Chapter 18 Ravenna, Italy #2
Minutes later, Sage comes into the bedroom as I’m suiting up in the absurd outfit.
She’s wearing a dress of thin gray T-shirt material inflicted with deliberate horizontal slashes, the fabric laddered and exposing much of her tempting pale skin.
It’s sleeveless, with rhinestone-spangled straps, and clings to her, dotted with dark water stains as if she put it on without toweling off first.
She brushes my hands aside to button the shirt. “You’re gonna wear the tie too, right?”
“Ghastly as this is, I’ll wear it until you take it off me.”
It’s worth noting that none of the six pieces of the ensemble—trousers, shirt, necktie, vest, jacket, and socks—matches.
The trousers have a pattern of pink iced doughnuts.
The shirt, though adult size, is something a child would wear, littered in a cartoon cowboy motif: horses, lassos, boots, Stetson hats.
The vest has flying saucers and green space aliens.
The necktie is decorated with Christmas ornaments and reads CHECK OUT MY BALLS.
The jacket’s pattern is an assortment of sandwiches.
The socks are bright yellow and adorned with fishing flies.
She gives my chest a pat after rigging me out in this visual headache, then leans in, standing on her toes, to sniff my neck. “You’re not wearing the cologne.” She reaches into the garment bag pocket to retrieve it.
“I draw the fuckin’ line at dousing myself in that ‘cowboy disinfectant.’ It’d bring me out in a rash.”
Her lovely toffee-gold eyes widen into pools of melodramatic despair. “Sandy, you have to wear it!” She opens the cap and thrusts it toward my face.
“Such a brat,” I gripe. “Determined to make me look a pillock and smell like a 1980s honky-tonk bar shat itself.”
I take the bottle from her hand and dab on the smallest possible quantity.
When I go to the en suite washbasin and scrub my hands to remove the residual cologne from my fingertips, Sage draws up behind me and wraps her arms around my torso, peeking at my reflection.
I turn and pull her into my arms, and having her pressed against me like this, the world could end in a barrage of meteors and I’d go out happy.
Everything feels so right that I’m simultaneously euphoric and terrified, not knowing how long I have before it’s all over.
Her upturned face has the look of an invitation to a kiss, but I’m afraid to risk it. The dance floor is always moving beneath her—her rules, whims, focus, manic actions, the whirl of her thoughts… all of it unpredictable.
The thought intrudes: my mother’s counsel to “work on this one.” Inside, I’m all in. But I know it’s too soon to state aloud what I’m feeling.
My brain arrives at a safe compromise. “You know,” I begin, stroking a thumb up and down Sage’s spine, “I was fuckin’ lost from the moment you grabbed my arm in the Bahrain airport.”
She wrinkles her pert nose. “Yeah, I could tell.”
“Oh? What gave me away?”
“You seemed… relieved. I don’t know if it’s because I was or wasn’t what you expected, but I saw the tension drain out of you, and I thought, ‘Fuck, is he actually kinda into me?’” She puts one of her bare feet on top of mine, and the simple intimacy of it thrills me to the marrow—there’s something so fundamentally human about it.
I toy with a tendril of her hair, damp at the tip from the shower. “I very much was. And remain so. And as to the future…” I wrap her curl of hair around my fingertip. “I’m no seer, but the way I feel when I’m with you—”
She covers my mouth with one hand and presses her bee-stung lips together as if embarrassed, then steps back out of my arms. “Don’t go getting all serious on me, Sandy. As the saying goes, ‘I’m here for a good time, not for a long time.’”
My heart drops like a sinkhole, but I force a smile. “As if anything could entice a bounder like yours truly into ‘getting all serious.’”
“Good. Let’s hit the road. I don’t wanna be late for our reservation.” She grabs my necktie and tows me into the bedroom, then heads for the hallway. “And FYI, you’re still hot as a three-dollar pistol, even dressed like a fucking clown.”
The restaurant is one I’ve passed often, but at which I’ve not dined.
I’m hoping that inside we’ll be seated at an intimate corner table, dark enough to camouflage me.
But surely this mischievous minx won’t let me off so easily.
She parks nearly half a kilometer from the restaurant, claiming (with a naughty glint in her eye) that she “wants to window-shop” and that it has nothing to do with furthering my mortification by making me stroll through town.
A sheepish demeanor, I realize, will only make it worse, so I take her arm and saunter along as if I’m in the know about a new fashion trend. This strategy works until my false confidence is punctured by a small child pointing and laughing, crowing out, “Che scemo!”
My relief, walking into the restaurant, evaporates as I lock eyes with the woman at the hostess station—a buxom beauty with a jet-black pixie cut.
Nicoletta and I had a dalliance last year that she clearly doesn’t recall as fondly as I do, considering her caustic glare.
I’m not sure whether the buffoonish suit makes me more despicable to her or less so.
As I’m mentally scrambling for the least awkward course of action, Nicoletta’s catlike gaze shifts to Sage and her eyes light up.
She smacks her hands together and cries out with joy, and I have a moment of panic wondering whether Sage and I have slept with the same woman.
My confusion lingers as the two launch into chatting in Italian.
I had no idea Sage spoke it. I stand dumbly, trying to catch a few easy words, a courtesy smile frozen on my face.
Finally Nicoletta comes around the lectern and elbows me aside to get a selfie with Sage, who then signs a menu for her. They continue bantering gaily as we’re led to our table, which is, to my dismay, bang in the middle of the back patio, displaying me to all.
I pull out Sage’s chair for her and then sit. “Do you and Nic—Erm, do you and the hostess know each other?” I ask, draping the linen serviette across my lap.
Sage smirks. “No, she just recognized me and she’s a racing fan. But apparently you know her.”
A small sigh escapes me. “No point denying it. And luckily she was starstruck by you, or I might’ve got a Biro to the eye socket.”
I thank the young man who comes to deposit menus and pour chilled glasses of sparkling water for us; then Sage thanks him as well, but better, in Italian.
“I’d no clue you spoke the language,” I tell her.
She pulls a breadstick from an upright metal basket and crunches it. “Surprise!” she says, chewing. “I also speak decent Spanish, a little French, and a smidge of half-assed Polish—enough to keep my grandma happy. How ’bout you?”
“I regret to report that I’ve little skill with languages. I’ve retained some schoolboy-proficiency French. Chiefly pertaining to business or seduction.”
“That’s so on-brand for you. Wow.” She twiddles the breadstick like a cigar, eyeing me with humor.
I suffer a spasm of insecurity that the more Sage knows me, the more likely she is to be unimpressed. I’m wealthy, a stylish dresser, well read, and good at playing the piano. But is that enough for a dazzling spitfire like this woman?
We fall into easy conversation that moves from foreign languages to our respective travels—the most underrated and unusual destinations—and when the server shows up, we realize we’ve not even looked at the menu.
“What’s captivating you, Sandy-boy?” Sage asks me, doing a quick scan of the items listed on the cream-colored page.
You.
Everything about you.
The flash of your eyeteeth when you laugh.
The way one of your ears sticks out a tiny bit more than the other.
The sultry gold of your irises, like sunrise shining through a ribbon of treacle.
The high arches in your feet. Your American accent, the tone lazy and warm and elastic, like palm trees nodding on a California beach…
I give a helpless chuckle and turn my menu face down. “No clue, pet. Shall you order for us?”
Her eyebrows go up. “You’d trust me? Sure I won’t set you up with something weird?”
“You said this wretched suit evens the score; I’ve no fear of being pranked. Also…” I reach across the table and take her fingers in my hand. She almost pulls away, then settles, and her expression softens. “I do trust you,” I tell her. “Unreservedly.”
Her shoulders relax as if she’s letting out a held breath, and her smile is a window opening. “Shucks. Don’t go gettin’ all corny on me…”
As she grasps the menu again and gazes down at it, I spot a brush of color fanning over her cheekbones.
She orders starters and two pasta dishes to share, and I can’t help noticing that her Italian is a little halting now, as if her mind is half elsewhere.
To my surprise, she reaches for my hand again after the server walks away and props her chin on one palm.
“This is fun,” she says, almost shy. “You don’t seem to mind the suit too much…”
I regard my sleeve. “I’d nearly forgot I was wearing it. Good company will do that.”
“You make it look sexy. Or else everyone here is too polite to stare.” Her eyes narrow. “Maybe I took you to the wrong spot, eh? I should’ve dragged you to a club.”
“I’m afraid dancing goes in the same column as foreign languages for me.”
“You suck at it?” she says with a kind of euphoria, sitting up straight. “Holy balls, Sandy. All that shit you flipped me about being clumsy, and you can’t even dance?”
“Not vertically,” I quip, unable to restrain a wink.
She rolls her eyes and snort-laughs. “Okay, what are you skilled at, aside from the obvious?”
“Ah, the obvious? You think I’m good at…”
“Yes, writing and origami,” she teases. “Oh, and you know about rare jazz, I guess. What else?”
I brush my thumb across her knuckles, pleased that she’s still letting me hold her hand. “I play piano well. I started when I was three and still work on it quite a lot, so one might say I’m a dab hand.”
“Will you play for me when we get back from dinner?”
“Certainly.” I give her a slow smile. “I more than owe you a reciprocal performance after you demonstrated your dancing prowess in Melbourne.”
For a half minute we watch each other, our eyes telegraphing memories of that night.
Oddly, the recollection affects me as a blooming warmth in my chest more than in my lap.
I want to see her again like that, raw and boundless as she was with me, everything about her new as spring.
The heat of her breath, the unrestrained pressure of her fingers, the crackling hints of emotion in her voice.
The fulfillment of holding all of her, being engaged with her tip to toes, from the disarray of her stormy hair to her small feet as they flexed with arousal.
She pulls her head back, eyes startled as the intensity of the moment appears to rattle her. Those honey-dark eyes widen.
I let her hand go before she feels the need to withdraw and turn the subject to lighter things—books and movies.
As starters arrive and we dig into bruschetta, I confess that I typically tell people my favorite films are Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather Part II, and Seven Samurai, but in reality they’re Monty Python and the Holy Grail, What We Do in the Shadows, and Groundhog Day.
Next, sharing a plate of stuffed squash blossoms, we have a good-natured debate over whether Hemingway was a genius or a bullying drunk bastard (a bit of both, we end up agreeing), and whether Margaret Atwood is more brilliant as a poet or a novelist (again, both—who could choose?).
As we’re eating communally off two plates of pasta, Sage falls quiet, holding my eyes for a long moment with a bewildered-yet-heated look that takes my breath away.
I set my fork down. “Salvi, pet. What is it?”
She shakes her head. “Shit, I don’t know. I kinda dig you, Sandy.” She jabs at a chunk of olive on one of the plates. “I mean, I feel calm around you. Usually my brain is going a million miles an hour, but, uh…” She shrugs. “You slow me down. In a good way.”
A squall of emotions grips me, temporarily paralyzing my ability to respond.
I’m flattered, grateful, humbled by the trust she’s put in me, the man who mere months ago antagonized her in a boorish campaign to draw her attention.
I want to tell her she’s both nothing like I expected and a thousand times more complex and fascinating than I’d imagined, and that I like her more for that fact.
I want to confess that I’ve never had a strong sense of myself, but I feel like I know exactly who I am when I’m with her.
She’s the North Star, the equator, the prime meridian.
She’s a universal constant, like the speed of light or the value of pi.
Instead, I artlessly manage, “Thank you. I’m pleased to hear it.”
Fuckin’ hell, could I be more tiresomely British?
She hums a laugh. “Yeah, well. I’m surprised by you, not gonna lie. I had you pegged for a useless nepo-baby douche, but… you’re funny and smart, and you ask questions. It’s depressing how many guys don’t. You’re interested in what I think, not just what I do.”
“Your every detail, as I discover them,” I tell her, turning her hand palm-up and smoothing along her lifeline with both thumbs, gently kneading, “is more bewitching to me than the last. You’re a treasure house I could explore forever.”
She closes her hand over my thumbs. “Oh, bullshit. Now you’re just making fun of me.”
I capture her gaze, and I must look quite serious, the way the smile fades from her lips. Her eyes widen.
“I’m gravely earnest, Salvi. If I’ve said too much… well, there’s no taking it back. Cards on the table. I’ve never known anyone like you and I won’t bother pretending I’m not besotted.”
She chews at her lower lip, then breaks the tension with a breezy laugh, releasing my hand to pick up her water glass.
I’m sure I’ve cocked things up irreparably by coming on too strong and she’s either going to take the piss or pretend I didn’t say it.
But after a sip of water and the slow, pensive chewing of an ice cube, she meets my eyes.
“I must be a tiny bit smitten too, because… that fucking suit would scare away any sane person, but it isn’t slowing me down. Let’s go back to your place and make out.”