Chapter 3 Cosimo #4
‘Coming to find you! Ready or not!’ Gina’s voice carried through the night, calling for them. It was so late even the cicadas were sleeping, the moon sweeping its monocular gaze across the silver-banded sea.
He looked back at her. ‘Too bad! There’s no time now,’ he hissed, beginning to squeeze himself into the crevice too.
‘No! There’s no room!’ she giggled, trying to push him back. Once upon a time, when they’d been smaller, they could have squeezed in there together, but he’d grown so much recently they’d be like two nuts in a shell now. ‘Go somewhere else!’ she hissed.
But he was too strong, and too determined not to lose the game, to be deterred.
The fissure wasn’t a sheer vertical but a diagonal slash through the trunk and he filled the space as he slid in first one leg, then the other, holding himself not so much beside her as around her.
She was pressed back against the plane of smooth wood, and he braced his hand against the inside of the nook to support himself as he stood angled above her.
Rafaella looked up at him and he was suddenly aware of the intense heat of his body against hers, her breath like a hot wind upon his skin.
‘Come out, come out, wherever you are!’ Gina cried, her voice ricocheting through the grove. She was close now.
Cosimo didn’t stir; he could hardly even breathe as Rafaella blinked at him in the darkness. Only the breeze moved, rustling through the olive leaves as they waited, suspended.
‘I know you’re here somewhere!’ Gina slurred. They could hear her footsteps on the ground, treading over twigs and stones as she stumbled along, as drunk as the rest of them. From the sound of it, she was only a few metres away, peering up into the canopy as she went.
Rafaella shifted but Cosimo pressed a finger to his lips as they heard Gina’s footsteps pass right by on the other side of the tree.
He pretended to be listening but he couldn’t think of anything but the heat of her thighs between his in the tiny space, her body pressed close as they waited to be found.
He knew she was drunk and that she was unused to the fuzzy, swirling feeling – unlike him; he should know better than to recast his old friend in a new mould.
He tried to cool his thoughts, but they couldn’t have slipped so much as a blade of grass between them and he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide her effect on him if they stayed here much longer.
He closed his eyes, listening to Gina stumbling in the moonlight.
Perhaps it would be better if she did find them.
Release them from this dangerous confinement.
But as he looked back down, he saw the shift in Rafaella too. He could see it in the way her gaze fell to his lips, the drowsy blackness of her eyes, and he realized that what was coming next was inevitable, a gravitational pull neither of them could resist.
He scarcely had to move to kiss her but he hesitated before their lips touched, as if he knew this would change everything.
He did it anyway and, almost immediately, the pressure between them grew.
The tree cradled her against him and their arms and legs became as tangled as the branches.
She pushed her body upwards, an instinct that made him groan, and when she looked up at him it was as if something inside her had switched on – a vital, hidden part of herself she had never even known was there.
‘Rafa,’ he whispered, his voice breaking on the word as desire won out …
They surfaced for the third time, gulping down lungfuls of air, his head turning frantically as he looked around to see where she had gone.
He was surprised to find his sister standing on the side, looking on with amusement.
‘Allora! Allora!’ she was yelling, clicking her fingers to get his attention. ‘Si, ciao! Earth to Cosi!’
‘Oh, hey!’ he said distractedly. Rafaella was treading water nearby, looking up at Romola too, her eyes shining and her breath coming heavily as she recovered from the repeated dunkings. She looked happy. Had she felt it too, then?
‘I was calling you!’
He turned back to his sister. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear.’
‘Clearly!’
He squinted. The sun was right behind Romola, throwing her into silhouette.
He swam over to the edge and pulled himself out easily, sitting on the side.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, raking his hair back and hoping no one could see how hard his heart was pounding.
All he wanted was to get back under the water again, to make her laugh and scream …
Romola straightened. ‘I just took a call from your girlfriend’s assistant. Valentina’s on the train. You need to pick her up in an hour.’
He felt his euphoria dissipate like a bubble on a spike. ‘An hour?’ The station was fifty minutes from here, even when he wasn’t soaking wet and in the middle of the pool.
‘Yeah, so you’d better hop to it. You can’t keep La Bomba waiting!’
He turned towards Gina and Rafaella with a sinking feeling in his chest, but they were looking back at him with inscrutable stares.
Playtime was over.