7. Chapter 7 #2
“Do you speak any other languages?” I ask as we head out onto a street bathed in golden evening light. Maybe I can glean some more tidbits of Benson if I ask innocuous questions.
“The tiniest bit of German,” he says, linking our hands together as we walk. “Enough Russian to think I’ll be okay when I inevitably get into trouble there. Never could figure out Chinese, though.”
“Oh, well, if that’s the only one you can’t get… I knew you had to have more than one flaw.”
He chuckles. “I can’t decide if you’re impressed by me or just indulging me, Avery Grace.”
A shiver runs through me at the sound of my name. “Did Dani tell you my middle name?”
Smirking, he tugs me down a side alley with the sort of confidence that makes me wonder if we’re going somewhere specific. I didn’t think we had an agenda. “You would not believe the sort of juicy gossip your sister is willing to share.”
“I feel like you texting my sister is breaking the rules of anonymity.” If he’s allowed to get info, I should get the same chance, but I don’t know if he has any siblings I could text. This man is a vault when it comes to personal history.
“Don’t worry.” We turn left, picking up our pace a bit. “She knows all about our plan and hasn’t told me anything important.”
“My middle name isn’t important? What has she told you?”
Benson glances at his watch. “How do you feel about running?”
“Hate it.”
“Too bad.” He breaks into a jog, pulling me with him as we weave through the throngs of people wandering the busy street. I have no idea where we’re going, but if Benson has a plan, it’s probably a good one.
Except, he’s like eight inches taller than me, so if we have to go much farther, I might ask to jump on his back and let him carry me. I’m about to suggest that when he rounds a corner and slows to a stop, a look of excitement on his face.
“Right on time,” he mutters with another glance at his watch.
That’s when I see the building we’re in front of, with the giant orange dome and the green-and-white-patterned designs in the walls.
It’s the Duomo, formally called the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.
It’s the building that caught my attention so thoroughly during the taxi ride to the hotel, and it’s the church I’ve been looking forward to the most. I smile wide.
“Hate to break it to you,” I say brightly, “but I have a tour scheduled here in like an hour, so we’re technically earl—oh! ”
The bells . Like before, their bold sounds seem to fill the entire city as they start up their vigil. There’s no pattern or rhythm, the notes high and low and everything in between, and it is magical . But we’re not in the right spot.
“Come on.” I pull Benson to the left, apparently catching him off guard because he nearly trips as he stumbles after me.
I’ll have to come back and get a picture with the dome, but the other end of the church has the bells, and I want to experience this moment properly.
I stop when we reach the other side, and my heart picks up in rhythm as I take it all in.
The bell tower, like the front of the church, is peppered with arches and reliefs and Gothic tracery that give the stone a lacey feel.
I’m not much of an art person, but it feels different when it’s all made from stone rather than painted on.
“Did you know this building took almost a hundred and fifty years to build?” I ask, though I have no idea if Benson can hear me over the tolling bells.
But his attention is fixed on me, so I turn back to the cathedral and keep talking even if Benson likely knows all the same facts about the Duomo that I do.
“It’s almost six hundred years old, and the guy who designed the dome revolutionized this type of architecture because he didn’t use any scaffolding.
And the bell tower was designed by an artist whose name I can’t remember, but it’s its own feat of engineering and design.
It’s all so amazing,” I finish, turning to face the man next to me.
He’s staring at me, his eyes bright as the sunset turns his brown hair to copper. His eyes drop to my mouth and stay there.
Swallowing, I keep talking because no matter how touchy-feely this guy has been over the last couple of days, he hasn’t come close to kissing me except for that forehead kiss last night.
But it’s looking like that might change, and I don’t know how to feel about that.
“Can you imagine how brilliant everyone who made this place must have been?” I ask breathlessly.
“To create something so magical out of nothing? What would it be like to be the sort of person who does something no one has ever done before? To see your vision turn into something real? I would love to someday create something I can be proud of, you know?”
Benson exhales. “You are incredible,” he whispers, and then he’s leaning in, his mouth only a breath from mine.
The bells stop.
The square goes quiet.
For a moment we’re frozen in time, neither of us blinking, neither of us breathing, and I feel like I’m on the edge of a precipice, wondering which way we’re going to fall.
A group of tourists starts clapping as the last of the bells’ ringing fades. Benson pulls away, an unreadable look on his face as he slips his hand from mine and runs it through his hair. “Uh, I should head back to the hotel.”
My heart sinks. “Oh.”
Wincing, he seems to search the crowded square for some sort of explanation as he takes a step back, putting more distance between us than we’ve had since yesterday morning. “There’s some wedding stuff tonight, and I should be there for that.”
What happened to the guy who was willing to skip out on the wedding altogether? Did I do something wrong?
“I can take you back with me, but… You should do the tour,” he says and holds out my phone, his fingers barely touching it so there’s no way our hands can brush when I take it.
Taking the phone back feels symbolic somehow, and I don’t like it.
I thought for sure he was about to kiss me, but something changed. Did the bells break the magic spell?
Oh goodness, what if they put us under a spell in the first place when we were in the taxi driving in? Benson has been way too attentive over the last couple of days—there’s no way that’s normal. This could have all been a fluke, and now Benson has been snapped out of the madness.
Looking down at my phone, I glance through the dozens of notifications waiting for me, most of them from Eric and some of the people we work with.
There are a couple of texts from Dani, and the partial preview of her latest message makes me wonder if she’s part of the reason Benson almost made a move.
Dani:
It’s been way too long since she last had a good ki…
“I’ll…” I don’t know what to say right now, standing in the middle of a crowded square with a ton of awkward tension between me and the man I was so ready to kiss a moment ago. “See you around?”
Grimacing, he gives me a nod that isn’t at all reassuring. I didn’t believe in magic spells before, but Benson’s one-eighty just now has convinced me that all of this was the result of some strange wizard who needed a laugh. “Can you get back on your own?” he asks.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Right.” He scratches his scruffy jaw, looking anywhere but at me. “Have…have fun.”
Goodbye, whirlwind romance. You were fun while you lasted.
I watch him walk away until he vanishes into the crowd, and then I pull up my text thread with Dani.
There isn’t nearly as much conversation as I expected, and most of it is pictures that Benson took of me.
The last text does not say what I thought it did.
Dani:
It’s been way too long since she last had a good kindred spirit to spend time with, and from what I can tell, you’re a lot like the sister I used to know. Thanks for getting her out of her shell. She looks happy.
The text was unread, so I don’t know if Benson ever saw it, but nowhere in these back-and-forth messages are there any texts from my sister that could be classified as juicy .
She did tell him my middle name, but not because he asked.
It was in response to one of the pictures and she used my first and middle name as a reaction, complete with a million exclamation points.
Confused and a little disappointed, I pull up my booking for the Duomo tour and make my way to the entrance.
At least I’ll end the day on a good note.