Page 21 of The Moon & His Tides
“I thought Brits were reserved,” I muttered as I tromped off after her.
The path was too narrow for my shoulders, the branches clutching at me like greedy lovers. I cursed as one scratched the vintage leather jacket I’d found in Camden Market for fifty pounds.
“Cazzo!Where the hell are we going?” I demanded, but I didn’t need Chaucer to answer because I’d finally stumbled into the small clearing at the back right of the property.
Nestled like a fairy tale in some magical forest sat a white-shingled cottage with a deep green gabled roof and ivy climbing across its face. The windows were mullioned and steepled like something from one of the many Italian churches from my childhood. Those flagstones that led from the main house to the pool were almost haphazardly placed in a skipping pattern that led to the red-painted door.
It was fucking beautiful.
“Your house,” Chaucer offered unnecessarily, but she wasn’t looking at me so she couldn’t see how the small structure had affected me. “Albert thought it was just fine, so I won’t hear anything about how cramped or old-fashioned it is, you hear me? The chauffeur we had before old Albert was some young fop who thought he was too good…” She turned to face me and witnessed my wide eyes. “You like it?”
I swallowed the surge of emotion in my throat. It wasn’t what I would have picked for myself if I had a million pounds, no, but then, I’d never been much of an unrealistic dreamer. Growing up in Napoli’s slums meant I knew too much about the hard knocks of life to let my mind soar in the clouds.
But it wasn’t about what the house looked like.
It was the fact that I’d never had space to myself, and I was an eighteen-year-old man.
Cosima and I had shared a bedroom for most of our youth, and then I’d moved to London into an apartment with four other blokes.
This was paradise.
Better than a dream, just like Savannah.
“Yeah,” I said, my voice heavy with emotion. “Yeah, I like it just fine.”
Chaucer squinted at me as though she couldn’t quite understand me, and it irritated her. “Well, come on, then. You can put your bag down, and I’ll help you with the rest.”
“This is it.”
Her red brow carved lines into her forehead. “One bag?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I like to travel light.”
She peered at me again, and I wondered if she’d missed her calling as a schoolmarm. Done with her scrutiny, I moved past her toward the house. A small gnome with a green hat and rosy cheeks peeked out from behind a copse of lavender.
I couldn’t believe such a place existed, let alone in Adam and Savannah’s backyard.
The unlocked door swung open soundlessly to reveal an open-concept interior consisting of a farmhouse kitchen, a tiny living room with a round, stone fireplace, and a desk set up toward the back wall of windows I could already picture myself writing at.
“Bellissima,” I declared softly.
“The bedroom and bath are upstairs.”
I ignored her as I moved into the house. A framed photo of a family was left on the mantel of an older gentleman I thought must have been Albert. It seemed like something he would have taken, and I wondered about the circumstances of his leaving.
But not enough to change anything.
Mama used to say to us all “take luck when it comes and know it is a rare gift. If you look too long at where it came from, it might pass you by.”
I was old enough to wonder how my mother had gained such wisdom and was seasoned enough to know what it meant. If you looked a gift horse in the mouth, you were bound to find motivations you didn’t like.
So I plucked the frame from the mantel and handed it over to Chaucer. “Make sure that finds its way back to Albert.”
She gave me another look, but I turned my back on her before she could examine me too hard. The stairs creaked under my feet, and the narrow walls were almost claustrophobic around my big body. However, I was used to being oversized in Europe, and it didn’t bother me. The ceiling upstairs was only seven and a half feet at best, even shorter where the gabled roof cut into the room, but I loved it instantly.
It was all done in heavy wood furniture with a quilt that had to have been handmade over the big bed. The bathroom was tiny, the shower so narrow I wondered how I would make it work, but I didn’t care.
It was allmine.
