15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We made it safely off the boat, but the clouds opened by dinnertime and rain pelted the roof throughout the night. Water cascaded from our balcony down to the stone pathway and into the canal. The next morning rose slate-gray, but dry. At least, for a while.
Emil and I walked to St. Mark’s Square, stepping over puddles as the sun fought the ever-darkening clouds. By noon, it had lost.
Perhaps fittingly as we exited St. Mark’s cathedral, the heavens let loose with a torrent, the raindrops pelting the hood of my jacket. I pushed it back enough to raise my eyebrows in question at Emil.
“Should we go to the hotel?” he asked.
“I suppose so.” My heart sank. “Maybe it’ll let up later.”
By the halfway point, our shoulders were soddened, our pants drenched from the knees down. Screw it, if I was to be cold and wet, I might as well enjoy it. I grabbed Emil and pulled him down a random street.
“Where are you going?”
“ We’re going exploring!”
“Aren’t you cold?” he asked, clearly trying for an excuse to head to the room .
“Yep.”
He shook his head, but let me drag him along for a change.
Down a narrow canal, a row of disheveled buildings sat ruined in their scaffold cages. Emil slowed, his gentle tug guiding me to a stop. A conglomeration of tools and equipment waited abandoned beside an entrance’s doors, paintbrushes dripping diluted rainbows into buckets. The weathered exteriors, once surely grand and rich, waited for their chance to return to their former glory.
“I wonder what they’ll do with these?” I mused.
“Depends on the damage, I imagine. Probably restore them if they can…tear them down, if not.”
I frowned. “Really?”
Ahead of me, Emil stopped one building farther and pointed to the home across the way. A hand-painted sign was set on its door. I stepped back as I read it.
DEMOLIRE , it said, surrounded by a slashing red X.
“That’s sad.”
“It is,” he agreed.
I shifted to the alcove of the first house, watching Emil. I couldn’t quite gauge his expression. His gaze roved the faded paint and weathered wood as he slowly moved toward me. It was as if he was doing calculations in his head, measuring between the eaves, down this wall, the width of the fogged window.
“What’s going on up there?” I asked. I meant through his mind, but when he answered, he was still staring high above.
“Not sure.” He was far away, thoroughly distracted.
I bit back a smile and ran my fingers over the rough, rotting door. With the lightest of pressure, it wheezed open, the handle and bolt long gone. I smiled at the invitation.
“C’mon.”
Emil quickly pulled at my arm. “No. You don’t know if the structure is sound. ”
I pushed the door open wider, peering in. A crisscross of planks, clearly meant for walking, staggered up through the stories. I slid from beneath his touch, holding my hands out toward him as I backed inside, step by step, but out of reach.
“Live a little.”
He grunted in protest as my invisible rope dragged him forward, but couldn’t help his gaze from darting up. The vast space was filled with a hazy light, the interior larger than one would expect based on its slim profile outside. The floor was completely stripped away in the center of the room, angry waves slapping against the old wooden posts Emil had told me about before. I stared at them with respect, their resolute figures remaining stalwart after all these years.
“Whoa,” I breathed. Delicate artwork adorned the walls. A careful, talented hand had painted the scrolls and patterns around the crown molding, the colors dull with age. Arched windows looked out over the canal, the white paint chipped and bubbled. Even in its dilapidated state, it was stunning.
Emil moved swiftly through the room, his earlier concern about safety forgotten. He looked like a kid in a candy shop. His head tipped as he stared skyward, eyes flitting from one feature to the next. His fingers brushed a caress over the carved pillars framing the living space. The world seemed to have dropped away for him, so engrossed in the structure that he didn’t notice the steady drip of water pooling in the hood of his jacket.
I mirrored his movements around the perimeter, keeping a careful distance on the narrow path to avoid taking a bath in the canal. “What do you think? What should our move-in date be?”
Emil snapped out of his reverie, confused at first. Then he played along, a slow smile sliding across his face. “By Christmas?”
I snorted, shaking my head. “I would have never expected it of you.”
“What?”
“You’re an optimist,” I said with a mocking note of disgust .
He laughed. “Guilty.”
I followed the light up to the hole in the roof, water cascading in drips and drops back to the sea. “It’s definitely roomy.”
“Yes, very spacious.”
“Where would you suggest I put the Christmas tree?”
We met at the far corner of the room. He looked around a moment, then pointed over his shoulder to the window. “There. That way, anyone passing by outside could see it.”
“But not see in here,” I said knowingly, and he nodded. “Smart.”
A particularly large swell battered the beams and boards, creating a rogue wave that lapped at our already sopping shoes. The house let out an ominous groan.
“I’ll call and tell the builders our plans,” I said urgently.
“Good idea,” he responded, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the entryway.
“Wait,” I teased, straining against him, “I want to get a color sample from the wall!”
“Enough, Mallory,” Emil insisted, his voice tense with worry as the floor gave another grating note of warning.
I snickered as he shoved me out into the sturdy stone alley.
“Too soon to be picking colors?”
He shot me a look of reproach as he secured the door.
“C’mon, you know you wanted to go in there as much as I did,” I pressed.
At first, I thought I was in for a talking-to. But he stepped toward me into the middle of the sidewalk and looked again up at the building face. I watched as water beaded in his thick curls before overflowing and breaking into trails as they flowed around his brow bone and nose.
“Yes,” he said, barely audible. “I did.” The tightness in his eyes didn’t make sense, nor did the slight break in his voice.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Is everything all right?”
His face fell. “Yes. I’m sorry. ”
A shiver that had only partly to do with the damp slithered down my back. “For?”
He opened his mouth, but only a trembling murmur caught in the wind.
“Do you want to head to the room now?” I clenched my jaw as gusts whipped the otherwise mild air into a sharp bite.
We traveled the short distance in silence.
The warm protection of the lobby pulled a sob of relief from my lips. Somewhere along the way, I’d gotten bone-chilled. I bounded up the steps with Emil on my heels.
Inside, I stripped off my jacket and boots, chucking the former into the bathroom sink. I danced in place.
“Go ahead,” Emil offered, shrugging out of his wet clothes more slowly. “Take the shower first.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, desperate.
“Just go.”
He didn’t have to tell me a third time. I scurried away gratefully.
I soaked in the heat as long as I could before getting out to give Emil a turn. When he emerged in a white T-shirt and pair of sweatpants, I was tucked in up to my chin in bed.
“Better?” he teased.
“No,” I said, my feet and hands still freezing. “I can’t get warm.”
The joke faded from his lips. “Would you like help?”
Heat flooded my insides, but didn’t extend to my extremities. “You don’t have to turn into an iceberg with me.”
His shoulders twitched, playing it cool. “I’m fine.”
“Well…” I pondered. “If it’s not too much to ask?”
He tossed his towel to the bathroom floor and ducked into the bed. “Move over.”
I obliged, waiting for him to get comfortable before sliding my feet to touch his legs. He sucked in a breath, but didn’t push me off. I lay on my side, facing him.
His hands slid over mine, rubbing warmth into them. “I don’t get it. It’s not cold out.”
“I’m from the desert,” I reminded him. “It’s cold to me. And I’m not used to humidity. Plus the wind? My body doesn’t know what to do with it.” I curled in tighter, nose pressed to his chest, his chin resting on top of my head.
An unspoken hush had fallen over the room, disturbed only by our breathing and the rhythmic pattern of rain coming from outside. The sound was hypnotic, and I found myself dozing with the steady rhythms as my body steadily warmed with his touch. Gentle fingers grazed my hairline, and I nuzzled in close without thinking. His fingertips stilled a moment before resuming their path across my head, lulling me to sleep.
Warm arms.
Hot breath.
The grit of sand upon my skin.
I jerked awake.
“You’re okay,” Emil whispered.
I couldn’t have been asleep for long. In an instant, I knew where I was and who held me, my heart already slowing to a more normal rhythm.
“Mmm,” I sighed against his chest. “Thank you.” The words were a mumble.
He smoothed a hand down my spine. “Go back to sleep. It’s still raining.”
But I was too awake now. “Why do you know about the Venetian architecture?”
His hand stopped at my mid-back. “Just something that interests me.”
“It was beautiful,” I admitted. “I wonder what it was like. Before.”
His fingers resumed their course, traveling up toward my shoulder blades.
“Can I ask you something else?” I ventured.
“Of course.”
I tucked my chin against my knuckles. “What was that about, at the house? You were…upset.”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“Nothing’s safe,” I countered.
His lips pursed. “No, I suppose that’s true. But there’s a difference between that and recklessness.”
“I’m not reckless,” I mumbled.
“No?” he challenged.
I bit my lip. “I guess I just never wanted to live in fear,” I explained thoughtfully. “Sure, bad things happen sometimes. Being cautious in life could help avoid some of them, but no one makes it through unscathed. I’d rather get banged up a few times than always be too afraid to let anything happen at all.” Doubt clouded my voice.
Did I still believe that? I wanted to. The ideology had served me well through life until recently. I would be a bona fide hypocrite if I didn’t take the good with the bad. Issues with my dad were easier to relegate to the background, distant memories, small things I barely remembered. Marseille was fresh—raw—but should a single negative event really be able to shake my beliefs to the core? Whether I wanted it to or not, it had, at least a little. It had changed me to some extent. How much, I wasn’t yet sure.
“That’s brave,” Emil said.
I rolled my eyes. “Or really stupid.”
“Maybe it’s both.”
I fixed my face to hide my worry, tilting my head to meet his eye. “Very generous of you.”
He frowned, a dark, but teasing look obscuring his gaze. “I said maybe.”
I shrugged. “Maybe is as good an answer as any.”
I turned my back to him and stared over his bed toward the balcony, the wet rooftops of Venice glistening in the night beyond the railing.
“Did I say something wrong?”
I looked at him over my shoulder. “No.” I faced the opposite direction again, bumping my hips into his. “I just wanted to look outside.”
His sharp breath had me grinning as I made contact. Eventually, he took my brusque invitation and spooned me from behind. The bed was warm now with our combined body heat. A lazy mood took over, and we chatted off and on about random topics, other times staying silent for long stretches. Neither was uncomfortable.
When the sky darkened and the rain quieted to a damp mist, we went downstairs for dinner. We made plans for our departure the following day, and I browsed hotel options in Munich before our next stop in Prague. We dined and then bade a last sorrowful goodbye to Italy by taking a final stroll through the canals. It was dead, only a few people trailing across our path. Gondoliers lined the docks, chatting, their boats empty. A couple passing by waved off one of the gondoliers as he spoke in rapid-fire Italian. As we approached, his eyes locked on to us.
“Solo ottanta euro,” he offered, waggling his eyebrows.
Emil slowed to a stop, looking from the boat, to me, and back to the man. “All right.”
“You want to?” I asked, surprised.
Emil nodded as the gondolier jumped to attention. The neighboring gondolier raised his eyes to the heavens with a jealous huff before settling, disgruntled, into his empty boat.
Emil got in first, holding out a hand to help me. “When in Rome, right?”
I smiled, accepting it, and stepped carefully in after him.
Drifting through Venice at night was like being carried away into an enchanting scene straight from a storybook. Snuggled beneath a thick wool blanket with Emil only added to the illusion, which was broken when our gondolier began a swooning love ballad. I sniggered behind my fingers, though his singing voice was anything but comical. Emil pressed his lips together, nudging me in the ribs when I snorted.
When we docked back to reality, our savvy boatman bid us a wholesome goodnight.
“Grazie. Buona notte,” I answered with a wave as Emil helped me clamber back onto solid ground.
We wandered inside, floating on a magical high.
“Thank you for going,” I said. We had changed and were standing out on the balcony, taking in a last glimpse of the city in the moonlight.
“I had to endure it,” he sighed dramatically.
I let out a derisive laugh. “What? No you didn’t.”
“I did,” he countered. “It made you happy.”
I crossed my arms. “So?”
He watched his fingers twist, his next words simple. “You need happy.”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. What could I say to that? He knew too much for me to deny it. And yet I had been happy, even before tonight.
“Well, then the joke’s on you.”
He paused before finally meeting my gaze. “What do you mean?”
“I was already having a ball,” I said, turning to lean my back against the railing. “So you endured that for nothing, I’m afraid.”
A tender smile played around his mouth. “Then it’s time for payback.”
“What do you want?”
He straightened, then held out his hand to me. Hesitantly, I took it.
“To sleep,” he admitted. “I’m exhausted.”
Without waiting for a response, he led me inside. He let go after depositing me on one side of the bed, then clambered in on the other. He patted the space reserved for me. Grinning from ear to ear, I jumped in. The bed bounced, its groan of protest matching Emil’s. He pressed up against me all the same, and I curled into place with a sigh.