Chapter Thirty-Five Rory

Kissing Nate is exactly how I remembered. Hard. Firm. Urgent. His hands moving in all the familiar ways, grazing my sides, gripping my butt, stroking my hair.

For a long time—for ten years—I thought there was entirely one way to kiss, one way to have sex: the way Nate and I did it.

I loved that way, I was ready to sign up for an eternity of our tried and true. But then I kissed Gabriele. Then I slept with Gabriele. It’s not to say that Gabriele was the be-all and end-all, not to say I ranked him higher or lower than Nate. Just that he was different. He was caramel praline ice cream when I’d been quite ready to sign myself up for pistachio for the rest of time.

Now I remember, pistachio ice cream was insanely delicious. Maybe, truly, my favorite of life.

But caramel praline was pretty epic, too.

All thoughts of ice cream evaporate from my head as Nate moves me back toward the bed, our mouths locked, clearly feeling victorious in a match we didn’t even expect we’d be playing, communicating, Yes, we are good at this! Oh, yes, we know how to do this! In swift, terse motions, Nate tugs my shirt up and off, then pushes down my skirt so it pools around my ankles. Then he’s back kissing me, urgent. I’m hungry, too. Pulling his shirt upward—irritated when it stalls over his head. Tugging, tugging, until his lips are on mine again, and he’s lifting me up, drawing me against his chest. I wrap my legs around him, noticing that he’s already shed his pants—when he did it, I’m not even sure. Caro and I always joke about it—how men can be Houdinis with their clothing: now you see it, now you don’t. Just Caro’s name bounces up against organs, a pain to my heart, my stomach, then blessedly fizzles from my mind. I run my hands over Nate’s arms—his biceps are my favorite, smooth ivory skin, a graze of a tan…

As I suck gently on his neck, he says, “Ror…”

“Yeah?”

My name—it’s a plunk down to earth, a shock out of my tipsy joy, a hole punch in what we’re about to do, what my body is communicating it quite wants to do.

I continue sucking on his neck, trying to slip back inside this, trying not to let the thoughts invade, the ones that are suddenly knocking insistently on the door.

Nate slept with Caro, and now you’re going to—what—pretend that didn’t happen?

Do you even want him back?

Do you really want this?

“I want this!” I say, and then start when I realize I’ve said it aloud.

Even in the darkness, I can make out Nate’s crooked grin.

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I want this, too. But, Ror…” There’s movement, his skin detaching from mine, his shape lowering to the ground.

“Wha—Nate, what are you—?”

“Shit, can you even see me?”

“Not really,” I admit. But suddenly I have an inkling as to what he’s doing, and my whole body has seized up, frozen.

No, no, no, no, no.

“Wait! Don’t turn the lights on.”

“I know.” He chuckles. He knows how the light kills my mood. Not because I don’t want him to see my body, or because I don’t want to see his, but unless it’s candlelight, there’s something too bright and bracing about artificial track lighting. (When Nate and I first started dating, he’d always try to turn on one of those awful lava lamps right before sex, until I convinced him to leave it out on the sidewalk for a guy whose girlfriend actually enjoyed being lit up like a Christmas tree.)

“No, I mean—” How to say it? “Are you—are you about to…”

He laughs again. “It’s like the first time I proposed.… You wanted to micromanage the whole thing.”

I manage a dry laugh, but my head is whirling. “You’re trying to propose again? Is that what’s going on?” I cross my hands over my chest, even though it’s dark, and he’s seen my boobs probably a hundred million times.

He stands, pulls on my arm, leads me to the bed. He fumbles in his pocket and out comes a familiar velvet cushion box visible in a trickle of moonlight through the nearly drawn drapes.

“You brought the ring?” I hear myself stumble over the words. “I can’t believe… you mean you planned—”

“I hoped. Like a lovesick loser, I guess. I don’t want to just sleep together, Ror. I want you to say you forgive me, that we can really be together again.”

He pops open the box, and I stare numbly at my old ring glinting in the near-dark, almost more striking without competition from the light. It’s stunning, still the exact ring I’d pick—a simple one-carat round diamond on a thin gold band. I loved wearing it—to be honest, I felt very LA, even if it was far smaller than most diamonds in La-La Land. And I loved the story the ring told—that I had been chosen by a wonderful man, that my life was set, resolved, in this all-important category.

I realize it now, thinking back half a year, how important it was for me to feel like my life was filed, in good order. Career, check. Man, check. I never stopped to question whether the contents of the files were right. I was just happy that they were filled and slotted away.

“Ror, will you marry me? Please. Say you will. Say you’ll wear the ring again. I want to marry you more than anything.”

“I—I don’t—”

Suddenly the train jerks forward.

“Oh, we must be moving.” Nate places a hand on my knee, the ring hooked on his forefinger.

I stare at it, feeling woozy. “I need water.”

“I’ll get it.” He crosses to the bar. The train settles into its steady pace.

“Can you believe we’ll be in Positano soon? The end of the line?” he asks, his back to me, as his shadow twists open a cap, and I hear the liquid spill out.

“No, this trip seems like the longest trip of my life.” My eyes catch my bag that I dropped by the door in the frenzy of our kissing. Now that we are on our way, and Nate’s re-proposed, and my head is pounding, now that I’ve remembered that I have The Cabin on the Lake, which I’d really like to reread, now the wisdom of our hookup—everything it represents—feels like it’s morphed into a question mark.

Morphed into a question mark… or something else, I realize with a thud.

Morphed into an I need to be alone.

“Ror?” Nate’s back with a glass. I accept it, chug. My mind is churning, wondering how to deal with all this, when suddenly there’s a rap at the door.

“Yeah?” Nate sounds peeved. “Who’s there?”

“Probably Marco with more mints for our pillows.” I feel a surge of relief, hop out of bed, drag my top and skirt back on. Nate laughs, but puts his pants back on. I fling open the door, suddenly eager for light to invade.

Gabriele appears in the doorway.

“Oh, hi! Ciao!” I’m startled, and I hear it in the stutter of my greeting. I flick on the light on the panel on the wall and blink my eyes as the room illuminates.

“Ciao.” His smile shifts from easy to weary, and I swivel, following Gabriele’s dark eyes lock onto Nate’s. And vice versa.

Gabriele fixes back on me. “I’m sorry… I’m really sorry for interrupting.”

“You’re not! We were just—”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me, Rory.”

I nod slowly, but I feel like I do.

“I wanted to check on you. I saw you and Nate in the bar car, and I didn’t want to disturb. Only wanted to make sure you made it back to your room okay and—”

“She made it back quite okay, man,” Nate says, crossing his arms over his bare chest. “As you can well see. So we’ll wish you good night and—”

“No,” I say softly, then force it out louder. “No. I mean, Gabriele, thanks for checking on me. I’m fine.”

He nods curtly. “I’ll see you in the morning. After we get off the train, a car will pick us all up. You know you have the reservation at Le Sirenuse at one.”

“I know. About that. Do you…?” I’m on the verge of asking him again if he knows the motive behind this mysterious reservation. Maybe even tell him about what I found in Ginevra’s apartment. But to say it would involve Nate, too, and probably hours of subsequent speculations.

“Yeah. Le Sirenuse. See you tomorrow, Gabriele. Buona notte.” I shoot him a sheepish smile, but he only nods and rubs his beard, his face expressionless. Then he ducks out and the door clicks shut behind him, leaving me and Nate in the too-piercing light.

“Nate, I… look…” I run a hand through my hair, unable to coax myself to meet his gaze.

“I get it.” Wearily, he slips the ring back inside the box. When he looks back at me, he’s not mad, but a sad that I feel, too. “A guy’s gotta shoot his shot when he has it, you know?”

I place a hand on his forearm. “I don’t… we drank too much. My head is spinning, and I still haven’t exactly… you and Caro, I mean—”

“You haven’t forgiven us.” He sits on the bed, wiggles his feet back into his sneakers. “I get it, Ror. I’m not saying you need to. I mean, you should take all the time—”

“It’s more than that. I haven’t even told you what happened with Caro at the Colosseum.…”

His eyebrow arches. “Caro? At the Colosseum? What do you mean?”

My chest stiffens—what I saw returns, and the panic that set in as I ran toward her. I shake my head. “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Just, it’s been the longest day, and I don’t want… I mean, if you and I—I want it to mean something, if we sleep together, you know?”

He wiggles his head through his shirt and the material swishes back down over his abs. “I wouldn’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I know. So let me just…”

“Sure.” He stands, stuffs his hands in his pockets. Then he kisses my cheek. “Sleep tight, Ror. If you need anything…”

“I know where to find you.” I stand in the doorway, watch him disappear.

Marco’s nowhere in sight. Thankfully, I’ve noticed the stewards stop keeping such vigilant watch in the night. Not that I’ll have such privileged problems after tomorrow.

I return to the room, the lights still stinging my eyes, the space in disarray, like fun was had.

Well, fun was almost had.

I lick my lips, still tasting Nate, my mind running in circles over it all. I’m not tired… no longer drunk exactly, but jittery, like there is little chance sleep will give itself over.

My eyes rove the room, then catch on my bag—The Cabin on the Lake.

That’s it. The book is the key to everything. I know it.

I grab my new copy, sprawl out in bed, and prop the cover open, praying to the gods of Laci and Candace, Benedict and Eddie that with this read, I’ll puzzle things out.