Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100605 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
She looked over at me. “You have a way of knowing exactly what I need, like holding me tight when I cry or letting me talk your ear off. If you tell most people your problems, they want to give you advice. But you let me get it out, and you really listen.”
I smiled. “Do you remember when I told you that your grandmother always made me dinner on my birthday and gifted me with her wisdom?”
“Yeah?”
“The advice she gave me on my last birthday was, Smart men know that sometimes da best words to give an upset woman are no words at all.” Thinking back to that night under the loggia, I smiled. “I believe that sentence was followed with Why can’t men just shut da fuck up and listen once in a while?”
“She really was wise.” Allegra rested her head against my chest. “Thank you, Matteo. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d come here alone today.”
“No problem, bellissima. I’m here as long as you need me.”
***
“I should move here,” Allegra said.
She and I were sitting on the balcony at my cousin’s apartment later that night, watching the sunset. I knew it was the alcohol talking. This was her third glass of wine since we’d gotten home, and she’d had a very stiff martini at the restaurant with lunch. Still, I went along for the ride, feeling like she had more emotions to let out. “You think you’d be happy living in Italy?”
“I didn’t even know,” she said, swirling her wine around and staring at it, “until I got here that I wasn’t happy. I thought my work made me happy, but I think maybe it just kept me occupied so I didn’t have time to realize I was miserable.” She went quiet for a while, staring out at the sea. Eventually she lifted her eyes to me. “Are you happy, Matteo?”
I leaned back in my chair and filled my lungs with fresh air, buying some time. “Most days,” I said. “I have work that I enjoy, people who count on me, friends I should probably make more time for but who I know would be there if I needed them, a family that shows up, and my health.”
“God…” Allegra laughed, but there was no joy in it. “I don’t have any of that except my health—and Cassie. She’s a good friend even if our relationship started with her having to be nice to me because I was her boss.”
“It’s not the quantity of things that makes you happy in life. It’s the quality. And there’s happiness in little things, too—good coffee in da morning, making your grandmother’s ricotta-and-spinach pie, Lupo howling when I get home, having a hundred and six wool caps for when it gets cold out.”
Allegra smiled sadly. “I didn’t have time for the little things back in New York. I was too busy trying to climb to the top because that’s where I thought I was supposed to be.”
“You seem to have found small things here, yes? I’ve seen you sitting on your grandmother’s swing at night. I didn’t break out the binoculars, but you looked pretty happy from a distance.”
She nodded. “I do feel happier here in Italy. At least more than I have been in a long time—minus the surprise sister who’s put a damper on things.”
I winked. “Maybe it has something to do with the company you’ve been keeping.”
She smiled—a real smile, the first I’d seen since before her appointment today, and I liked being the one to put it on her face. “I think it might.”
Allegra finished her wine and asked if there was any more.
“You sure you want another? There’s a fine line between feeling good and your head hanging over the porcelain.”
She gave a soft, tired laugh. “When I mentioned my surprise sister just now, I realized for the first time…I kind of liked her. She’s smart and direct and didn’t sugarcoat things. But she also came and sat next to me, and there was this…warmth about her. Realizing that stirs up a lot inside me. Turmoil, mostly. So for tonight, I don’t want to think about any of it.”
I nodded and took her glass inside for a refill.
Still, I knew drinking had a tipping point, and halfway through the glass I’d poured, Allegra wound up on the drunk side of the seesaw.
“We should go—” She hiccuped. “—skinny dipping.”
While swimming in the ocean naked with her sounded like the best idea I’d heard in a long damn time, I wanted to be the kind of man she could trust. I wasn’t going to let her strip down in her current state. “Maybe another night.”
She pouted, and my eyes betrayed my thoughts, slipping down to study the soft bow of her lips. The urge to close the distance was strong, but not this way. When I kissed her, I wanted her sober and needy. I wanted her to remember every moment so she could yearn for it to happen again.