Page 26 of Problematic Summer Romance

“Messy? Problematic?”

“Fucked up, I was gonna say.”

“Does itfeelfucked up to you? Because to me, it doesn’t. It just feels…” I swallow. Allow myself to continue. “I missed you, Conor.”

Even in the dim lights, I see it—the flash in his eyes, something that could be longing, or regret, or hunger. His lips part briefly, instinctively, and for a fraction of a moment I’m sure he’s going to admit that he missed me, too. He’s going to tell the truth,and I’ll at least havethat. I’m so certain, I shiver, even surrounded by the hot night and the balmy breeze.

“Maya,” he starts.

Say it back,I will him.Come on, Conor. Say it back.

Abruptly, he shakes his head. “You have goose bumps.” Dark eyes trail across my arm. “Let me go get you a jacket—”

But he doesn’t. He stands, clearly wanting to put some space between us, but stops when someone else simultaneously rises back at the table.

It’s Diego. Who lifts a finger, as if to propose a toast. Instead of speaking, however, he turns around, and with a splattering, ear-grating sound, vomits the contents of his stomach onto the villa’s manicured lawn.

“The fuck?” Conor mutters.

In the next thirty minutes, the other members of the wedding party follow suit.

Chapter 10

“Gliel’avevo detto,” Lucrezia moans for the third time, rubbing her hands together nervously, reminding me of the flies feasting on the half-eaten dessert plates in the garden. According to the translation app I’ve been stealthily using, it meansI told him so.

Dr. Cacciari, a dour, lanky man who could successfully serve as an international spokesperson for facial hair, pats her repeatedly on the back. His dark beard extends upward into a mustache and down to the breastbone, to mingle with a tuft of equally black chest hairs that peek from the neck of his button-down. It’s bushy, veined with gray, and fashionably groomed; I expect a hummingbird will be flying out of it any second.

“Nulla di cui preoccuparsi,” he says. He drove up to the villa from one of the towns surrounding Taormina, and didn’t finish his rounds until close to midnight. In the meantime, someone musthave blown out the lanterns in the garden, probably to hide the evidence of our idiocy. “Uno o due giorni, al massimo.”

Do not darken,my phone translates in real time.Spend one or two days at Massimo’s.

I click out of my useless app with an eye roll. In truth, Dr. Cacciari speaks English as well as I do, but stopped once he realized that if he talked with only Conor and Lucrezia, he could stick to Italian. I don’t mind being excluded, especially after overhearing the phrase “Staphylococcus aureus.”

It is, I believe, Latin for:These fucking morons.

“So,” Minami asks once he’s gone, “what are the bullet points, Hark?” The three of us, official plague survivors, have retreated onto the living room couch. Everyone else is making out with a ceramic toilet.

“Axel and Paul went to some kind of market. Axel, in his infinite wisdom, saw a bottle of something that looked like fresh arancello—that’s limoncello, but made with orange rinds—and bought it.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Pasteur is rolling in his grave.

“Was the seller a trickster god?” I ask. “Did he throw in a pouch of magic beans?”

“One can only assume. Axel then proceeded to pour shots while we were waiting forsomeoneto join us for dinner.”

“Hey,” I say mildly. “So now the puke-a-thon is my fault?”

“I’ve been referring to it as vomit-fest in my head, but yeah.” His lips twitch. “Everything is your fault, Trouble.”

My heart stops. Restarts. “You should know better than to accept food or drink items from some dude who probably glued his balls to his thighs well into his twenties.”

“She’s got a point,” Minami mutters. “Axel is an idiot, but everyone else should have known better.”

“How come you’re okay?” I ask her, curious.

“Didn’t feel like having some weird orange concoction. What’syourexcuse, Hark?”

He shrugs. “It’s food poisoning, that’s all. They all need fluids and rest, and should be fine by tomorrow night.”

“At which point they’ll be able to join us in the collective lighting of Axel’s funeral pyre?” I ask.

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