One Step to You (The Rome Novels #1)(82)

She smiled at him and hugged him as she gazed into his eyes. Then she gave him a kiss, a soft, new, impassioned kiss. Her first kiss as a woman.

Later, stretched out under the covers, he was stroking her hair while she held him tight, her head resting on his chest. Then Babi lifted her head and gazed at him, with a smile. “I’m not very good, am I?”

“You’re very, very good.”

“No, I feel kind of klutzy. I need you to teach me how.”

“You’re perfect. Come on.”

They got out of bed, Step took her by the hand, and they went into the other room. Between the flowered sheets, a little red rose, newly bloomed, stood out from the others, the purest and most innocent of them all.

Soon Babi and Step were once again intertwined in the bathtub. They were drinking champagne, chatting cheerfully, slightly tipsy and in love. Soon, drunk with passion, they were again in the throes of lovemaking. This time, without fear, with more impetus and greater desire.

Now it seemed even nicer to her, easier to move her wings, now that she was no longer afraid to fly. Suddenly she understood the beauty of being a young butterfly.

Then they took the bathrobes hanging on the door and went down to their private inlet. They amused themselves by dreaming up names that could go with the two unknown sets of initials stitched on their chests. After competing to come up with the strangest ones, they abandoned the bathrobes on the rocks.

Babi dove in second. They swam like that, in the cool, salty water, in the wake of the moon, pushed along by small gentle waves, embracing from time to time, splashing each other, swimming away only to turn around and catch each other for another taste of those lips that smacked of maritime champagne.

Later, sitting on a rock—wrapped in the bathrobes of Amarildo and Sigfrida, they guessed—they gazed dreamily up at the thousand stars overhead, at the moon, the night, and the dark and peaceful sea.

“It’s beautiful here.”

“This is your home, isn’t it?”

Babi shook her head. “You’re crazy! But I’m so happy. I’ve never felt so happy in my whole life. How are you?”

“Me?” Step wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. “I’m great.”

“So great that you could reach up and touch the sky?”

Step smiled at her and shook his head. “No, not like that.”

“What do you mean, not like that?”

“Much, much more than that. At least three meters higher than the sky.”

*



The next day, Babi woke up at home at the usual time. As she rinsed the last traces of salt water from her hair in the shower, she thought back with fondness to the night before.

She ate breakfast, said goodbye to her mother, and climbed into the car with Daniela, ready to go to school like any other morning. Her father stopped at the traffic light before the Corso di Francia bridge.

Babi was still sleepy and distracted when it suddenly caught her eye. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at. High up, well above all the other graffiti, on the bridge’s white column, was a string of words that dominated all the others, indelible. There it was, on the cold marble, as blue as her eyes, and as beautiful as she’d always dreamed it would be.

Her heart started racing. For an instant, she thought that everyone else could hear it, that everyone could read those words, just as she was reading them at that moment.

They rose high, unattainably so. Up there, where only lovers can reach: You and me, three meters above the sky.





Chapter 34



Step was awake. Actually, he’d never gone to sleep at all. The radio was playing, tuned to Rock Dimension. His head hurt, and his eyes were tired. He turned over in bed.

Sounds were coming from the kitchen. His brother was making breakfast. He looked at the clock. It was nine in the morning. Who could guess where Paolo was going at that hour of the morning on Christmas Eve.

He heard the door slam. Paolo had left. He felt a sense of relief because he needed to be alone. Then a strange feeling of suffering swept over him. He didn’t need to be alone. He was alone.

At that idea, he felt even worse. He wasn’t hungry, he wasn’t sleepy, he didn’t feel anything at all. He lay there like that on his belly. He couldn’t say how much time had passed. Little by little, he glimpsed that room in happier times. How often had he awakened in the morning and found Babi’s earrings on his nightstand, how many times had he found her watch, how many times had they been there, together on that bed, embracing in love, lusting for each other?

He smiled. He remembered her icy feet, those frozen little toes that Babi laughingly wedged under and between his much warmer legs. After they’d made love, when they were just lying there, talking, looking at the moon out the window, or else the rain or the stars, equally happy whatever the case. Caressing her hair, whatever might be happening outside, in spite of the problems of the world.

He had watched Babi head for his bathroom, and deeply in love, he admired the light patches on her skin, the shade of a swimsuit just removed or a bra undone. He had heard her laugh through that shut door, saw her walk in that funny way of hers, her hair hanging down, running embarrassed to his bed, diving onto him, still cool from the water, from shy washings, still scented with love and passion.

Step turned over again on his bed, looking up at the ceiling. How many times, reluctantly, had he seen the time arrive to get dressed again, to take her back home. And then, silent and close together, they’d sit on that bed and start to get dressed again, slowly, occasionally one handing the other something that belonged to them. Exchanging a smile, a kiss, slipping on a skirt, chatting as they bent over tying shoes, leaving the radio on, just for a few minutes, just the time to run her home.