Finding It

27

WE WERE FIVE minutes late for our boat reservation.

Totally worth it.

We rented a boat and hired a man named Gianni to captain it for us. Gianni was a plump, older man with a near-permanent frown and white eyebrows so bushy they looked more like a patch of whiskers. But even his grouchy, broken English couldn’t ruin this moment.

Gianni set off in silence, leaving Hunt and me toward the back of the boat just to enjoy the ride.

We rode straight out of the harbor first, the small inlet filled with boats disappearing quickly behind us. Then when we were far enough out that we could only see a few boats like ours out on the water, he turned and began circling the island.

I leaned back against the seat cushions and placed my feet in Hunt’s lap with a quick smile. His returned smile was devastatingly handsome. He glanced at an oblivious Gianni, and lifted up my foot, placing a sensuous kiss on the inside of my ankle the same way he’d done the night we first slept together. A shiver snaked down my spine, coiling low in my belly.

After a while, we settled into a comfortable silence. The boat’s motor was too loud to allow for much conversation anyway. So, I leaned back against the cushions to watch the land rise and fall around us, and Hunt pulled out his notebook, scratching away at another sketch.

Once we’d seen a good portion of the island at a distance, Gianni brought us close to the land again, this time a section devoid of a harbor and seaside buildings. He began to slow. The water below us was a vivid turquoise, but as we came into shallower water, we could see straight through to the fish and coral that lined the ocean bottom.

There were numerous other boats ahead of us gathered around one outcropping of rock. Gianni slowed to a stop and lowered a tiny rowboat into the water off the edge of our larger boat.

Gesturing toward an opening in the rock, he said, “Grotta Azzurra.”

I took a wild guess, and assumed that Azzurra was related to the word azure.

“Blue?” I asked.

“Sì, Blue Grotto.”

He motioned for Hunt and me to climb down the ladder on the side of the boat, and into the canoe/small boat/thingamajig. Jackson went first, and I followed, and then Gianni came down last. It was a seriously small boat. I was a little worried about how it was going to handle the three of us. But I wasn’t going to argue with Gianni’s very serious eyebrows.

He pointed toward the mouth of the cave again, and said, “Grotto.”

I moved closer to Hunt to make a little room, and he pulled me into the V of his legs.

Gianni rowed us toward the grotto, where we waited in line as other small boats like ours entered and exited the cave. We had to duck our heads just to fit under the overhanging rock, but as soon as we got inside, I knew how it got its name.

The waters inside the dark cave glowed a florescent blue. At first, I thought it was just a reflection from the light coming from the mouth of the cave, but the light seemed to be shining up from underneath the water. I dipped a hand under the surface, and it too glowed blue.

“Wow.” My voice echoed around the cave, bouncing back at us from craggy walls.

Then our surly guide began to sing, and my jaw dropped in shock.

His voice was low and rich as he sang a song in Italian, slow and mesmerizing. The sound echoed around us, filling the chamber, and making my breath catch in my throat.

Jackson’s arm tightened around my waist and he rested his lips against my shoulder.

Too quickly, Gianni was maneuvering the boat around and we were heading back for the bright light of the opening. I wanted to slow time down, to freeze us in this moment for just a few seconds longer.

I turned my head and met Jackson’s eyes. They looked almost blue in the cave, and my heart beat at a frenzied pace. Before I could change my mind, I said, “I’m falling for you.”

His eyes searched mine, and I felt like I was falling still, waiting for him to answer. My ears rang like I was plunging toward the earth, and my eyes watered like the wind was flying directly into my face. And I waited. And waited. His expression, unreadable.

He opened his mouth, and my heart leapt in my chest.

Then Gianni said, “Duck.”

Hunt’s large hand cradled my head, and he pulled us both down as the boat glided underneath the rock. My heart was splintering, cracking and peeling every second he stayed silent.

But I shouldn’t have worried.

The very second we were past the overhang, he pulled me up and pressed his lips to mine in the perfect, scorching kiss.

He didn’t say anything. Just melted me with his mouth and pierced me with his eyes, and I supposed I would have to settle for that. He was an action-over-words kind of man, and I liked him that way.

After that, Gianni led us to a private inlet. He tied the boat to an outcrop of rock, gestured for us to jump out, and then pulled his hat down over his face for a nap.

Jackson and I took advantage of the privacy, and with the help of a not-too pointy rock face, we managed to achieve what hadn’t been possible out in the deep water at Cinque Terre.

When we returned to our room that night, our skin was several shades darker, my hair smelled of salt, and we’d managed to get salt and sand in a few inconvenient places.

We both needed a good shower.

“You go first. It’s going to take me forever to get everything out of my hair.”

“I could help.”

As appealing as that sounded, I knew where it would lead, and I was honestly too tired to even think about sex standing up, let alone perform it.

“Thanks, Casanova, but let’s just get clean first. You can get me dirty again later.”

“Looking forward to it already.”

I laughed, and turned to throw my things at the foot of the bed. They hit the floor, and then an arm swooped around my waist, spinning and dipping me backward.

He kissed me slowly, the scruff on his chin tickling my skin. I was constantly amazed at how every kiss with him felt different, felt new. I hoped it would always feel that way.

He stood me up and gave me one more quick kiss.

He said, “I’ve not been this happy in a long time. Ever. Maybe.”

“Me too.”

He whistled as he retreated to the shower, and a smile burst open on my mouth, impossible to contain. I closed my eyes, and stretched out my arms like I’d just finished the only race that mattered.

God, he was perfect.

Well, except for the mess factor, but I could live with that. He’d dumped his things by the door, and I began moving them to the desk.

I could see his phone in the open outside pocket of his backpack, and in a small moment of curiosity and desperation, I picked it up.

I unlocked it. Not to search it, not really. Just to see.

My stomach sank.

Twenty-nine voice-mail messages.

Twenty-nine.

My finger hovered over the screen, and I wanted to listen. Just a quick check, just to make sure they were really nothing to worry about. I touched my finger to the screen, but then immediately pulled it back.

I wasn’t going to be that way. Jackson had been so good about respecting my privacy as we got closer. He hadn’t pushed even though it had been obvious from the very beginning that that went against his nature. He’d done so much for me, more than I could put into words.

I wouldn’t betray him like that. I couldn’t.

I returned the phone as I caught sight of his sketchbook. Somehow the impulse to know what he drew in there was even stronger than the one that wanted to listen to the phone calls.

I told myself I was just going to pick it up, but when I did, a few loose sheets of paper drifted to the floor. I scrabbled to pick them up. I picked up a few sheets, sliding them back into the book. When I turned the last one over, I froze.

For a few seconds, I thought it was the drawing that I’d gotten from that little boy in Budapest. It was the same fountain. I recognized the man at the top, proud and bare like he’d risen up right out of the sea. The same thoughtful women sat below him, their shoulders hunched, their bodies smoothly sculpted.

The drawing was different, though. Darker. Whereas the boy had drawn the world as he saw it, trying to capture the reality of the curves and the physicality of nature, this drawing seemed … sad. The shadows melted into each other, throwing the statues into sharp relief. This drawing gave words to the stone women, frozen forever in time, unable to do anything but exist. The boy had only begun to sketch me into the picture, so that I was almost a ghost, little more than a smile, blonde curls, and a flowing dress.

I was a ghost in this drawing, too. Not because I wasn’t fully realized, but because I was. I sat on that bench, both stiff and somehow wilted at the same time, and I watched the world around me with longing buried beneath detachment, covered over with a paper-thin smile that was little more than a smudge on the page.

I looked to the bathroom, where Jackson was currently just on the other side of a door. Maybe I hadn’t imagined him that day. There’d been a glimpse, just the briefest sight of a head that might have been his, but I’d written it off as wishful thinking.

But if he had this, if he drew this, he had to have been there.

I stopped worrying about getting the chair wet, and I stopped worrying about privacy as I took a seat to scan through the rest.

I’d thought I might find comfort in his sketches. He’d seen right through me with his sketch of Budapest. He’d seen that I was hurting when I was only just coming to terms with it. I wanted to see what he saw now. He was so confident that I could beat the darkness in me. Maybe he saw something I didn’t.

I flipped open the sketchbook, full of hope and fear, wishing that somewhere in those pictures I would find my next foothold, a hand to pull me up.

Instead, they sent me tumbling over the edge.