One Italian Summer(61)

The waiter comes with a bottle of uncorked wine. Adam pours.

“So,” Adam says. “About last night.”

I think about his mouth on my neck. My naked body under his.

“Yes,” I say. “Right. I’m sorry if I just…”

Adam wears an amused expression. He’s flirting, now. There’s a part of me that wants to climb into his lap, right here. “If you just?”

“Attacked you?” I feel my cheeks flush pink.

“Trust me,” Adam says. “I welcomed the attack. I wanted last night.”

I feel his words lace through me. “Me too.”

I look at this man I barely know. Who has helped bring me back to life here. Whose passion and insight and intelligence I find incredibly sexy. And for a moment, I think about what it would be like to fold myself into the past and everyone who remains in it. To continue to have dinners with Carol and afternoons on the boat with Remo. To travel with Adam. To make my world here, to stay.

“Adam, listen,” I say.

He laughs, but it’s quiet, maybe even a little sad. “Uh-oh,” he says. “Nothing good ever comes after listen.”

“We’re not…”

How do you tell someone that you’re thirty years apart? How do you tell someone you’re not in the same time?

I start over. “Last night was really great, but there’s so much I need to figure out about my life right now. There’s so much I haven’t told you.”

“I know,” he says.

“I haven’t done that work before,” I say. “I let other people do it for me. And I want to now. I think it’s time. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

I pick up my water glass. I look at him. “What do you want?” I ask. “We’ve spent so much time talking about me, I’ve never asked. And I’d really like to know.”

Adam looks thoughtful. He doesn’t speak for a few moments. Long enough for me to take a drink and set my glass down again. “Maybe I don’t know, either. I travel so much. I love it, but it’s like I don’t know how to not be in motion. I think there are real things I want, too.”

“Like what?”

He looks out past me into the restaurant. “A home, maybe, if I found someone who made me want to stop moving. A garden.”

I think about my mom, dad, Eric. I think about nights in front of the television with CPK, weekends playing board games and eating Mike and Ikes out of glass bowls. Birthday parties in the backyard. The rose fence. Window decals for every holiday. Family.

“It’s nice,” I say. “It’s worth it.”

Adam nods. “Do you know what you’ll do?”

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “Not yet.”

“But you’re starting to know what you want.” It’s not a question.

I nod. “I think so.”

“I’m glad,” he says. “And I can’t believe we are here at the same time. Life is really a trip.”

Capri, Naples, the watermelon at breakfast. “It’s been a magical time,” I tell him.

We finish lunch and walk back up to the hotel.

“I’m going to go find Marco,” Adam says. “I need to be up front with him.”

“Hey,” I say. I touch his elbow lightly. “Hang on.”

“Mm-hm?”

“You don’t have to listen to me. I mean, I don’t know why you would, but don’t buy either hotel. Keep this a place you love. Don’t make it about work. Let it be pure and good, so you can bring someone you care about back here someday.”

Adam gives me a small smile. “That’s good advice.”

“Will you follow it?”

He shrugs. “I guess time will tell.”

He gives me a little wave, and then he’s gone. Nika comes through the office doors to reception.

“You found Adam?” she asks.

“Yes. Listen, Nika, I don’t know what’s going to happen with Adam and Marco and the hotel, but can you do me a favor?”

She nods.

“Do you invest? Does the hotel? The stock market, I mean.”

Nika’s eyebrows knit together. “We have a man who manages the finances. Marco usually speaks to him, but I do, too. That’s how I know we need Adam.”

“This is going to sound crazy,” I tell her. “But just trust me, all right? Can you do that?”

She nods.

“Invest in Apple. Starbucks, too. But next year, around the summertime.”

“Starbucks?”

“I’m going to write it down, okay?”

I take out a pen and paper. I make the notes.

“Promise me.”

She nods. “I will.”

Just then Carol appears in the doorway. “Hi,” she says. “I was hoping I’d find you here.”

She has a package tucked under her arm. She sets it on the desk.

“Carol, do you know Nika? Nika, you know Carol.”

“Of course,” Carol says. “Hi, Nika. Would you mind? It’s all paid for.”

“Yes, naturally,” Nika says. “Did you…” she starts, and I know she is going to ask about the letter. I quickly jump in.