“Nervous?” Gianluca asked, glancing back at me over his shoulder.
For a moment, I just looked at him standing there with the sun shining overhead and the turquoise water at his back. He had beautiful tan skin. Broad, muscular shoulders. Heavy lashes. Thick brown hair and a devilish smirk. He was the most romantic-looking man I’d ever seen, and at times it hurt to look at him. In another world, he would have been an arrogant asshole. No man is that good looking without taking advantage of it, but Gianluca wasn’t like that. He had a heart of gold, a gentle soul, and I knew that once he loved, he loved forever.
He reached his hand back for me. “Come on, we’ll go in together.”
…
Later that night, alone in the bed and breakfast, I finally worked up the courage to take a test.
THE DAY AFTER we swam in Manarola, I finished gathering Allie’s things from my house. I shipped a good bit of her stuff to her parents back in London, passed on a few lightly worn dresses to Katerina so she could resell them in her shop, and kept a few photos and trinkets in a small shoebox, sealed with tape, for myself. My house felt empty. My closet was half-bare, my medicine cabinet had been depleted of her old prescriptions, and my walls were blank canvases once again. I’d taken down every hint of her and rather than the guilt I’d expected, I felt relief. After all this time, it felt good, right.
I’d build a new life with Georgie in that villa. She’d fill the place with color and laughter and life. And while I feared loving someone else, knowing I could lose them just as easily, it wasn’t strong enough to override the new sense of optimism Georgie had infected me with.
Georgie was youthful and vivacious. She spoke her mind and rarely let anyone else get a word in when she really got going. She was bold and beautiful, adventurous and so full of life, she made everyone around her feel it as well.
I was in love with her.
I knew it now, but the trouble came in the fact that it might have been too late.
In the days since my birthday, she’d been distant and aloof, not quite cold, but guarded. Her smiles came slower, more forced. Her thoughts were somewhere else, and though I tried to pull her out of her quiet moods, I knew it wouldn’t work. Georgie was too stubborn for it. Even swimming in the grotto, she’d tried her hardest to keep her distance.
The next day, I went into Il Mare early and spent the day working up on the third floor, but Georgie was M.I.A. I saw Taylor when he arrived back home in the evening.
“Have you seen Georgie around?” I asked.
“Oh, we had breakfast this morning and then she was heading to swim, I think. Did she not tell you?”
I swallowed down my anger that Taylor seemed to know more about the woman I loved than I did.
“No.” I shook my head. “She didn’t tell me.”
I waited for her. I had a plan. The moment I saw her, I would lay down my heart for her, plead with her to stay in Vernazza and share her life with me. I wanted to make up for lost time, to explain to her that my heart wasn’t split in half anymore, that she owned it all.
When darkness fell and I still hadn’t heard her come in, I started to worry.
Why hadn’t she come home?
Why was she trying to avoid me?
I packed up my tools and decided to head up to the villa in case she might have been waiting for me there, though I knew it was a stretch.
During the walk home, I overanalyzed our last few encounters. What if Georgie had finally realized I wasn’t worth the trouble after all? I’d been assuming she’d jump into my arms when I finally told her about moving on from Allie, but what if it was too little, too late? My imagination ran wild with dark thoughts of what my life would turn into if Georgie left. Everything would go back to the way it was before. I’d have Massimo and Katerina, sure, but there was little else.
I grabbed a beer out of the fridge and stood outside, watching the waves crash against the breaker.
In truth, it’d taken me five years to fall in love again. I didn’t let people in easily, and now the woman I wanted more than anything was pushing me away. For good reason, I reminded myself. In recent weeks, I’d taken my sweet time unraveling my feelings, keeping her at arm’s length, trying to work out my baggage before unloading it in her lap.
After that thought, I went back inside for a second beer, then thought better of it and pulled down a dusty bottle of whiskey. I’d stayed away from alcohol after Allie’s death, too scared I would spiral out of control. Now, I needed it. I relished the burn, the physical symptoms that accompanied heartache.
A few shots later, when the edges of my world started to blur, I finally noticed a light on in Georgie’s room at Il Mare. She was home, safe, and though I longed to see her, my drunken state promised disaster if I ran down and tried to explain myself now.
No, I stayed up there, fixed on the hazy yellow glow from her window, preparing for the next morning. There was no way in hell I would just let Georgie walk away from us without showing her that I was ready to move on. At the crack of dawn, I’d march down to Il Mare and make the promises she’d been so desperate to hear from me. I could prove to her that I was ready to move on.
I was ready for strings.
GIANLUCA LEFT AND I couldn’t sit still. I’d been hiding in my room at Il Mare like a coward all evening, even keeping the light off so he wouldn’t know I was there. Pathetic, I know, but now my chocolate reserves were running low and Mopsie was clawing at the door, angry with me for keeping him away from his coveted plush mouse. We all have needs, Mopsie. Mine centered around avoiding Gianluca at all costs.