Not Looking for Love: Episode 6 (A New Adult Contemporary Romance Novel) (19 page)

I haven't been to Venice in years, not since Junior High, when I came here with my parents and Gran. I do still remember all the tiny streets and bridges like I never left. Leo gives me a long tour the first night we're there, right after I deposit my bags at my hotel on the Lido, a small island off Venice where the summer school will actually take place.
 

As the novelty starts wearing off, I begin to notice all the couples. Holding hands as they stroll down narrow streets, embracing on the gondolas, kissing on bridges. Each time I see my reflection in a shop window my heart skips a beat, because I want to see Scott with me that much. But I only see Leo. Scott would love it here. I think. Sure he'd make his smart ass remarks about everything, but he'd like it, I'm sure he would.
 

Leo grabs my arm and pulls me to the stone railing of a bridge, whipping out his phone. "This is a great place for a picture," he says, and positions the phone so both our faces are on the screen. He's not much taller than me, so we both fit nicely onto the screen. Taking selfies like this with Scott was always a nightmare, since he's so tall. But I got some good ones. That I still haven't deleted. Maybe I should. Tonight. Then maybe I'd finally start to stop thinking about him.

Leo snaps the picture just as I think it, and I hate the way my face looks, all startled, stuck somewhere between mad and sad. I take the phone from him and delete the picture, snapping another one, forcing a wide smile as I do.

"Much better," I say, handing him back the phone. "Send it to me."
 

He's still got his arm around my shoulders, and it's too heavy like he's pressing me into the ground. Scott's arm was never too heavy.

No. I have to stop this. Scott is thousands of miles away, and probably never thinks of me at all. I can't keep thinking of him.

Leo and me share a very nice bottle of wine in a bustling square later, but by then I'm yawning, wondering if I'll even be able to stay awake on the boat ride back to my hotel.

"I'll see you tomorrow," I tell Leo in front of my hotel. He wanted to walk me here, even though he's staying with friends all the way on the other side of the island.

He moves in to kiss my cheeks, his hand resting on my lower back, too low to be just friendly. I wish he'd just let me go. Which he does eventually, once he realizes there won’t be an actual kiss goodnight without me having to tell him.
 

I'm too sleepy to fight off the thought of how nice it would be standing here with Scott, his strong arms around me, the sea breeze messing up my hair. I fall asleep with the thought, but I don't dream it. Which is for the best.

"This is sheer lunacy," Greg says, rolling down his window and spitting out. "Vlado is insane for wanting to hit these crazy Albanians."

"Why is he doing it then?" I ask.

It's one AM, and we're parked outside a warehouse complex, which is mostly dark except for the circle of light spilling on a group of dark haired men, smoking and talking loudly. The black water of the East River glistens in the moonlight behind them.

"Some score he's been trying to settle for as long as I've known him," Greg says, lighting another cigarette. I hope the men in front of the warehouse don't notice the gleam. But the windows of my new car are tinted, and at least Greg has the sense to keep it rolled up. Now all I have to do is make him stop smoking in my car. Which is proving an impossible task. I swear he smokes three packs a day and thinks lung cancer is bullshit. I'm sure Gail could tell him a thing or two about that. With her mom dying of it.
 

I can't believe how fast the sinking, soft loving feeling is back in my stomach the second I think of her name. It's been months since I last saw her. This shit is supposed to be getting easier. I'm supposed to be getting over her, or at least starting to forget. But that's proving to be bullshit wishful thinking. I still can't even think of another girl, can't even jack off to porn unless the girl looks like her. And I'm running out of videos of long hair brunettes with big boobs.

"I don't know how he expects to get in here," Greg says, tearing right though my vision of Gail slipping off her bra. "Or for us to get anything out."

I clear my throat and peer at the chain link fence surrounding the compound. It shines in the moonlight too, like it's brand new.

"What happened to "Trust Vlado"?" I ask. It's what Greg's forever saying when I'm nervous about a job.

"In this, I think he's lost his mind," Greg says, lighting a new cigarette off his last one. "His feud with the Albanians is plain stupid. We can get those same cars way easier than this."

"What's the feud about?" I ask. Hope's bubbling in my chest now, no matter how hard I want to squash it. If Vlado goes down, Mike goes down too. But I can't base anything on just Greg's rumors. Else I'll just be where I started four months ago, staring out my window and wondering if it even hurts hitting the sidewalk from such a height.
 

"Some hookers,” Greg explains. "It's what they fell out over. The Albanians tried to double cross Vlado and steal it. So Vlado sank it. The whole container lost."

"Lost as in—"

"Dead, yeah," Greg says. "Makes me sick."

"And Vlado did that just to get back at this guy?"
 

Greg shrugs. "You sound like you don't know the level of psycho that man is. And he's gotten even worse over the years. He also lost a lot of face with that deal. Never got over it."

Greg has little love for Vlado, though you wouldn't see it from the way the old man trusts him so much. I still haven't figured out the reason for it, nor found a way to ask.

I start the engine, but keep the lights off. I can't shake the thought of all those girls suffocating to death, feel it so real I can't breathe.

"There must be a back way in," I mutter and drive off slowly. All the men who were smoking have gone back inside one of the warehouses, and we're too far from the fence for the CCTV to pick us up. I just want to get this reconnaissance over with and go back home.
 

There's no other gate anywhere along the fence. This is either going down through the main gate or on the way to the harbor. Either way, it seems impossible.

"So I guess it's back to the drawing board," Greg says as I point this out. "Maybe you can convince Vlado to not take this on. Have one of your famous sixth sense feelings about it, or something."

It's a joke to Greg, the way I made everyone bail on that job. And there's no way to prove I was right, so I guess I'll just have to hope I’ll live it down eventually. And that might not be so far from now after all.

“No way,” I reply. “He’s too set on it.”

“I’m afraid you might be right about that.”

He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the drive, his face stony and expressionless.

"You coming over?" I ask as we get into the elevator in our building. He mutters something about having to get up early, so I just shrug pushing the button for his floor too.

"I'm actually taking Sofija to the beach," he says. "You wanna come?"

It takes me a second to place the name. "Your daughter?"

"She's not my daughter yet," he says, fiddling with his pack of cigarettes. "But the adoption should come through soon."

I look at him, waiting for an explanation, but he's staring up at the floor numbers flashing by, and I don't think it's gonna happen. He never asks about my past, so I steer clear of asking about his.

"So like a date you mean?" I ask instead. "Two daddies and their little girl out for a fun day at the beach."

He cracks a smile, but his eyes are still dead serious. "You wish."

"Not really," I say. "Thanks for the invite though, but I'll pass."

I haven't been to the beach yet this summer, and I don't think I will for the rest of it. Lately, I sleep the whole day anyway, since I can't get to sleep before dawn. I've tried pills and I've tried booze, but somehow sunlight is the only thing that lets me sleep. Which will likely be the case tonight too.

I'd expected to feel somewhat like an outsider at this summer school, seeing as the students are all from the EU, the Middle East or Africa, and I’m the only American. But I wasn't really prepared for just how easy it would be for all of them to criticize Americans. Maybe I'm being over sensitive, but it didn't take them long to start complaining about the death penalty and the US acting like a super power. As though I can stop either.
 

I actually cried myself to sleep the first and second night, until my pillow was all wet. Scott would know just what to say to all the snide remarks. He'd tell me what to say to get them off my back, or at least comfort me so it wouldn't be so hard to face it all each morning. Or tell me I'm just being over-sensitive, and I'd believe him.

Which only made me cry harder, because Scott's not here, and I just spent the whole two days wishing he was, and falling asleep to fantasies of us walking along the beach, discovering all the little nooks and crannies of Venice.

"Don't take it personally," the Greek girl Joanna says to me during break on the third day. "It's just the lay of the land."

"I'd actually expected more willingness to cooperate," I reply, taking a sip of my coffee. It's from a machine and tastes foul, but I didn't get to sleep until well past four.

"If we could all cooperate, half the things we're learning would probably not be necessary," she says and laughs, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

I chuckle too. "I suppose."

A Bulgarian girl joins us.
 

"I had expected this to be more professional," she says.
 

"At least the venue is nice," I offer. And it really is. The classes are taking place in a converted monastery, and I'm pretty sure the main classroom used to be the church part of it.
 

I relax a little after that, and start making friends, but by the second week, I'm seriously considering abandoning the whole thing and going back home. The lecturers are not well prepared at all, the practical parts are really just long debates about everything and nothing, and everyone is more interested in going for drinks.
 

But mostly it's because half the time, I'm just thinking about Scott and how we could have made a vacation of it here, on these sandy shores, in this romantic city. Yet I've never yet abandoned any form of study I've started, and I'm not about to start now.
 

"How about we go to the beach?" Leo asks when he calls on Saturday morning. I've avoided being alone with him by either claiming I was too tired, or making sure we were part of a bigger group when we did go out.
 

"Sure," I say. Mostly because I've dreamt about Scott again and it needs to stop. I like Leo, he's great to talk to, I just wish he would stop looking at me like he wants to kiss me all the time.

He's already waiting for me in the lobby when I come down. I took way too long getting ready, trying to find something suitable for the beach, but not too revealing at the same time. I settled for a dress in the end, even though it's not exactly beach attire. But at least the neckline is high. It doesn't stop Leo from almost swallowing me with his eyes as I join him on the terrace. That, coupled with the remnants of my dream of lying on the sandy beach in Scott's arms, sends a pleasant jolt of desire through my stomach. But I recognize it for what it is. Me liking the fact that he likes me. It's not a mutual thing, I still don't want him to touch me.