Dante’s Girl

  The prospect of taking my shirt off in front of him both thrills me and terrifies me.

  “Here,” Dante says. He’s already shrugging out of his button-up chambray shirt. He holds it up against me like a shield. “You stand behind my shirt and take yours off. No one will see you.”

  “Okay. Close your eyes,” I instruct him. He instantly closes them tight.

  I pull my shirt off quickly and drop it on the ground next to me. I feel odd standing here in just my bra and shorts when Dante is literally just a breath away. Just one breath. He could reach his hand out and my bare skin is right here for him to touch.

  And I’m being ridiculous.

  He is standing there with his eyes closed like the gentleman that he is.

  He’s not going to reach out and touch me.

  I gulp and reach to take his shirt and I hear something.

  Something quiet, non-descript… and something that shouldn’t be there.

  I turn, just in time to hear the clicking of a camera. The flash bulbs practically blind me as I yank Dante’s shirt around me.

  Dante yells and chases whoever is taking the pictures and I am left to quickly slip his shirt on and button it up. I glance toward the bluff and no one is there. Dante is gone and no one else even noticed that anything had happened.

  Everyone else is too drunk to notice, apparently.

  I take my shirt to the edge of the water and kneel down to wash it. Dante’s shirt is soft against my skin, and it smells like him. I enjoy the feeling for a second and then roll the sleeves up so that they aren’t dragging over my knuckles.

  “I couldn’t catch him,” Dante’s voice said from behind me. He was resigned and pissed off. “I’m really sorry, Reece.”

  I’m confused and I turn to him. “Why are you sorry?”I ask. “You didn’t do it.”

  He shakes his head. “No. But it’s because of me. My life will never be normal and I’m really sorry that it has affected you in such a way.”

  “If you hadn’t sent Russell with Mia, this wouldn’t have happened, would it?” I guessed. I can just tell that Russell’s eyes never miss anything.

  “Probably not,” Dante admitted. “So, I’m sorry about that, too. She just needed to go home and I wasn’t ready to leave you yet. I wanted a little bit of time alone with you. So, this is my fault.”

  I roll my eyes. “No, it wasn’t. Not at all. You were trying to be a good friend.”

  But in my head, I’m singing. No, I’m screaming. In my head. Silently.

  Dante wanted alone time with me? With me??

  Dante turns his head and his eyes meet mine and for a moment I see something in his, something a little vulnerable and slightly sad and very beautiful all at the same time.

  Just for a moment.

  And then it is gone.

  Chapter Ten

  Dante cuts me the biggest slice of chocolate cake that I’ve ever seen, then pours a glass of milk. He pushes both things toward me.

  “Is that goat’s milk?” I ask hesitantly, eyeing the foaming white liquid. “Because I haven’t seen one single cow since I got here.”

  “And you’ve seen a goat?” he raises an eyebrow. “Just because we don’t let our cows run in the streets like they do in India doesn’t mean that we don’t have them. We have dairies like everyone else.”

  “Okay. Don’t get all offended,” I grin. “It was a valid question.”

  He shrugs good-naturedly. “I’ll give you that. And I’m not offended.”

  Dante smiles and my heart races.

  It’s just that simple. When he does anything, smiles, laughs, looks at me, breathes… my heart reacts. He’s definitely replaced Quinn in my daydreams.

  I take a bite of the chocolate cake and all of a sudden, I feel like I’m a president’s kid sneaking to the kitchens of the White House in the middle of the night for cake. The only difference is, I’m across the world from the White House and I’m not the President’s Kid.

  Dante is.

  More or less.

  “What?” he asks, studying my face. “What are you thinking about?”

  His hand is splayed on the granite counter and I look at his fingers. They’re long, like he is. I wish I had the guts to pick his hand up and hold it. I know that we had a moment back on the beach earlier. I know it. But we hadn’t said anything the whole way back and now here we are talking about goat’s milk.

  Romantic.

  “Nothing,” I answer. “I just can’t believe I’m here. That’s all. It seems too surreal. I’m a normal girl from small-town America. This kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”

  “Yet it did,” Dante points out. He has a cleft in his chin. I’m in love with the cleft in his chin. It’s masculine and perfect and I find that I want to place my thumb in it to see if it fits. But I don’t.

  “True,” I acknowledge. “But only because of a crazy accident at the airport.”

  “Some might say it was a lucky accident,” Dante points out.

  “Well, that probably depends on your perspective,” I answer. “The families of the people on that crashed plane wouldn’t agree. But for me, yes. It was lucky. I’m in a beautiful country instead of having uncomfortable silences with my father right now. So, thank you for that.”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Dante says. Is that a slight flush in his cheeks? “I spoke with my father. He will be back here in the morning and would like for you to join us for dinner tomorrow evening. Would you like to?”

  I stare at him. Dinner with a Prime Minister?

  “It depends,” I answer slowly. “Will we be having crab legs?”

  Dante laughs and shakes his head.

  “You have no idea what’s good,” he chuckles. “We can have whatever you’d like to have. Do you like steak? Steak from a cow, not steak from a goat?”

  I crack up and we laugh together and start talking about fathers and goats and life and before I know it, we’ve been talking for over an hour.

  “Holy cow,” I breathe, looking at the clock on the wall. “It’s 2:00 a.m.”

  “You should definitely go to bed, little Sunflower,” Dante says. “You’ve got an 11:00 a.m. shopping date. That is, if Mia remembers.”

  I stare at him again. “How did you even hear that? You must have ears like a bat.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Either way, you should get some sleep.”

  We put our dishes in the sink and creep through the dark, quiet mausoleum-like house. At night, it seems even less like a real home.

  “Do you think the airports will open up soon?” I ask as we climb the stairs.

  “I have no idea,” Dante answers. “But they can’t stay closed forever.”

  That’s sort of what I’m afraid of.

  He walks me to my bedroom door and pauses. And I almost think that he might kiss me. Because we did have a moment back on the beach, dang it. But he doesn’t. Instead, he pushes my hair behind one ear and then leans forward ever so slightly as he tells me to have sweet dreams.

  Of course I will, I think. They’ll be about you.

  “Thank you, “I actually say. “You too.”

  He smiles a tired smile and starts to walk away and as I stare at his bare back, I remember his shirt.

  “Wait!” I cry. “What about your shirt?”

  He smiles again.

  “You can just send it to the laundry,” he answers. “They know where I live. They’ll get it back to me.”

  I shake my head and close my bedroom door.

  And then I sit on my bed and inhale his shirt. As in, I literally bury my face into it and breathe. It smells just like him. And I love it. I wonder if he would notice if I don’t send it to the laundry? Being the rule-follower that I am, though, I know that I will. I’m not going to steal his shirt. But I go ahead and do the next best thing.

  I sleep in it.

  Scratch that.

  I over-sleep in it.

  When I open my eyes, the clock says 10:30 a.m. And the clock has no reas
on to lie.

  With a yelp, I scramble out of bed and find that my shirt has been laundered and is wrapped in tissue-paper on the end of my bed. A member of housekeeping had crept in as I slept, which is a little unnerving, but I put it out of my mind as I rush to brush my teeth and get dressed.

  And then as I fumble around for my shoes, I notice my cell phone.

  12 missed calls, 8 voicemails. What the eff?

  Grabbing it, I see that I have it set to silent, which would explain why I didn’t hear it ring. Did something happen? Did grandma or grandpa have a heart attack? It’s the only thing I can think of until I see that all of the calls are from Becca’s number.

  Weird.

  I hold it to my ear and listen.

  And then I want to die as I hear the messages.

  Becca had been rummaging through my clothes to borrow my favorite yellow halter-top and came across my journal. And of course, she read it.

  And I had written all about how I’m secretly in love with Quinn.

  Because my journal is supposed to be secret.

  But now she knows.

  And she wants to kill me.

  OhMyGosh.

  Not only does Becca know, but she thinks that I’m secretly plotting to break them up. Because awhile back, she and Quinn had had a fight and I’d advised her that I didn’t know if I’d believe him when he said that he hadn’t been flirting with a strange girl at our track meet. And I’d meant it. I didn’t have any ulterior motives. I’d simply seen Quinn’s face as he was talking with the girl. He was flirting.

  And Becca busted him. Period. It was pretty cut and dried, I thought. But I guess it wasn’t.

  I drop my face into my hands. This isn’t good.

  But it is 10:56 a.m. and Mia will be here any minute to go shopping.

  So I can’t call Becca back right now.

  And honestly, it might be good to give her a little space anyway.

  Just a little.

  Just until I have built up enough courage to face her, because Becca’s right. I totally betrayed her by falling in love with her boyfriend. She has no idea that my crush on Quinn has totally been eclipsed by my crush on Dante.

  It doesn’t take away the fact that I’d kept it a secret from her. And that’s the most hurtful thing. We don’t keep secrets from each other. Not ever. Not until now.

  I sigh. Why is life so complicated sometimes?

  10:58.

  The phone rings beside the bed and I pick it up, hesitantly.

  “Hello?”

  It’s someone from downstairs. Mia’s here. Apparently, they can’t just send her up without permission from someone, so I give my permission and wait. She arrives just a minute or two later.

  She raps on my bedroom door and I answer and am surprised to see that she looks no worse for the wear. She laughs at my expression.

  “Expecting someone else?” she asks, stepping into my room.

  “No,” I stammer. “I just thought you’d be… hung over.”

  She laughs again. “I hide it well,” she confides. “My head is splitting.”

  Mia is dressed in a micro-mini layered with two black tank tops and about five rhinestone encrusted belts. Her short black hair is held back from her face by rhinestone headbands and overall, she looks like a sparkly rock star. She’s even wearing five inch heels.

  “You’re so dressed up,” I say tactfully.

  She actually looks like she is going out to a club. Not exactly the outfit I would have worn for a day of shopping. But then, I have one outfit to my name at the moment, so who am I to judge?

  “If you’re going to do something,” she advises, “Do it all the way.”

  Good point.

  “Are you ready?” she asks, looking me up and down. “Never mind. You’re ready. For some new clothes, that is.”

  “Snot,” I nudge her. Mia already feels like an old friend and it is a really good feeling at the moment when I know that Becca would just as soon poke my eyes out as to look at me.

  I grab my purse and we head out my door, down the steps and out the front. No one tries to stop me, and I realize that I expect someone to. I don’t know why. We walk down the cobblestone sidewalks and this time, no one stops to look at me. They don’t realize who I am, I guess.

  Mia heads into a nearby shop, dragging me by the arm. We step inside and we are instantly surrounded by a teenage girl’s paradise: racks and racks of clothing. I sigh a happy little sigh, pat my mother’s credit card which is in my back pocket and start sifting through racks of clothing.

  Four pair of shorts, two pairs of strappy sandals, two t-shirts, two pheasant-style blouses, one swimsuit and seven pairs of underwear later, Mia and I stand out on the sidewalk with our bags. I peer into Mia’s.

  Everything she bought is black.

  I look back up at her. She just doesn’t seem like the goth kind of girl.

  “Trying to change your image?” I ask curiously. She smiles broadly.

  “How did you know?”

  “Just a guess. Why?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t know. Mix it up a little bit, I guess. Keep my parents on their toes.”

  I nod. That’s as good a reason as any, I guess.”

  Mia starts to answer, then rolls her eyes.

  “Ugh. Total bitch at 9:00.”

  “What?” I stare at her and she tugs my arm back into the shop. I turn and find Elena and two other girls, strolling down the sidewalk.

  “Oh.”

  I can hear them chattering from here, cat-like remarks that are designed to be hateful. I don’t see what Dante sees in her and I ask Mia that very thing.

  “I don’t know, “she answers thoughtfully, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know that he sees anything in her, to be honest. They are together sometimes, and sometimes they aren’t. I think it’s a convenience thing. Their families are practically joined together. And then of course, their fathers sort of expect it so that someday, their families really will be joined together.”

  “What year is this?”I demand. “1623? People don’t get married anymore to join families together.”

  “Maybe not in America,” Mia levels a glance at me. “But you’re not in America.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I mutter.

  And then, when Elena and her two meanies are just steps away, my phone rings. I look at it and the screen says Becca Cline and her heart-shaped face is smiling at me. And my heart stops because I know that I have to answer it, but now isn’t the time. Or the place.

  But I have to.

  I pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “So.” Becca’s voice is as cold as ice. As cold as I’ve ever heard it. Ever. “You’re in love with my boyfriend. You’ve been in love with my boyfriend for years. And you haven’t told me. What kind of friend are you?”

  “Becca, it’s not what you think,” I offer. “Really. Have I had a crush on Quinn for awhile? Yes. Have I ever acted in any way that would be inappropriate for your best friend to act? No. Not on my life, not ever. I wouldn’t do that.”

  “If it was such an innocent crush, you would have told me,” Becca accuses, and her voice is so…accusatory. And mad. And I have no defense.

  “I know,” I admit. “It’s true. I’ve had a huge crush on him forever. But I didn’t want to tell you because how in the world would I say something like that? I never intended to act on it or ever let anyone know about it. If you hadn’t read my journal, you wouldn’t know either.”