“We will match, Vanni,” Claudio assures him. “Grace can have the tank top.”
“You’re buying a shirt for yourself?” I ask him, eyes wide. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Why not?”
I look him up and down, at his dark jeans, black t-shirt, black moto boots, the aviators pushed up on his head. He’s the epitome of sexy cool.
“You would ruin your aesthetic? I mean, I know how much aesthetics matter to you.”
He flashes me a wicked grin. “It will be worth it to embarrass you.”
And so that’s how I end up in a scratchy INXS tank top, pulled over my other one, with father and son in matching shirts. It is somewhat embarrassing. We look like a family of the biggest nerds but Claudio doesn’t care at all. He’s living off of my reaction.
What helps is a trip to one of the bar carts and getting some glasses of wine, and then heading over to the edge of the crowd where we find a patch of grass to sit down on.
“We can’t see the stage from here,” Vanni whines, trying to look over the people in front of us.
“Don’t worry,” his father says. “We’ll get up and go into the crowd when they start. Do you want to stand for hours if you don’t have to?”
“I thought you were going to put me on your shoulders.” He sticks the straw from his Coke in his mouth and smiles sweetly.
“You are too big for that,” Claudio says.
“But would you put her on your shoulders?” he asks, eyeing me. “She’s not much taller than me.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell Vanni. “I would break your dad’s back.”
“We’ll see about that,” Claudio says.
I give him a look, like don’t you even try.
He merely sips his wine and slips his shades down over his eyes, smirking away.
A fluttery feeling passes through me, and I busy myself with my wine, looking at the crowd. The more I drink, the more I relax, and the more I’m hit with … happiness.
We’re sitting here on the grass, the blades tickling my thighs below my shorts. I’m extra hot because I’m wearing two tops, one of them with the smell that new concert tees seem to have, sweat pooling at the small of my back. My pinot grigio is growing warmer by the minute and the sun is just disappearing, the sunset reflected in Claudio’s sunglasses.
Aye. That’s what it is. I’m happy. It’s not just because I’m buzzed. With the smiling crowd, the warm air, the fading blue sky overhead, I feel at peace. Like, for once, I know I’m going to be okay. And maybe that’s not true, but for this moment, for tonight, I’m going to pretend it is.
We finish our drinks and then Claudio gets up to get another round for us. It’s darker now and the band should start soon.
“Grace?” Vanni asks when Claudio has disappeared into the crowd.
“Sì?”
“Do you like my dad?”
Oh. No.
I glance at him, pasting a big phony smile on my face. “Like your dad? Sure I do. He’s a nice guy. Just like you.”
He purses his lips in thought, raising a brow. He’s not buying it.
“I mean, do you like him. The way he used to like my mother.”
I should be relieved that he didn’t use the word love, but even so this isn’t the best question to be caught up with, especially when I have such a hard time lying.
“I think he’s nice,” I say. “He’s a friend. That’s all.”
He watches me closely, and I turn my attention back to the crowd, which is getting thicker as it grows around us.
“Hey, maybe we should get up,” I tell him, getting to my feet and dusting the grass off the backs of my thighs. I hold my hands out for him and hoist him up.
“So you’re just friends?” he asks.
“Yes, Vanni. We are just friends. Like you and I are friends.”
Okay, so maybe not quite like that.
“Good,” he says.
Oh boy.
Don’t ask him what he means by that, don’t ask him what he means by that.
I clear my throat. “Do you … think that one day your dad will remarry?”
Vanni shudders at that, visibly upset. “No. He knows he can’t.”
“He … can’t?”
“I don’t care if he has girlfriends,” he says carefully. Then his brows snap together. “But I will not have another mother.”
Ah, so Claudio wasn’t kidding when he told me that the reason he broke up with the gorgeous Marika, was because Vanni didn’t like her. I’m starting to think Vanni won’t like anyone that Claudio ends up with.
Which is none of your concern, anyway, I remind myself. Because it sure as hell won’t be you.
“There you are,” Claudio says, brushing past the crowd, managing three drinks in his hands. Even with his concert tee, which doesn’t fit him nearly as well as his normal tees do, he looks every bit the Italian stallion.
He hands me my wine and gives Vanni another Coke. The kid is going to be sugar high all night.
“I think they are just about to start,” he says to me, then looks over my shoulder. “The crowd is closing in. We need to stay close so we don’t lose each other.”
I thank him for the wine, ever so conscious of Vanni’s questions.
Why did he even ask?
Does he suspect I like his father as more than a friend?
Does he suspect that his father likes me?
Is he worried that we are going to get together?
Or is this his way of a preemptive strike?
I’m going to assume that he’s just afraid of what could happen, and since I’m probably the first female who has consistently lived in the house, it’s easy to assume that we’re together or might be.
Suddenly, the stage lights go on, pulling me out of my head.
The crowd roars.
“It’s starting,” Claudio says. “Let’s get closer.”
He reaches over and grabs Vanni’s hand.
Then he grabs mine with the other.
He pulls us into the crowd, squeezing us past the sweaty throngs of people, the swagger-heavy opening notes I recognize as “Suicide Blonde.”
Of course Claudio is practically beaming. I can’t really see the stage that well since we’re all in a level field and, like, everyone is taller than me (I don’t know why the tall people always stand in front of me at shows—I must have some strange gravitational pull.) I don’t recognize the singer, but he’s good and sounds close enough to Michael Hutchence for it to totally work.
But while part of me is bowled over by the sound and the lights and the crowd, I’m also acutely aware that Claudio is still holding my hand.
Not just holding it, holding it tight. I can feel his rapid pulse, and I’m going to assume it’s because of the excitement of the show.
I sneak a glance at him.
He’s grooving to the music, smiling, the stage lights reflecting in his dark eyes, making them dance too. There’s something about him that feels otherworldly to me, like before I met him my life seemed lost and hopeless. And dull. It still does in a way. I’m still grieving. I’m still worried about my book. But at the same time, so much belongs to another life. The life I had before I met him.