One Hot Italian Summer

by Karina Halle

He’s like the sun, where giving him too much attention might be dangerous, and yet your gaze is drawn there anyway.

“Just because you don’t feel it, doesn’t mean that you aren’t.

You feel like an archeologist unearthing dreams.” An archeologist unearthing dreams. I like that.

Or maybe I just want her to look at me that way.

“Stop,” he says quietly. I halt, halfway between him and the veranda. “What?” He holds out his palms as if he’s framing me. “I wish I could paint this.” I look behind me. The veranda’s ochre pillars seem to glow in the evening sun, pink oleander framing the corners. “It is very pretty,” I comment as I look back to him. “You are very pretty,” he says, his voice husky and low, and the compliment makes me feel as if I’ve become unanchored from the ground. “I wish I could paint you. Here. Just as you are.”

“I have a face like a lemon.” I grab my chin. “There’s too much of this.” He bursts into laughter. “A lemon? Well, then you are lucky you are in Italy. We love lemons here.”

“You can talk to me, Grace.” “Why do you want to talk about her?” “Because she is important to you. And if she’s important to you, she’s important to me.”

You already exist, Grace, you just had Robyn bring it out of you. She was an archeologist and you were the dream.”

It’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to not know where you are going. You can always mash it up and start again.”

I’ve been starved for affection for far too long. Now that I’ve had a taste of it, I’m craving it. I’m craving him.

I immediately grab hold of his hair, though that’s probably not what he meant, and he straightens back up, slowly. He does it with so much ease, it’s like I’m not on his back at all. Meanwhile I’m not making it any easier with my wavering back and trying to get a grip on his head. “Sorry, sorry,” I tell him. “Don’t be,” he says. “I like it when you pull my hair.”

“You have goosebumps,” I say quietly. “That song really does it for you.” He glances at his arm and then slowly meets my eyes, giving a small shake of his head. Something in his gaze changes, no longer playful. His smile fades. “No,” he says thickly. “It’s not the song.”

I know I look good. But there’s only one opinion I care about.

“You have no idea how perfect you are,” I whisper. “Your skin. Your bones. Your build. You’re art, Grace. And I think you might be my muse.”

“You ruin nothing. Don’t you see, Grace? You are everything to me. And I have a possessive heart. It wants only you.”

Perhaps we can go one day.” She licks her lips for a moment, then gives a nod. “Aye. There are a lot of one days, aren’t there?” I slip my hand around her waist and pull her toward me, still marveling at how I’m allowed to touch her like this. “One days will always turn into the present, as long as you’re with me,”

She smells like happiness.

She grins. “You’re thinking about me.” I can’t hide from her. That’s the other thing. “I’m always thinking about you,” I tell her. “You’re the first thing I think about when I wake up, and the last thing I think about before I fall asleep. And you’re in every single thought in-between.”

She’s all mine, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to show her off.

“I want you. I want this. Always. Not just for now. I want so much from you that I’m afraid to ask … I don’t even think I’m worthy of asking.” She swallows, staring right back at me, her eyes bright and glassy. They don’t look fearful at all. “What do you want?” she asks after a beat. I place my hands at her heart. I can’t make myself say it but I hope that it’s enough.

I look to Claudio at that, and see him already staring deeply at me. They don’t know that I am his muse, and the fact that I am the muse, that I have the power to create his inspiration and his art, is a thrill that never leaves me.

It’s why I’ve been a pretty awful daughter, friend, and girlfriend.” “I think you’re a wonderful girlfriend,” he says. And he says it so simply, so matter-of-fact, that it takes me a moment to realize what he’s said. “Girlfriend?” I ask. He nods. “That is what you are to me. I can be whatever you want me to be to you: Italian lover, sexy artist, cock machine, but to me, you are my girlfriend.”

Dolcezza? Mi sono infatuato. Ho un debole perte. Mi hai cambiato la vita.”

I just wish she could choose me over her fears.

You have no idea how far your outer beauty bleeds inward.” I exhale, my breath shaky. “I could drown in it. I am drowning in it. Drowning in you.”

I want so badly to give my heart away to her. All of it. Saving none of it for later, unsure of what she’ll do with it. No, I want her to have it all.

“Please. If you find yourself falling in love with me, don’t stop it. Don’t hold back. Don’t deny yourself that. Let yourself love me.”

Fuck it. I’m in love with her.

“You are persistent.” “Only about the things that matter.”

“You’re mine, Grace. More than my muse, more than a lover. I’ve never felt this way before about anything or anyone, and I … I know that if you just trust me, if you give me your heart, I will carry it with me. I will be kind and gentle with it. I will always keep it tucked next to mine. So that whatever happens in the future, it doesn’t matter. I’ll have your heart and you’ll have mine.”

“You’re a good man, Claudio Romano.” “I’m your man,” I tell her. “That is what makes me good.”

Yet the flaws make us who we are. What we’ve been through make us who we are. This life, it’s trial by fire. If we didn’t go through it, we wouldn’t be the people we are today, and we wouldn’t fit like we do right now.

I slide into her with such ease that I know I’ve never belonged so much as I do now.

“You smell like you. It is my favorite smell in the world, did you know that?”

“They are in it because their heart is in it,” Claudio says. “And your heart can convince you to do anything.”

don’t want to just give him my body, I want to give him my heart and soul and every other piece of me.

I am his, and he is mine. Inspired, desired, and completely in love.