“I love you,” I whisper hoarsely.
The words slip out.
They fall into the room like feathers, silent, hanging there.
If anything, her heartbeat gets louder.
I raise my head to see her staring at the ceiling, blinking.
Maybe she didn’t hear me.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.
“Grace?” I whisper, catching my breath.
She raises her head and looks at me. There is so much softness in her eyes that I can’t seem to make heads or tails of it.
“You love me?” she whispers.
I give her a smile that says, of course. Isn’t it obvious?
Her mouth closes, a wayward tear spilling out from the corner of her eye.
She rolls over on her side.
I go on mine so that I’m spooning her, holding her against me.
I suppose it should be awkward that she’s not saying anything back. But that’s not why I said it. I didn’t say it to hear it. I said it because it’s true.
That’s all there is to it.
My truth.
She doesn’t seem to know what to do with it, but she’s not pushing it away, either.
Finally she says quietly, “I think we should tell Vanni.”
“That I love you?”
She nods. “Well, no. That’s not what I meant. I mean, I think we should tell Vanni about us. Soon. And maybe, if he knows you love me, maybe he’ll understand.”
I’m about to tell her I completely agree when she holds up her finger. “But first, I want to put some feelers out.”
“Feelers?” I ask, confused by this strange word.
“Aye. I want to ask him some questions just to get an idea of how he’ll take it. You know. So we’ll be prepared.”
I don’t think that’s necessary, but I want to give her what she wants.
“Okay. Put out your feelers,” I say, tickling her, because this is what feelers should be.
She laughs, squirming away from me.
So I tickle her some more.
Twenty
Grace
For the first time, I wake up in Claudio’s arms, in Claudio’s bed.
Last night, after I did one final sculpting session in his studio, as he did the last touches on the clay model, we ended up back in his bedroom. It’s like now that we’ve decided we’re going to tell Vanni, we’ve been a little looser with our rules.
That said, we’re still careful and cautious, and Vanni was fast asleep by then, so he didn’t catch me sneaking in there.
But after it was all over, I didn’t want to go back to my bedroom and Claudio didn’t want me to leave.
So I stayed.
It helps that I know he loves me.
He loves me.
I still can’t believe it.
I believe him, I truly do. I see it in his eyes, and through his eyes I can see his heart and I know that he’s an amazing man with an incredible capacity for love.
But it still knocks me off-balance sometimes.
He loves me and he cares for me and he wants to be with me.
There’s nothing else I want.
And yet…yet.
I’m still trying to sift through my own feelings, trying to figure out what’s real and what’s not. I hadn’t counted on him falling in love with me, I hadn’t counted on any of this. I don’t even know what to do with the information, except hold it close to me, cradle it, indulge in it.
But how do I feel about him? How do I know I’m in love with him?
Sometimes I think I am. Sometimes I catch my heart tripping in my chest, the air stolen from my lungs, the butterflies fluttering in my belly, all because of something he says, or does, or just his smile.
God, his smile makes me melt into a puddle of goo.
So how do I figure out if what I’m feeling comes from the heart or if it’s just my physical reaction to him, my lust? Lust and infatuation are easy things to slip into, but love feels like it takes time to build. And maybe because our personalities are quite different in that way—he’s impulsive and ready to throw himself off the deep end, I’m reserved and unsure and cautious—maybe the way we fall is inherently different.
Or maybe you’re just overthinking things, I tell myself as I stretch the muscles in my legs, my toes tangling in the sheets. Maybe you just need to accept it and keep an open mind.
Just remember to let go if you feel like you’re falling.
“Good morning,” Claudio murmurs from beside me. His arms are around me, and though I remember falling asleep with more distance between us, I suppose it’s possible that we found ourselves back together in our sleep.
Like two magnets that can’t be kept apart.
“Mmm you smell so good,” he exclaims, his nose buried in my neck.
I laugh, his stubble tickling me. “That’s not usually something you hear first thing in the morning.”
“Oh, but it’s true,” he says, sniffing up and down my neck. “You smell like you. It is my favorite smell in the world, did you know that?”
“I do now.”
“Make sure you write about it in your book,” he says, kissing me beneath my ear. “I think the hero should love the way she smells. And definitely the way she tastes.”
“I will make a note of it.”
A few days have passed since we’ve returned from Elba, and on every single one of those days, I’ve been throwing myself into my book. All my complicated feelings have been poured out on the page, and for the first time in my life, writing feels like therapy. I’m starting to understand why some authors go in so deep, it’s because they’re trying to figure out their own shit in their own life.
There’s something so vulnerable about it, too. Like my issues are going to be out there for the world to judge. Of course, no one will know how much of it is me. But I will. Probably another good reason not to ever read reviews.
But while the writing has been good, and the chapters have been ticking along, it’s also been a convenient way to hold off talking to Vanni.
I know. I know I told Claudio I would put my feelers out, but hey, the muse is visiting me now, and like Sandro Romano said, she is a fickle bitch.
Still…
“Are you putting your feelers out today?” Claudio asks, exaggerating the word, making the motion to tickle me.
“For the last time,” I say, swatting him away, “it doesn’t mean to tickle someone. And yes. Eventually. I have to get through some writing first. I have all this dialogue that I need to get down. My characters won’t stop talking to each other in my brain.”
“I suppose you cannot interfere with the muse. What is it like, being a muse and having a muse?”
“Sometimes I think that being someone else’s muse is the muse. It’s inspiring enough.”
Eventually I get out of bed and creep back to my room before Vanni wakes up, then I get ready for the day. The day of sitting around on my arse in my church-slash-office.
But by the time it’s mid-afternoon and all my espresso shots have worn off, and my brain turns to mush, I decide I need a break. I head back into the house, get changed into my bathing suit, then grab my Kindle, needing a new book to cleanse the palette, and possibly inspire me. Sometimes reading something while writing can push you to do better, try harder. So long as the book is good.