Burning The Map. Laura Caldwell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ study him, comparing Francesco’s posture to the way John sleeps, always on his side in a tight fetal-like ball. John never moves, with the exception of one hand that always seeks me out, no matter where my erratic positioning takes me.

      The irony of it hits me then. I’m thinking of John while I’m sitting here, clothes askew, gazing at a near stranger who I spent the night with. I remind myself that I didn’t “spend the night” with him as in a euphemism for sex. There was no intercourse, nothing even close, really. It was more of a combination roll and grope, but my memories of it make me blush.

      It’s not that John isn’t tender or considerate. He’s both of those things. He’s even quite well-endowed. It’s just that sex has become, for lack of a better word, routine. It’s like watching a favorite movie over and over. The first few times, you think, Oh! Here comes the good part! I love this part. After a while, though, you know exactly what’s about to happen down to the minute details, and it doesn’t particularly excite you anymore, but you watch anyway because there’s nothing better on. I’m sure that I’m as much to blame as John is. Lately, I just haven’t felt sexual enough to try and break out of it. Yet now I have these feelings from last night. I’d almost forgotten it could be like that.

      I stretch and look around me. Sun streams through the eastern arches of the Colosseum and over the raw, broken pieces of the upper rim. Our blanket is twisted beneath us, the cheese congealing, the disks of bread hard.

      I glance at my watch. Christ, it’s 5:40 in the morning, and I was supposed to be at the room by midnight. Kat and Sin will be asleep, but still, I need to get back.

      I nudge Francesco, clearing my throat to make some sound. What if he’s one of those people who wakes with a start—confused and angry? But no. He brings his hand to his head and groans. His eyes open slowly, like a man with nowhere to be and no commitments.

      “Buon giorno, bella,” he says, fixing his lazy, lidded eyes on me with the look of a cat who’s gotten in the bird cage and plans to stay.

      He pulls me to him and into another kiss. My instincts are to fight it, because John and I have an agreement to always brush our teeth before an a.m. kiss, but Francesco seems to have no such requirement. His tongue seeks mine again, his hands roam, but I keep seeing John curled in his bed.

      “Francesco,” I say, gently pushing his chest with an open hand. “I can’t.”

      “Okay. It’s okay.” He moves a strand of hair that’s hiding my eyes. He gazes at me, and I feel myself being drawn, pulled back to him. I want to be all over him, but my thoughts of John are stubborn in the harsh light of day.

      I don’t explain this to Francesco. How can I?

      “I’ve got to get back,” I say.

      A sharp clang comes from our left, followed by muffled Italian. Our heads jerk in the direction of the sound. About three hundred feet away guards in navy-blue are opening the largest gated entrance.

      Francesco jumps to a crouch, shoving the corked wine bottle, his knife and the errant bread and cheese in the center of the blanket. He gathers the edges and swings the package over his shoulder like a hobo. I’m frantic, tucking my shirt in, smoothing my hair, retrieving my purse.

      Francesco grabs my hand. Bending over like soldiers avoiding an attack, we creep away from the guards and toward the gate we entered the night before. As he rattles and raises the bars for our escape, I take one last glance around, and it dawns on me. I finally have a story for the girls.

      

      I slip onto the back of Francesco’s scooter with much more ease than the night before. I rest my head on his back as he darts through early-morning traffic. The city is quieter now than it was in the night, the antiquity more evident as the new sun spotlights the dirt, the film that covers everything, except those pieces lucky enough to be deemed landmarks and restored. Most of the businesses are still shuttered, but we pass a bakery with an open door, and the scent of baking bread wafts into the street.

      I squeeze Francesco around the waist. He strokes my hand with his fingers. At a light, he glances over his shoulder with a quick smile, making my stomach bounce like a tennis ball. We take a sharp turn and he grabs my thigh, as if to hold me on the bike. His touch makes me flush again. I adore this part. The part where everything is new and electric, where every syllable, gesture and glance count.

      It was that way once with John, wasn’t it? Our meeting two years ago in a smoky bar, packed to the gills, both of us standing directly in front of a band. They were called Beef Express or something like that. One of those names picked at random from the Yellow Pages or the side of a truck. I was watching the band and, at the same time, keeping an eye on the TV airing a college basketball tournament. It was the one sporting event I got enthusiastic about because my alma mater usually kicked ass. Kat was there, too, but she couldn’t have cared less about the game. She’d already met someone.

      “Who’re you rooting for?” John asked with a crooked smile that I would later become intimately familiar with. He was cute in a bookish sort of way—cropped light brown hair, washed-out, greenish eyes, a preppy shirt with every button fastened except the very top.

      “Indiana. Have to root for the Big Ten.”

      “The Big Ten.” He groaned. “You know they’ll choke. They always do.”

      “Fuck off,” I said, but with a light, funny tone and a coy smile. I was a great flirt back then. John and I started talking, going head to head on Big Ten basketball versus other conferences, but after a while there was a pause in the conversation. I acted like I didn’t notice and filled the space with an intent look at the game. The band screeched on about bodies burning in a field.

      “I’m John,” I heard him say when the song ended with a cymbal’s crash.

      I turned to find him stretching out a hand, his crisp blue, button-down shirt turned up at the cuffs. His arm was tan, which surprised me, the hair there golden.

      “Casey,” I said, meeting his hand, trying to make sure my handshake was firm, rather than one of those lame, fingers-only shakes.

      “What do you do for a living?”

      “Northwestern Law School.”

      “You’re a law student, huh?”

      “Yeah,” I said. He moved closer as a waitress jostled him from behind, and he smelled clean, fresh, as if he’d just showered. “What about you?”

      “Lawyer.” He made an embarrassed sort of laugh. “M&A.” And then, as if I might not understand, he added, “Mergers and acquisitions.”

      “I know what M&A means,” I said, sounding a little huffy. In reality, I was trying to cover up how daunted I felt to meet someone roughly my age who actually made a living practicing law.

      “Sure,” he said, coloring a little. “Sorry.”

      “No problem.” I graced him with my best smile. I liked his blushing.

      I heard my name being called and turned to see my friend, P.J., another law student, pointing toward the door. “We’re out of here,” he yelled.

      “Where’s Kat?”

      P.J., who’d been hanging out with СКАЧАТЬ