Chapter 6 Alessandra

Alessandra

Saturday mornings are reserved for sleeping as late as my body will let me, a desperate attempt to make up for all the REM cycles I miss out on by waking up at sunrise to play “Mom” for ten hours a day during the week.

Most weekends, I don’t even bother getting out of my pajamas, spending lazy days sprawled across my bedroom floor, scrolling through travel blogs on my laptop, and dog-earing pages in any one of the dozens of Italian travel guides I have stacked next to the bed. Sure, I love the nightlife in Boston, but fifty hours a week of chasing the little devils I look after warrants a bit of time to recharge and plan my Italian adventure. Well, not to be confused with the Italian adventure that kissed the living daylights out of me last night.

But this Saturday isn’t a day for flipping through travel guides. Since I sacrificed my usual routine of enjoying wine and reality TV with Deanna on Friday for an evening out with one of the richest men in Boston, I promised Deanna a full day of thrift shopping to make up for it.

We’re doing our best to squeeze out every last minute of best-friend time before I board the plane. I’ve never been in a long-distance relationship, but I get the feeling that being an ocean away from Deanna will be similarly taxing. She and I haven’t spent more than a week at a time apart since we met at a foreign-language-department barbecue our freshman year of college. I was there to meet other students in the department, and she was there to snag a free burger.

This is pretty typical of our dynamic. Deanna is spontaneous and bold, the perfect college bestie who dragged me to parties and karaoke nights when I had spent one-too-many weekends with my nose contentedly buried in the pages of Plato or Seneca. She brings out the wilder side of me, the side that does things like buy a one-way ticket to Italy or, apparently, go on a date with a handsome billionaire who was born in a decade that I only know as a theme for a fraternity party.

Deanna’s signature three honks announce her arrival in my driveway as I’m brushing my teeth, still in my pajamas.

Shit. Piling my hair into a messy bun, I throw on leggings and a cozy tee that I stole from her and I’m out the door, not even caring I’m fresh-faced without makeup. Deanna isn’t someone I have to work to impress. She loves me just as I am. It’s pretty much amazing.

“Good morning, sunshine!”

I climb into the passenger seat of her tiny red two-seater and am greeted with some unrecognizable electronic song shaking the whole car. Deanna’s short blonde hair is pushed back in a headband and a gray sweater drapes over her frame, instantly making me feel better about my lazy getup. She sips at her coffee, handing me a matching to-go cup. I take a sip—skim chai latte, my absolute favorite. Can I just take this girl to Italy with me? She’s like the wife I need in my life.

As she shifts the car into reverse, Deanna turns down the music enough that we can talk over it without yelling. “So, spill. How was dinner with the Italian stallion?”

I nearly spit chai latte all over the dashboard. “Oh, my God, I’m not telling you anything if you call him that.”

“Yeah, right.” Deanna rolls her eyes, chuckling.

We haven’t spared each other a single detail of our romantic encounters in all four years of our friendship. She would never let me start now, even if there is something about Quinn that makes me want to keep him all to myself.

“It was great. Like, really great. I’d never been to a restaurant where the prices are so high that they don’t even list them.”

Deanna rolls her eyes. “A little less menu, a little more men. Skip to the good stuff, please.”

I half smile and take a swig of my chai latte, mentally fast-forwarding through an evening of trying to focus on Quinn’s beautiful broken Italian while wishing I was the rim of the wineglass between his lips. I give Deanna what she wants to hear.

“He’s smart, and funny and sweet. Honestly, I have no idea how he’s still single.”

“Yeah, that is sort of weird.” She’s watching the road, but I don’t miss the way her eyes narrow slightly as she thinks it over.

“But it was great talking to someone so intelligent and charming.” Bantering with him in Italian still brings a smile to my face.

Deanna nods, listening.

“And he’s an amazing kisser.”

Slamming the heels of her hands excitedly on the wheel, Deanna accidentally honks her horn a few times. The guy in the minivan at the stoplight next to us looks over, totally confused, but Deanna doesn’t seem to care. As soon as the light turns green, she makes a hard-left turn into the parking lot of our favorite thrift store, letting out an excited squeal.

“Damn, Aly. Making out with a billionaire. I’m so proud. And slightly jealous.”

She parks the car and lets the song finish as we down the rest of our coffees. I put my story on pause for the sake of caffeine. Priorities.

The store is empty other than the woman behind the counter, who seems pretty wrapped up in her sudoku puzzle, so I don’t even bother keeping my voice down as I recount the details of my evening. As we thumb through racks of vintage dresses and faux-leather jackets, I give her the full play-by-play, including every detail from the way Quinn’s chocolate-brown eyes traced my hips when I walked into the restaurant, to the taste of pinot noir on his lower lip. A hot shiver races along my skin at the memory of our kiss. I’d never been kissed like that, so sure and demanding. He knew exactly what he was doing—commanding his body, and in turn, mine.

As I talk, I realize it’s awfully refreshing to tell a story of an encounter with a guy that doesn’t include an unsolicited dick pic or an impressive beer-pong performance.

“I could get used to this older-man thing pretty damn quickly,” I admit, feeling the blood rushing to my cheeks as I say it. I can’t believe I’m so smitten already.

“Like, three weeks quickly?” Deanna tosses a dress at me. It’s black and lacy and ultra-short, erring on the side of lingerie.

“I sort of maybe didn’t mention the moving-to-Italy thing last night,” I confess, holding the dress up to me. “It didn’t really come up.”

“Okay, sure, nowhere in your dinner conversation that was half-spoken in Italian did it come up that you’re moving to Italy. Sounds legit. Go try that on; you’d look hot in it.”

Deanna follows me into the fitting room—we’re way beyond the point of personal boundaries. I throw my clothes in a pile in the corner and step into the dress, which fits better than a glove, more like a second skin. She zips me in and lets out a wolf whistle as we both get a look at my reflection in the mirror. It’s tight in the best kind of way, the stretchy material clinging to my hips and ass, and the black lace frames the perfect amount of cleavage.

“All I’m saying is if I were him and my Italian tutor showed up looking like that, I’d double up on lessons,” Deanna says with a wink.

I imagine myself slipping this on before my next meeting with Quinn, almost certain he would slip it off me before the lesson even started. I do only have three weeks, after all.