Page 73 of Ciao, Amore

This time, he was the one who tried escaping the rising emotion of the moment by striding into the bedroom. She followed. He went to his dresser and yanked open the drawer. Seeing it was emptied, he shut it and stood there with his eyes closed, breathing deeply as if to calm himself.

Her body tightened at his display of hurt and frustration, layer upon layer of old protective bubble wrap winding around her again.

“I didn’t come here looking for this, for any of this. This wasn’t what I had planned. I came here to figure my shit out.”

Scorn flared in Nico’s face as he watched her pace from her packed bags to the edge of the bed.

“Oh, right. Your plans,” he said, snapping his fingers as if a memory had been jogged. “Your plan to roam the earth alone because poor you couldn’t find anyone to love you.” She shot him a look. “When I met you, I spent a lot of time wondering what your real problem was, why someone like you hadn’t found someone already.”

“Likewise.”

He laughed. “Well, in your case, riddle fucking solved. It’s because youwantto be alone. This isn’t about me and how I care too much about what my family thinks. We were fine when it was all about having fun. But every time I offer you a real chance for what you said you wanted, you throw up a stop sign. You’re not interested in feeling a single real emotion. I’m pretty sure when I leave on that plane tomorrow, the only thing you’ll miss about me is how hard I can make you come.”

That shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did.

“Okay,” she said, her breath rushing out. “We have arrived at the insult portion of our conversation. I’m not doing that, Nico. Not with you.”

“You don’t think you insulted me? Telling me how I feel, what I want. Telling me you kinda sorta care about me enough to fuck around but not enough to make a real commitment. How am I supposed to respond to that?” he asked, his voice fast and sharp.

“That is not what I said. I said I loved you. And if your feelings for me were genuine you’d say, ‘Okay, Dani, take all the time you need.’ Nico, that’s all I’m asking you for. You wanted me to beg you, well I’m begging now, for this. Please give me time so I know this is real.”

Her voice was ragged with desperation for him to understand. In that moment, she needed him to hold her, comfort her. Tell her they would be okay. But she could see it in him before he responded that there wouldn’t be any comfort forthcoming. She’d wounded him by being too honest.

“Okay, Dani, take all the time you need.”

When his voice broke, so did her heart. They stared at each other, chests struggling to contain these powerful, awful feelings.

“I’ll be waiting for you in Milan. Will you come back to me?” she asked softly.

Nico swallowed audibly, and his Adam’s apple rippled along the track of his throat like a stone. “If that’s what you want.”

“Of course, that’s what I want. If you’ll still want me.”

“I’ll always want you, Dani.”

The look he gave her, of pure anguish, rocked her to her core. That look spoke so much louder than anything he could say or shout at her. They each fell into their own silent surrender. Dani watched the emotions play across his face as the anger ebbed into despair and, finally, resignation. Then came the lopsided, sardonic grin, that trademark Nico expression.

“Well, after this, all I can say is, Tino really fucked this one up after all. He should’ve picked an easy date for me. Instead, I get this.”

The fact that he was serious beneath the caustic joke wasn’t lost on her. Dani’s laugh ended with a sob. Like him, she pivoted, struggled to find the humor, tried to be the woman who let everything roll off her back.

“Yeah, I think Angelo might have done a better job.” Tears thickened her throat, and her whole chest was full of them. “Do you…do you want the ring back for now?”

When Dani took the beautiful ring off her finger and held it up, he glanced at it and flinched.

“Nah. You keep that. I got it out of Isa’s jewelry box, so it’s really not worth what you think.”

Another joke. Another stone, weighing her down, dragging her to the bottom of the bay.

The heaviness of his shoulders, the way the fight seemed to drain out of him before her eyes, all made the panicked struggle to stay afloat on that sea wilder. The prospect of this moment being the end of everything, their talks, their sharing, suddenly loomed large and terrifying.

“So, after tomorrow….” Dani stared at him, trying to think of something to say that would salvage what they had before it was too late. “We’ll video call every day, like we did before. Every day until you come back. I’ll miss you like crazy. Will you miss me?”

He paused, wiping his face again. “Of course, I will,” he said gruffly.

“And when you come back, I’ll be here, waiting for you. You know I love you, Nico, don’t you?”

“Yes.” His voice went deep and cracked like glass.

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