20
I WAS FAIRLY certain that Hunt had meant to leave and jet off to another place the next day, but he hadn’t counted on spending the whole first day in bed. I’d thought once that Hunt was like gravity, but the real gravity was between us. Neither Hunt nor I had anticipated how much that pull would take over.
It was irrational, but I kept feeling like we’d lose whatever this was if we left our little hotel in Florence. Sometimes, I felt like we’d lose it if we even left the bed. It was an awful thing to be terrified of waking up, of standing, of going outside.
It was stupid, and when I wasn’t petrified, I was berating myself for it.
I was not this girl. I was not the girl who let her whole world revolve around a man. But then again, I’d never really let my world revolve around anything else but me. Now that I had stepped out of the center, and put someone else there, it was hard to go back.
So, he didn’t admit it, but I think he changed his plan. Instead of heading to another city, we stayed in Florence. Sometimes we ventured outside the city, like the day we took a bike tour of Tuscany. We spent an entire day, exhausted and sweaty, exploring hill towns that weren’t the typical tourist destinations. In most of the towns, we were the only tourists to be found. Hardly anyone spoke English, but they were so excited to have us.
In one village, we toured an art studio where the artist worked with alabaster, crafting everything from statues to lamps to chess sets. I bought a pale alabaster heart pendant, and looped it onto the necklace I was already wearing.
Outside one walled city, we found the most stunning ruins of a Roman theater. We couldn’t get very close, but we found a great view of it from the wall of the city, and I told Hunt everything I knew about Roman theaters. I told him the Roman names for all the parts of the structure like scaena frons and the cavea and vomitorium. I’m sure he didn’t care, let alone remember what I said a few minutes later, but he listened and smiled.
We biked along the winding roads, sometimes going hours without seeing a car. We stopped and had a picnic lunch in the grass. I stared up at the sky, finding shapes in the clouds while Hunt drew in his sketchbook. Me, I think.
When we saw a town in the distance, we went there, having no idea what it was called or where we were heading. I had the most delicious homemade pasta in someone’s actual home. We’d been looking for a restaurant, and were instead invited inside by Giovanni and his wife.
And even though the day was amazing, and we could have stayed in any of those towns or kept exploring forever, we couldn’t bring ourselves to move on. We rented our bikes for a second day and rode off in a different direction, meeting new people and exploring new places, but both days we were back in Florence by nightfall. Back in our sanctuary of silence where we didn’t have to question or label or analyze anything between us.
It was perfect.
Except for the fact that I was wound so tight from being close to him, from touching him that at times it became difficult to sleep at all.
He fell asleep faster and faster each night, and I stayed up longer and longer, my body aching from neglect. On the fifth night of our weeklong adventure, I couldn’t take it anymore. While he slept, strong and silent next to me, I let a hand trail down my stomach, and into the pajama shorts I’d worn to sleep that night. I was already slick and aching, and just the first touch had me pointing my toes and closing my eyes.
I sucked in a breath and bit down on my lip to stay silent, but my body was buzzing with pent-up energy. It was the same buzz I felt coming off stage, high from the lights and the applause and the attention. Only this all came from him. From being near him and being unable to have him.
I circled my fingers, my back arching with pleasure.
I was so caught up and focused on my own touch that I didn’t realize Hunt was awake until he gripped my wrist, pulling my hand up and pressing it against the pillow above my head.
My eyes snapped open, and my jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to say. But I knew I was turned on even more by the sight of him leaning over me, and the feel of him pinning my wrist. I whimpered, and his eyes were so dark, they shone black.
Without saying a word, he touched the flat of my stomach, and then replaced my hand with his. The calloused pad of his middle finger pressed against me, and a galaxy sprung up behind my closed eyes as I bucked up into him. He pressed again, circling this time, and I didn’t have to be quiet now. I cried out and with my free hand, I gripped the wrist of the hand that shackled mine above my head.
He leaned over me, his head finding the hollow where my neck sloped into my shoulder. He inhaled deeply, the tip of his nose trailing a line up my neck. His finger swirled around my most sensitive part again, and I was so close already.
My fingernails dug into his wrist, and something like a growl tore from his mouth. He pressed his finger down, hard, and that was all it took to send me over the edge. I came apart with a low cry. Nearly a week of built-up of frustration lit and burned in my blood, and the rush of pleasure started in my head, as bright and deafening as a fireworks show. It shot down my spine to my center, and then flooded out to every part of me.
I arched up into him because the only thing that was missing was his mouth on my mouth, his skin on my skin. But before I could even drag his head up to mine, he rolled away from me and off the bed. He stalked into the bathroom without a word. As I lay in bed, my bones gone soft, I heard the shower switch on.
We woke up on the sixth day of our adventure, and neither of us mentioned what occurred the night before. Hunt’s eyelids were heavy as though he didn’t sleep, and I didn’t know what to say to make him stop feeling guilty. I didn’t know why he should. And every time I let myself brainstorm, my heart seized up the same way it did whenever I had to get out of bed and leave our sanctuary behind.
We only had two days left in Hunt’s week.
Two days.
And even though our deadline was arbitrary, I didn’t think we’d make it past that deadline without talking about something. And I was afraid that something would bring this all to an end.
With my now-routine morning regret, I rolled out of Jackson’s arms. He stopped me with a touch to my elbow. I turned and was struck by how surreal it was to see sheets draped over his bare chest. Our few nights together felt like years, and yet I knew so little about him. It wasn’t unusual for me to share a bed with someone I didn’t know, but it was unusual for me to be bothered by it. Maybe it was because in addition to not knowing his mind, I’d not learned his body either. His hand tickled at my elbow again, and he said, “Sorry about the nightmares.”
He’d had several last night after the thing we apparently weren’t talking about. Instead of curling into me after they were over, he took to pacing the room or sketching at the window.
“It’s okay.”
I shifted to leave again, only to feel his hand wrap around mine. He played with my fingers for a few seconds, as if that was the only reason he stopped me. Then he asked, “Tell me about your life back in the states.”
Not a subject I particularly wanted to hash out this early in the morning, but he obviously wanted to talk. Maybe talking about this would help him talk about the rest.
“Like what? It’s nothing that interesting.”
“Tell me about your favorite Christmas growing up.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m serious. I’m trying to get the full picture of Kelsey Summers.”
It wasn’t a pretty picture, but if he wanted it …
“Fine,” I said. “My favorite Christmas has got to be by default the one before the first one I can remember.”
He looked down, squeezing my fingers between his own. “That’s really sad.”
“Yeah, well, my family is sad.”
“What made it so bad?”
I propelled myself back against the pillows, letting go of his hand.
“Can we talk about something else?”
He wanted to push. I could hear it in the silence, in his careful breaths, in the creak of the bed as he leaned forward for just a few seconds before rolling away.
“You go shower. I’ll figure out what we’re doing today.”
God, we were both so bad at this. There was no way it could work, not that I really even knew what “working” would entail.
Released from his questioning, I fled for the bathroom.
I took my time, enjoying the way the hot water loosened my sore muscles, but ever conscious of the other body just outside the bathroom with only a wall between us.
I decided we’d been still long enough. Neither of us was good with words. We were action people, which was why last night had worked. We didn’t talk. Maybe it was time for a little push. So when I got out of the shower, I ignored the pile of clothes in the bathroom and exited the room in my towel.
“I told you everything is fine.”
I said, “I forgot my—”
Then stopped because Hunt’s back was to me and he was on the phone.
He whipped around, and I lowered my voice, “I, um, I forgot something. Sorry.”
In a quiet voice, he said into the phone, “I have to go now. No. No. Thank you, but I have to go.”
He lowered the phone, but I could still hear the faint sound of someone talking on the other end before he hung up.
I picked up a pair of socks, the first thing I saw in my backpack, and said, “Who was that?”
“What?” He didn’t look at me. “Oh. Just the concierge, wondering if we’d decided when we were checking out yet.”
I stood there, a puddle collecting on the floor below me, in nothing but a towel holding a pair of pointless socks, and still he didn’t even glance my way.
I couldn’t tell whether I was more distressed by his lack of reaction or the tense set of his shoulders. A conversation with the concierge shouldn’t do that. And if he was only asking if we were staying, shouldn’t that have been a simpler, shorter call?
Maybe he was just tense about us, and the phone call had nothing to do with it.
I stayed staring for a few more seconds before fleeing to the bathroom. I had almost closed the door when I heard him ask, “What do you think about taking a train to the coast? Maybe the Italian Riviera?”
I poked my head back out of the bathroom, and he was sitting stiffly on the bed, his hands clenched into fists at his side.
It looked like we’d be saying goodbye to our Florence refuge after all. Perhaps our secrets were getting too big for this small room.
I said, “Okay. Sounds good.”
The words echoed off the tile walls around me, and I felt that hole in my chest opening up, and the fear creeping in.
The small village of Riomaggiore was set into a cliff side on the Italian Riviera, and I knew from the moment that I stepped off the train that I was going to love this place. The air smelled fresh and salty, and the wind curled up from the ocean, tossing my hair. At the edge of the train platform was a wall, and beyond that a turquoise blue sea.
I rushed to the edge, desperate to soak in the view. Craggy black rocks were decorated with white sea foam, and stood out against the vibrant blue waters. Waves crashed against the rock, and I swear I could feel the spray all the way up on the platform.
I squealed and threw my arms around Hunt’s neck.
“This is good?” he asked.
“Very good.”
This was worth leaving Florence.
Hunt had told me on the train where we were going. There were five villages collectively called Cinque Terre that sat along the coastline. They were part of some kind of protected wilderness area or park, so there was almost nothing modern about the villages, just the train in and out. We would spend today and tomorrow, our last two days, exploring and hiking from village to village.
If all five villages were as beautiful as this train platform, I was sold.
We left the station and headed to the city to find lunch and a place to stay. There was no lack of either. We stopped at a small restaurant, and I had the most delicious pesto in the history of the universe. I didn’t even particularly like pesto, but Cinque Terre made me a believer.
The waiter at the restaurant recommended a family down the road that rented out an apartment attached to their home. On the way, I marveled at the village. The homes were stacked up like building blocks and painted in vibrant colors. There were orange and yellow and pink buildings with blue and green and red shutters. Everywhere I looked was something worthy of capturing in a picture—from a fading turquoise door, whose stories you could almost detect through the splintering wood and peeling paint, to a small boy, skin tanned from the sun, with bare feet toughened by rough roads and the sweet cradle of a soft stray cat in his arms.
Hunt’s hand touched the small of my back, and I leaned into him instinctively. “This is wonderful,” I said. “I just … I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“So have I done it?” he asked.
“Done what?”
“Given you an adventure?”
I stopped, and looked at him. His face was tense, and I got the feeling he was asking about something more than if I was just having fun.
The sea and sky joined in a dark blue horizon over his shoulder, and I wanted to stop time. A picture could never be enough to capture this moment, and I was afraid if I didn’t imprint it upon my brain I would forget the breeze rustling the laundry hanging out of the shuddered windows, the shine of the sun off the water, and the deep gray of Hunt’s eyes. It would be a crime to forget those things. I wanted to stop time because that one-second pause wasn’t big enough to feel the things my body wanted to feel and think the things my mind wanted to think. So, I told him honestly, “Adventure doesn’t seem like a big enough word for what this has been.”
His smile put the sun to shame.
He draped his arm across my shoulder, and we went to see about a room.
Each of the villages was connected by both a train and a path. After settling into our cozy, albeit simple, private apartment, we set out to explore. We chose the path because there was no way that Hunt would let us get away with the train. Not that I would have even wanted to.
We followed the trail map from Riomaggiore to the beginning of the path that would lead us to Manarola. The path was named Via dell’Amore, the lover’s path. Carved out of the side of a cliff with a flat stone trail, the path made for a pretty easy trek between the first and second village. It wrapped around the cliff, giving us a beautiful view of Riomaggiore as we left, and the ocean as we moved forward.
The path led us to a stone alcove with window openings that allowed us to peer out at the water and rocks below. As we moved farther through the tunnel, I started to notice locks hung from the railing and ropes on the ceiling and every available surface. There were locks of every size and shape. Some were shiny and new, while others were rusted and aged, but there had to be thousands of them in all.
Following the locks led us to a chair that had been sculpted out of stone. The seat was big enough for two and the back had been carved to look like two people kissing. The chair was placed in a stone archway with railings behind it to keep the chair and people from tumbling into the ocean below. Not that you could see the railings anymore. They were covered in locks, overflowing. There were locks hooked onto other locks, framing the lover’s seat with the help of an ocean backdrop. The chair and much of the tunnel around us were covered in graffiti, but it didn’t matter. You could feel how special this place was. The horizon lined up almost perfectly with the lips of the lovers, as if the sea and sky and life converged to make this perfect representation of what it means to be with another person. The permanence of it.
I didn’t know how many couples had placed locks around this chair, nor did I know how many of them were still together. But it didn’t matter. When you love someone, really love someone, it’s a lasting mark on your soul. There’s a lock on your heart that you’ll carry with you always. You may lose the key or give it away, but the lock stays with you all the same.
A man approached us, and asked if we’d like to buy a lock. He had a box with all different kinds, and I started to say no, but Hunt said, “Why not?”
He handed the man some cash, and picked a lock out of his assortment. The lock he chose was plain, but sturdy.
“Where should we put it?” he asked.
I looked at the chair, but the way my heartbeat lurched made me look for another place, a place with less pressure. I took a few steps farther down the tunnel toward where it opened back up to the regular path. At the mouth of the tunnel, I could see locks hanging down near the ceiling.
I pointed and said, “There.”
Up close I could see that netting had been placed around one of the boulders on the side of the cliff, and locks had been clipped to that net. This was perfect. We were still leaving our mark, but without it meaning more than I was willing to say.
“I’ll lift you up,” Hunt said.
I took the lock from him, and he bent, wrapping his arms around my knees. He pulled me up, and I balanced myself with his shoulders. When he was standing upright, I put one hand up on the boulder and picked up a piece of the netting. I opened the lock, slipped it around a bit of the rope, and clicked it closed.
I smiled.
“All done.”
Hunt loosened his arms around my knees, and I slid down his body. And just like the lock, it felt like we had clicked into place.