18. Tilly #2
"Excuse me?"
I turn, and his hand lands on the small of my back, which pulls me into him.
"No,” I say with authority. I catch his wrist and lift the hand off me, already stepping back to open the gap. "Don't touch me."
"Relax, we're all having a good time here. We're in Italy, the wine is flowing, you're all dressed up—"
"I said no." I've got his arm angled away, my other palm up between us, and I'm handling it. I've handled worse than a drunk wedding guest at a sideboard.
Then Rhodes is there. He catches the guy’s wrist before it can land on me again and steps between us.
“She said no.”
The guy gives a drunk little laugh. “Relax, man.”
Rhodes moves closer, not loud or theatrical. “Walk away.”
Heat climbs up my neck, but it isn't fear or gratitude. It's fury. I had it. I had the whole thing handled, quiet, done, and he's made it a scene both families will remember.
I step in close so only he can hear.
"You need to chill the fuck out, Rhodes." My voice comes out shaking and cold. "Walk with me."
I set the pitcher down and walk toward the dark end of the terrace, which drops off into the garden, a low stone wall, and then nothing but the black shapes of olive trees and the sea somewhere past them. The party stays behind us, muffled now, a fork on a plate, somebody laughing.
I round on him.
"What was that?"
"I know that guy. He’s a complete slimeball. He had his hands on you."
"I know he had his hands on me. I was there, in case you didn't notice." My voice is low and shaking. "He's a creep, no doubt. I told him to leave me alone, and I had his hand off my back before you crossed the terrace. I handled it."
"He would have kept harassing you. That guy has a reputation."
"That's not the point."
Rhodes stands with his arms loose at his sides, but nothing else about him is loose. "I know you can handle yourself. I do. Does that mean no one can ever help you, Tallulah? Jesus Christ."
"Walking up and standing next to me would have been more than sufficient." I press my palm flat against my hip, like I can tamp down my anger through my hipbone. "You made a scene."
"He's the one who—"
"I know what he did. I'm not defending him."
He goes still and looks to the side, huffs for a second, and then turns back to me.
"The result," he says carefully, "is that his hands are off you."
"His hands were already off me. I did that part."
"I'm not sorry I stepped in. I probably could've done it without making half the terrace stare, but that guy—"
"That's all I'm saying. You could've done that better."
"Yeah. Got it."
"I don't need you fighting my battles."
"But if a man hears you say no and decides it doesn't apply to him, I'm going to have a hard time staying in my chair."
I've got the next thing ready, but I don't use it, because I would rather be a little annoyed than be the woman having a public argument about being defended at somebody else's wedding.
"Trust me to handle it next time."
That gets a nod and a smile that's almost a laugh, and it's finished. We head back toward the table together. Nobody says a word when we sit down, which means every single person noticed and has collectively decided to mind their own business.
For once, I’m grateful for the Stone family code of silence.
Cain reaches across Greer for the bread. “Anybody want more pasta?”
Dinner unwinds slowly, the way big family dinners always do. Grandbank goes first, kissing the top of Sisue's sleeping head before Greer carries her off toward their villa. The cousins peel away after him in twos and threes, their voices drifting down the stone paths until the night swallows them.
Reeves and Charli linger over the last of the wine until Charli hooks a hand around his arm and pulls him up. Libba yawns so hard her eyes water, which tells me she's dead, and heads back to our villa without me.
Eventually, even Cain and Greer disappear.
The lights in the fig tree stay on, but somebody blows out the candles along the table. Without thirty people talking over one another, I can hear the sea again below the terrace and the soft clink of Rhodes stacking glasses at the other end.
I should be dead, since I'm going on twenty-four hours of no sleep with the anticipation and the flight. But oddly I'm wide awake.
I pick up two plates and carry them to the sideboard.
"You know they're paying people to do this," Rhodes says.
"So I've heard."
"Then why are you doing it?"
"I don't know. I figured I'd help."
His mouth moves at one corner.
We haven't been alone since the garden, and apparently my body notices before the rest of me does. The second his eyes meet mine, everything from earlier comes back. Not the argument, but the way his jaw shifted when he told me he probably couldn't sit there and watch somebody ignore my no.
I set the plates down.
Rhodes grabs his phone from the table. "You headed back?"
"Yeah. I should probably go to bed so I can function tomorrow"
We walk out together. The path climbs between the villas in shallow stone steps, lit every few yards by little lamps tucked into the walls. Somewhere below us somebody is still laughing, and another door bangs shut.
For a while, Rhodes and I don't say anything. It isn't uncomfortable, which is almost worse. My villa comes first, so I stop at the little iron gate and put my hand on the latch.
I turn toward him. "This is me."
He's standing one step below me, which should make him shorter and somehow doesn't. His collar is still open from dinner, sleeves pushed up his forearms, and there is enough space between us that nothing about this should feel like anything.
"Sleep tight, Tallulah," he says.
"Night."
My heartbeat picks up. His eyes drop to my mouth. It happens so quickly I almost wonder if I imagined it.
He turns and heads down the path toward his villa. I let myself through the gate and close it quietly behind me.
Libba's door on the first floor is closed. She's the smart twin, probably already asleep. I walk up to my room, change in the dark, wash my face, and climb into bed with the windows open to the sea.