A Place in the Sun

by R.S. Grey

“Then why on Earth are you in Italy?” “To find love, of course.”

At twenty-six, I obviously wasn’t a spinster, but I was becoming a bit lonely. I hadn’t ever experienced a gut-clenching, obsessive, swoony kind of romance.

“Fine, okay. Preferably he would like to read.

I wasn’t so shocked to see her sitting precariously on the boulders as I was by the unnerving notion that I should join her. I didn’t like the idea of her sitting there alone.

I knew it was loads easier to crumble under the weight of grief than it was to stand up with it on your back, but every day you carry it forward you get stronger and stronger, and eventually it doesn’t feel as heavy as it once did.

Our lips melted together as he kissed me. Hard. Aggressive. Impatient. If kisses could kill, ours would have.

When she smiled, the world smiled with her, and more than once, I found myself wishing I was the man she deserved to be with, the one she had come to Italy to find.

There’s a difference between losing a loved one and losing a person you’re in love with.

After all, it’d been five years since I’d felt a woman I loved on top of me.

“Light of my eyes.”

Witnessing his love for Allie was a good thing because it made me realize what I wanted: for someone to love me the way he still loved her.

To have her love and attention was like standing beneath the scorching sun on a summer day: suffocating and sustaining all at once.