the bins recently. It probably was. “Okay, what flavor do Romans choose most often?”
Marina lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know about all Romans, but I can tell you my choice.”
“Which is?”
“Pistachio.” She says it differently, though. She doesn’t say it with an SH sound, like Americans do. She says it with a CK sound. Like, pi-STAHCK-io.
“It’s not pistachio?” I ask, saying it the way I always have.
She shakes her head and says it again.
“I say it wrong.”
“Yes.”
I correct myself and say it like she does.
“ Bene .”
I’m pretty sure that means “good,” and I feel like I just got a gold star from my favorite teacher.
Most places I’ve been to so far have employees who speak at least some English, but this doesn’t seem to be one of them. Marina speaks in Italian, then looks over her shoulder at me. “Pistachio?”
“Yes, please.”
A few minutes later, Marina and I both have pistachio, mine in a cone and hers in a dish.
The heat is still a thing, despite the sun having set, and I have to work fast to keep my gelato from melting down my cone and all over my hand.
I do the lick-and-spin move my mom taught me when I was a kid, and when I glance back at Marina, she’s watching me.
Just…watching. And the look on her face is something I’m not sure I have right. Wishful thinking, maybe?
“How’s yours?” I ask, indicating her bowl with my eyes.
“ Perfetto . Yours?”
“The best I’ve ever had. Hands down. So good. Thank you for suggesting we stop.”
She seems to study me for a moment, like she’s not sure she should say what she wants to say but then decides to. “I wasn’t ready for the night to end,” she says simply, and does that half shrug thing again.
“Same,” I say, and when she gives me a puzzled look, I add, “It means me too. My niece says it all the time.”
“Ah.” She nods, and I’m pretty sure her smile grows.
My cone is now manageable, so I can pay attention as we stroll toward my hotel.
When we get to the front door, I stop and look at Marina.
I clear my throat. “I also wasn’t ready for the night to end,” I admit, my voice quiet.
“But I have Reggie. He’s gonna need to go out and eat and all that good stuff, so… ”
“He needs his mamma, as all good dogs do.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I will leave you to him. Please give him a pet for me.” She eats the last bite of her gelato, then says, “And remember, text me if you need to.”
What if I want to? I almost ask but catch myself. “I will. Thank you, Marina.”
With a nod and a last glimpse of the sultry smile, she turns to go.
I watch. I admit it. Just like last time, the sway of her hips holds my attention.
Damn, she is incredibly sexy. I can admit that to myself now that she’s not standing next to me.
Something about thinking that while she’s right there in my space feels weird to me, but now that she’s gone, the thoughts come rushing in like a dam just broke.
“All right, Chambers,” I mutter to myself as I pop the last of my waffle cone into my mouth, and Marina disappears around a corner. “Get your mind out of the gutter.”
I haven’t been interested in another woman in quite some time, and I’m not about to start with somebody who’s more than a decade younger than I am. No. She’s fun to look at, but that’s all. Well, she’s fun to look at, and she’s great company. But that’s all.