Chapter 45
Her eyes were wide open as she lay naked in the bed, staring into the dark of Luca’s bedroom, making pictures out of the shapes his furniture was creating in the shadows.
Gabriella. Thirty-four. Likes to pretend she has her life together.
In reality she’s hanging by a thread that has been fraying since her sister died.
Brave. Scared. Currently concerned about how much she is feeling at peace being spooned by her naked stylist…
‘Are you awake?’ he whispered.
‘No.’ She smiled to herself as she felt him pull her even closer still.
‘Do you want to be?’ he asked, his voice soft in her ear.
She smiled for a second but then thought about his question a bit deeper. ‘I don’t know. Being awake means facing up to everything.’
‘You mean embracing everything?’
‘Ah, a positive spin,’ Gabriella said, shifting in the circle of his arms and ending up facing him. ‘You know there isn’t always one of those.’
‘Disagree.’
She palmed his face. ‘Discuss.’
‘A few hours ago I was in a Christmas market covered in blood and now…’ He stopped talking, leaned into her hand, brought his mouth close to hers.
‘And now?’
‘You tell me,’ he breathed. ‘But it’s definitely more positive, no?’ He dropped a soft kiss on her lips and she smiled.
‘And are you going to tell me about that? Because, you know, I feel my concern about activists was more plausible than it being something to do with you. But now you’ve said it was blood.’
She watched those clouds accumulate in his eyes, covering up the light that usually lay there. It would be so easy to take it back or say he didn’t need to say any more but she waited.
‘Do you really want me to?’ he asked.
She thought carefully before making her reply. ‘What will it cost you?’
His eyes stayed with hers, seemingly regrouping, until he answered. ‘Possibly everything but—’
She pressed a finger to his lips, firm. ‘Then don’t tell me.’
He shook his head. ‘But, if I don’t say anything… nothing changes.’
‘I know that feeling,’ she said. ‘I’ve somehow built a whole lifestyle that’s changed other people while I stay completely still.’ She sighed. ‘Or… sometimes I feel like I’m moving backwards.’
‘So,’ he said, his hand brushing her hair back from her face. ‘Perhaps there is a way?’
‘Yeah?’ she asked, very uncertain.
‘We start small,’ he suggested.
‘That’s not how you started a couple of hours ago,’ Gabriella said, teasingly.
He smiled. ‘I’m being serious.’
‘So am I.’
‘Come on, Gabriella. I know you now. Your deflection tactics don’t work with me.’
‘No?’ she asked, her hand moving under the covers, skimming his abdomen, until she found his already-hard-again penis.
He took her hand in his. ‘Not yet.’
‘Why not?’ she breathed. ‘You feel ready.’
He moved her hand away and upwards, splicing their fingers together and bringing them out of the duvet. He kissed her knuckles and then he took a breath before beginning. ‘The blood bucket… it was definitely meant for me.’
‘O-K?’
‘And, the person I went to see… I made sure I was clear and… it won’t be happening again.’
‘OK.’
‘So, that’s my beginning,’ he told her. ‘Now it’s your turn. If you want to.’
She nodded but it was with no confidence whatsoever in this moment. She had already shared her body with him and there had been emotion there too – more than she had shared with anyone. Was she even capable of opening up further than that?
‘I can’t… talk about my sister.’ She swallowed. ‘Ever. Even when Phoebe wants to. I just can’t. Like I should.’ She took a breath. ‘I talk about her art and her dance and I dance around it all with my writing and the questions readers ask, but I don’t ever really say anything.’
‘OK,’ Luca answered, squeezing her hand a bit tighter.
‘It’s because—’ She stopped herself from saying anything else. She couldn’t tell him.
‘It’s OK,’ Luca said, moving his body closer to hers. ‘This is a safe space, Gabriella. I promise.’
She shook her head and tried to detach their hands.
‘Hey,’ he said, holding on. ‘Don’t do that. I won’t let you do that.’
‘Let me go.’
‘Not like that,’ he said, gripping on. ‘Unless you really want me to.’
She shook her head, holding on but definitely not holding it together.
‘Look at me,’ he said, his free hand lifting her chin. ‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘That I’m a fucking disaster and you wish you could rewind the past few hours or, maybe even all the days we’ve known each other. Perhaps you’re even thinking you wished Benoit Torres was still your client.’
‘100 per cent not any of those,’ he said firmly.
‘No?’
‘No,’ he said, looking deep into her eyes. ‘I think that you don’t talk about your sister because you still talk to her.’
Gabriella flinched, internally and externally. ‘Why… would you say that?’
‘Am I right? That it’s her you talk to, with the burgers and before the event in the bathroom.’
‘Why would you say something like that? Just like that?’ She shifted in the bed, away from him, further from this conversation that was clawing its way across her deepest parts.
‘Don’t leave,’ Luca said, reaching for her, his fingertips trailing her shoulder. ‘I said it because, if I had lost someone I loved, it’s exactly what I would do.’
‘Well, that would be weird, wouldn’t it?’
‘Would it?’
‘Most people would think so.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you’re dead, you’re not here anymore.’
‘Is that what you think?’
‘It’s pretty obvious. There’s a gravestone back in the UK with my sister’s name on it.’
‘And what about the memories?’
‘Like photos on a camera roll?’
‘Come on, Gabriella. Memories aren’t always about the past.’
‘That’s exactly the definition of what memories are.’
‘Not always,’ Luca continued.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘OK, so, do you not think about things that your sister could have done? I don’t know, when you go somewhere, or do something, do you never think “if Lulu was here she would have laughed at this” or, I don’t know, maybe “Lulu would have hated all the outfits this stylist guy is putting me in”.’
‘She would definitely have hated some of them.’
‘So, there you are.’
‘What?’
‘Just because someone isn’t physically here anymore doesn’t mean you don’t remember who they were, or think about them or still make them part of your present and your future. You don’t forget. They can still be here. In a way.’
Could he understand? Did he? She didn’t say anything but she felt herself settle in the space again, his fingers still moving gently up and down her arm. It felt natural somehow. Right.
And, as that thought travelled and gained traction, it jolted her back into reality.
She moved, faster this time, with purpose.
‘I should go,’ she said, leaving the bed and beginning to dress.
‘I left Cheyenne with Phoebe. She should be asleep. Phoebe, not Cheyenne… or actually maybe both of them but—’
‘Sure,’ Luca said coolly, turning away. ‘You should go.’
And now she felt like the worst kind of person. She had come here looking for a release, had taken it and was now running out the door.
‘Luca,’ she said, fastening her jeans.
‘What?’ He was lying facing the wall, duvet pulled up around him, the only thing visible that head of dark curls that had felt so good when her fingers had run through it.
‘Please look at me,’ she said.
‘Why? So you can tell me to my face you’re going?’
‘Yes,’ she answered truthfully. It was all she had.
Slowly, he about-turned in the bed, until he was all there. Then he got up, that gorgeous naked body she’d enjoyed on display until he wrapped himself back up in his robe.
‘I said too much,’ she told him, regretfully, as he stepped closer.
‘Yeah?’
She nodded. ‘For now.’
He nodded, putting his arms around her and hugging her close. ‘OK.’
‘But I want you to know… it’s the most I’ve said to anyone. Ever.’
‘Me too,’ he admitted with a sigh. ‘But…’
‘You will tell me more too?’ she asked, letting him go to look at him again.
He nodded. ‘Yeah. When the time is right.’
‘That old cliché? There’s never a right time.’ She smiled, holding his hands.
‘Maybe we can make one,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ she answered.
She just looked at him. She didn’t know what this was, or what it could or couldn’t be, but did that matter in the New York now?
‘I’ll see you for your next fitting,’ Luca told her.
‘Yes, you will,’ she replied. ‘And we won’t make this awkward. Please don’t shake my hand.’
‘I’m not going to shake your hand, Gabriella.’ And with that said, he leaned in and took her mouth with his, giving her another gloriously deep kiss she didn’t really want to break away from.
‘Go,’ he said, ending the kiss with a reluctance she felt.
‘OK,’ she replied. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Gabriella.’
She took one last lingering look at him and then, after picking her coat up from the floor where she had dropped it hours ago, she left the apartment.