A Place in the Sun(37)

She hummed. “Shame you didn’t get on with Matteo. I really thought you’d appreciate his tattoos.”

I grinned. “I did. Who doesn’t love a man with tattoos?”

“Gianluca doesn’t have any.”

“How would you know? He might be hiding a little heart, inked right on his bum.”

She laughed and I stood, reaching for her cup so I could refill them again. I’d assumed they’d gone overboard with the drinks, but we made clean work of the cooler, sipping on wine and beer like it was water. The boys went out for another drink run, and I turned over in my chair, laying out on my stomach as exhaustion settled into my bones.

I’d nearly nodded off by the time the boys returned, proud of themselves for gathering up supplies for a beach picnic. We pushed all the chairs together underneath the umbrellas and tucked into caprese salad, pizza slices, and even more wine. It was all magic: our day at the beach with the sun and the wine and the pizza so full of flavor it ruined all other pizza for me from that day on.

I stood and stretched, prepared to slip back into the water to work off my lunch, but then Paolo brought out a soccer ball from his bag and we started to kick it around on the sand, trying our best to create a little game of four on four. My sister-in-law was ace at soccer, and had played professionally most of her adult life. She’d taught me a few things, enough that I could just barely keep up with Massimo and Gianluca.

“Brilliant, Georgie!” Gianluca complimented when I managed to slip a ball past Paolo into our makeshift goals.

I accepted his high-five and smiled, proud of myself.

“You only managed that goal because you’re wearing a bikini!” Paolo moaned. “It’s not fair really. All the men are distracted.”

Katerina laughed. “Whatever! You guys have your shirts off and you don’t see us losing our minds over it.”

Speak for yourself, Katerina.

“Gianluca, would you mind helping me?” Chiara asked, tugging on his arm to get him to show her how to kick the ball properly. It was a clever ploy to get his attention, pretending to be crap in soccer, but the more she kicked it around, the more I realized she wasn’t putting on an act at all. Bit clumsy, that one.

I wanted to ask Gianluca to come swim again, but he had agreed to help her, walking off from the group so they could kick it back and forth between one another. My stomach twisted with jealousy and when she grabbed his arm and tossed her head back to laugh, I immediately regretted asking her along. I forced myself to turn away and head back into the water, but it was impossible to miss her chasing after him. From then on, Chiara hung on his every word. In the morning, she’d been paying attention to Paolo, but I suppose she’d seen an opening for Gianluca and jumped on it.

I was in a sour mood after that, and forced myself to start to collect the trash from our late lunch as a way to distract myself. Gianluca came over to help me. Chiara followed.

“Oh, Georgie, you should go out and swim while you can. I can help clean up,” Chiara said, nearly ripping the pizza box out of my hands.

I wasn’t going to fight over who was going to clean up stale pepperonis, so I stepped back and let them have their moment together.

After that, they were nearly inseparable. When Gianluca swam out into the sea, Chiara followed all the way to the buoys. They bobbed along together out in the distance, swimming in place, probably getting on like two peas in a pod. I hoped a massive sea turtle would swim up and eat her whole.

“You okay?” Katerina asked as I took a long swig of wine directly from the bottle.

“Perfetto!” I replied with an edgy tone. “Let’s go get some gelato.”

I needed some time away from the group and Katerina was never one to turn down dessert in the middle of the day (i.e. my favorite kind of person).

Katerina pointed back to the sea as we walked away from the group. “Italians have a saying for times like this: c’e maretta.”

“And what does it mean?”

“Choppy sea. It’s used when there is obvious tension between two people, and a storm could come at any time,” she intoned with a devious smile.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the sea looks quite calm today.”

“So you don’t want to talk about it then?”

“About what?”

“The fact that Chiara seems to be Gianluca’s shadow.”

“I’d rather swallow my tongue.”

She laughed. “Good, because that’s boring and we have much better things to talk about.”

“Like what?”

“Like whether or not we can find wine-flavored gelato.”



…



By the time we made it back to the beach, I was as drunk as a clam. Or was it happy as a clam? Let’s just say I was an inebriated mollusk having a good time. Katerina and I never found wine-flavored gelato, but we found more wine and the best chocolate gelato I’d ever had. I ordered three scoops in a waffle cone and lapped it up as quickly as I could, but it was no use. I’d ordered too much and most of it was melting down the sides. Katerina refused to help me eat it, instead standing a few feet away, pretending she didn’t know me.

After I’d only managed to eat a quarter of it, I tossed it in a roadside bin and tried to clean my hands. It was really no use. Katerina wrapped her arm around mine and tugged me back toward the beach. I protested, calling for another bottle of wine, though I couldn’t even remember how many glasses I’d had by that point.