Page 45 of The Road to You
The owner greets Michele like an old friend. They exchange a few fast words in Italian before he turns to me with a proud smile and says, “Foril campione, I give the best seat. No one will bother you here.”
I glance at Michele, who is smiling almost shyly. I don’t know how he referred to him, but I’ve learned that they call him different variations ofthe greatest soccer playerorthe champion. And behind that cool facade, I can see the embarrassment creeping up to tinge his cheeks slightly.
The table is so small that our knees brush beneath it, and when we sit, we naturally lean closer. There’s no space between us, not really. Just heat. And something unspoken that grows more impossible to ignore with every breath.
The candle between us flickers, illuminating his curls, his lashes, his perfect full lips. Those lips, the ones that drive me insane, just remembering our kiss. The golden glow softens him in a way that almost hurts to look at. He’s more relaxed now, the tension from earlier at the beach melting away in the warmth of the evening, the wine, the quiet. His leg doesn’t tremble here. Or maybe I just don’t see it in the dim light. Either way, I don’t ask.
We order seafood, fresh pasta, and lemon risotto for me, with a bottle of local white wine. Our conversation starts off light, teasing, and flirtatious. Our hands brush again and again, and neither of us pulls away.
The air between us is charged, like something could spark at any second, completely forgetting the other tables around us. He shifts his leg slightly, and the pressure of his knee presses into mine. He doesn’t move it. I don’t either.
“This view is ridiculous,” I murmur, looking at his profile while he gazes into the horizon.
“You’re not even looking at it,” he says, turning around and meeting my eyes.
His deep chocolate eyes lock on mine, and it’s impossible to look away.
My heart skips. “Caught.”
“You are,” he says softly with a low and teasing voice. “But I don’t mind.”
He’s flirting without even trying, and I don’t know how he does it so effortlessly. Like my presence across this table is something he’s waited for, something he’s savoring.
“I have a question,” he says after a sip of wine, his gaze still locked on mine. “What happens after the summer?”
The words catch me off guard. “You mean when I go back?”
He nods, fingers toying absently with the stem of his glass.
I exhale slowly, looking back at the water. “I don’t know. I don’t have any auditions lined up yet. LA feels far away right now. I guess I’ve been pretending it doesn’t exist.”
There’s a pause, heavy and thoughtful. I glance back at him and find his brow creased, like he’s trying to solve a puzzle without all the pieces.
“Sometimes,” he says slowly, “far away is exactly where it should stay.”
I smile at that, but there’s something tender inside me cracking open. Something that whispers I don’twantthis to end. The idea of leaving this little pocket of a world we’ve created with sun-drenched days, boat rides, and shared laughter, makes my chest ache.
He looks at me like he feels the same thing. I don’t say it, and neither does he, but it’s there. The heavy weight of reality looming over us like a storm cloud on the horizon you can’t outrun.
We eat slowly, more for the company than the food. Every moment feels suspended. Sacred. Our conversation changesdirection, wandering from favorite books to embarrassing childhood stories. He tells me how he used to sneak out of bed as a kid to watch late-night matches on TV and how he nearly got expelled from school for skipping too many days to attend a youth league tournament.
“And now look at you,” I say, “Italy’s golden boy.”
He snorts softly. “That’s what the papers say. I don’t know about golden.”
“You’re humble,” I reply, watching him. “It makes it worse.”
“Worse?” he raises an eyebrow, amused.
“Harder to resist.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. His eyes darken just a fraction, and I see the shift in him, subtle, but unmistakable. His hand finds mine across the table, fingers brushing and lingering against my skin. Every breath I take feels suddenly shallow, like my lungs forgot how to function.
My confession is merely the culmination of the turmoil within my chest that has begged for release for days. Because this tension between us, even if we don’t speak of it, is impossible to ignore.
He leans in, his voice is husky and quiet. “You’re not so easy to resist yourself, you know.”
I feel it like a ripple down my spine. The air between us crackles.This is the moment.He’s going to kiss me.And I don’t mind it at all because I’ve been craving his lips on mine since that kiss in Rome, the one that made me forget every other kiss in my life.
