Page 10 of Grape Juice
I giggle, endeared by his ability to pivot a full-on heist into a rom-com narrative.
“And are you in love,bella? How many times are you falling in love?” Pietro rests his head on my shoulder affectionately, batting his eyelashes.
“Don’t bother asking, she’sjaded.” Henri’s voice cuts in, precise and direct, from across the table. He’s sitting diagonal from me, beside Julian, just far enough to be out of earshot—or at least it had seemed that way. I relish the sound ofjadedas he speaks it. My word in his mouth.
“What’sjaded?” Julian asks.
“Henri, mind your business!” Pietro interrupts. “You get to pick in the vines with Alice all day, now it’s my turn. Alice, you tell us.”
I shrug my shoulders, beaming. However choppy and misdirected the attention, it feels good to be sought after. There is a warmth to it, a camaraderie. “When you’re jaded, you’re cold, or removed, or unimpressed. It’s a term I imagine will never apply to you.” I knock Pietro’s shoulder with mine. “But me, well, I don’t fall in love very easily. Ihavebeen in love, but it’s been a long time.”
The three of them all look at me expectantly, awaiting some longer-form explanation. I try to give them one. “It’snot that I’m, like,allergicto being in love—or morally opposed to dating,” I justify, registering their disappointment. “It just doesn’t happen easily for me. I don’t have whatever Italian gene it is that predisposes you to romance.”
“She’s lying to us,” Julian says decisively, making eye contact with Pietro. “She’s playing hard to get.”
“Si, ragazzo, I think so too.” Pietro nods emphatically. “I think I am very good to fall in love with, though. I’m sure I can help you with your boy problem.”
“Alice, come with me to bring out the dessert,” Henri interrupts, standing up from the table abruptly. I look down at my plate—it’s three-quarters full. I’d only just begun to make a dent in my meal. No one else has made much progress with the ratatouille yet either.
“He’s stealing her from us again.Que cazzo!” Pietro cries out in a theatrical display.
I know I don’t need to indulge Henri, but still, I step away from my chair and toward his outstretched arm. He places a hand on the small of my back and urges me toward the kitchen. “Is someone jealous?” I taunt once we’re out of earshot.
“Jealous? Of what?L’Italienflirting with you? No, no.”
“I think youare.”
“Pas du tout, not at all. I just thought you might want to take a break from Monsieur Techno. And lucky for you, I am very chivalrous.”
“Ah, OK, then. Lucky me.” Normally, I might bristle at this show of low-grade possessiveness, but the truth is, I believe it myself: Lucky me, lucky me, lucky me.
We pause outside the kitchen door and turn to face each other. The perimeter of his chin is outlined neatly by the glow of the yellowed lamp that hangs at the entryway, its light only powerful enough to dilute the darkness, not cut through it. Though we’ve stopped moving, the hand he’d placed on my lower back is still there. I can’t tell if I feel his pulse in his fingers, where they’re nestled between the ridges of my spine, or if it’s my own blood pumping.Nice to be rescued, I think to myself.Even if from nothing.
“So... what have I missed?” he asks gingerly.
“In the ten minutes we’ve been apart?”
“Come on, it’s been longer thanthat.”
“So youdidmiss me.”
“Did not. Did you miss me?”
“No.”
“Good.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, and his other arm is still firmly in place, keeping me stationary. He is close enough that I can feel the momentum of his exhales—the way the molecules move in waves between us. His eyes trail down to my mouth, and I wait, stock still, to see if he will kiss me.
I’m not used to this version of wondering—the open-ended taunt of flirtation without some physical consummation. Had we been loitering outside of some sweaty dive bar in New York, tipsy and warm in the matte blue-black of summer evening, we’d already be hailing a cab back to one of our apartments. No one I know in the real world—no full-blown adult—entertains this kind of sultry suspense without action.
“Good,” I whisper back.
I have no sense of how long we stand like that in silence, in that precursor to kissing. Only that it is far longer than is standard for two people who have spoken ceaselessly since meeting.
“There you are!”
We both look up, and I feel my breath catch in my throat. Henri drops his hand, and I cross my arms over my chest, as if the gesture might make our tableau less incriminating.And is it?I ask myself.Incriminating?
Antoine is marching toward us with determination, something almost feral in his posture. When he gets close enough, he eyes Henri with a certain sharpness before continuing into the house.
