Kissing in Italian Quotes

“I realize I’m imagining myself here: assuming that I’ll be in Italy, at the castello. That they’ll be coming to visit me as I paint in this room, Fiammetta’s turret, mine now. Maybe I’ll get a cat, like her, I think with a smile. I’ve always liked cats.
Sensing that my thoughts have strayed from him, Luca pulls me even closer, kisses me again possessively.
I think I will be here, I decide. And I think they’ll all come to visit me and Luca. That this Italian summer has made friends of the four of us girls for life.
Who knows exactly what the future will bring? I’ve had so many surprises over these last few weeks that I’ve learned it’s very hard to predict anything. But one thing I do believe with all my heart: that Luca and I will make our future together.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“No more past. I study the future, okay?” He kisses me, so sweetly my heart melts. “Only the future.”
I know I’m looking up at him with stars in my eyes, and I don’t care. I love that, at last, I can show Luca exactly how I feel, and he can do the same. We’re free. Finally, we’re free.
“The future is here in this room, Violetta,” he says to me. “Questo è il nostro futuro.”
“This is our future.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“You’re learning the past tense.” He’s distracting me with his kisses, but I push on. “Of course you have to learn it, but do you see what I mean? It’s all been about the past! I’m sick of it! And not even our past, stuff we did--things that happened before we were born! I’m so over the past!”
I’m panting with the conviction with which I say this, the words pouring out of me. I mean it with every bone in my body. Enough with the past. Enough of Luca andme suffering for other people’s mistakes. We need to be free of them now, to start our own lives.
To try to get things right.
“Basta con il passato,” I say in Italian for good measure. To make things absolutely clear.
“Va bene,” Luca says, wrapping his arms around me, pulling me close. “No more past. I study the future, okay?” He kisses me, so sweetly my heart melts. “Only the future.”
I know I’m looking up at him with stars in my eyes, and I don’t care. I love that, at last, I can show Luca exactly how I feel, and he can do the same. We’re free. Finally, we’re free.
“The future is here in this room, Violetta,” he says to me. “Questo è il nostro futuro.”
“This is our future.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“You have to be more cheerful,” I tell him. “Sometimes I think you think it’s cool to be, you know, gloomy and brooding. You need to tone that down from now on. Smile more.”
Luca’s eyes spark bright with amusement.
“You are very good for me, Violetta,” he says, taking my hands and kissing them. “You make me happy. You make me smile. You are the only girl that does this for me.”
“I hope so!” I blurt out.
“Eh, si,” he says. “Ti prometto. The only girl. I stop smoking because you tell me to.”
“I saw you weren’t smoking,” I say. “But I didn’t want to believe…”
“I tell you, I stop,” he says. Then he tuts. “I tooold you,” he corrects himself. “I need to do the passato. The--past?”
“The past tense,” I say. Then I shake my head. “That’s funny. I mean, ironic funny.”
“Cosa?” He kisses my fingertips, one by one.
“You’re learning the past tense.” He’s distracting me with his kisses, but I push on. “Of course you have to learn it, but do you see what I mean? It’s all been about the past! I’m sick of it! And not even our past, stuff we did--things that happened before we were born! I’m so over the past!”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“You realize that truly,” Luca says to me very seriously, “truly, this is all yours?”
He waves around him, and I know that he doesn’t just mean the room. He means the castello, the land around it, the vineyards, and, extending outward even more, the di Vesperi holdings over Italy; the house in Florence, and probably quite a lot more that I don’t know about.
“You are the di Vesperi here,” he points out. “Not me. I am just a bastard di Meglio.”
“Hey,” I say, not wanting him to be too gloomy. “I’m a bastard too.”
“Bastardi insieme,” he says, hugging me. “We are bastards together.”
“Okay, stop with the bastard stuff,” I say. “Enough. You do this sometimes, you get all dark and unnecessary.”
I frown up at him.
“You have to be more cheerful,” I tell him. “Sometimes I think you think it’s cool to be, you know, gloomy and brooding. You need to tone that down from now on. Smile more.”
Luca’s eyes spark bright with amusement.
“You are very good for me, Violetta,” he says, taking my hands and kissing them. “You make me happy. You make me smile. You are the only girl that does this for me.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“My mum and dad are my parents. I don’t even like saying ‘biological parents.’”
Luca’s hands reach up so he can lace his fingers through mine.
“Oh, carina,” he says consolingly against my hair. I’m so glad I washed it this morning.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Ma chi l’avrebbe detto che la vita/ ci travolgeva come hai fatto tu. Tu m’hai aperto come una ferita-sto sanguinando ma non ti lascio più,’” he quotes.
“‘Who would have said that life--’” I start, but that’s as far as I get.
“‘That life turns us upside down,’” Luca says, “‘like you did to me. You open me like a wound. I am bleeding, but I don’t leave you anymore.’”
“Luca!” I exclaim in horror, and his body starts to shake with laughter.
“You remember? I say Jovanotti’s songs, they are not always pretty,” he tells me. “But they are true.”
“Still, a wound…”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“You remember that song by Jovanotti I say to you, in the river?” he asks.
“Yes!” I swivel a little to look at him. “I looked it up, but I couldn’t find it.”
“‘La Valigia,’” he says. “The suitcase. The boy is a suitcase, he travels all around, but only one person, the girl, knows how to open the lucchetto.”
“The lock,” I translate, suffused with happiness at this.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“So!” he says, much later. We’re sitting on the floor now. The windowsill is narrow and uncomfortable. We don’t care that we may be getting splinters in our bums from the floorboards.
We’re curled up, me sitting between Luca’s legs, his arms wrapped around my waist, mine around his. His head is leaning on mine, and he’s kissing my hair.
“You remember that song by Jovanotti I say to you, in the river?” he asks.
“Yes!” I swivel a little to look at him. “I looked it up, but I couldn’t find it.”
“‘La Valigia,’” he says. “The suitcase. The boy is a suitcase, he travels all around, but only one person, the girl, knows how to open the lucchetto.”
“The lock,” I translate, suffused with happiness at this.
“‘Ma chi l’avrebbe detto che la vita/ ci travolgeva come hai fatto tu. Tu m’hai aperto come una ferita-sto sanguinando ma non ti lascio più,’” he quotes.
“‘Who would have said that life--’” I start, but that’s as far as I get.
“‘That life turns us upside down,’” Luca says, “‘like you did to me. You open me like a wound. I am bleeding, but I don’t leave you anymore.’”
“Luca!” I exclaim in horror, and his body starts to shake with laughter.
“You remember? I say Jovanotti’s songs, they are not always pretty,” he tells me. “But they are true.”
“Still, a wound…”
“You are half Italian, Violetta,” he points out. “You must understand us. We are more…” He looks for the right word. “Dramatic,” he concludes. “Esagerati.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“The release for Luca is strong. He grabs me, pulls me toward him, embraces me so tightly that I’m half on his lap. He’s crying and laughing, his arms around me. I reach up, twine my hands around his neck, realize that I’m crying too, laughing too. We stare at each other. Luca’s palms cup my face, his thumbs stroking my jawline gently as he looks at me, and I can’t bear being so close to him and not kissing him. I pull his head down and kiss him, his face, his lips, his eyes, kissing away every single tear, which takes ages, because we’re both still crying. His eyelashes are damp on his cheeks, his mouth soft, his hair silky, his hands, sliding down my back, lifting me and settling me fully on his lap, warm now, making me shiver with excitement.
And gradually, through the kissing, I realize that the laughter is stronger than the crying. We keep pausing just to look at each other and smile. Luca tilts his head toward me, rests his forehead on mine, whispers:
“Violetta, Violetta…from the first moment I see you…”
“Me too,” I whisper back. “Me too.”
And then we kiss again, and neither of us says a word for a long, long time.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“But I see one thing, very important. I see that Luca is not smoking no more. I say to ’im, ‘I am very ’appy that you do not smoke.’ And ’e says, ‘It is Violetta. She tell me not to smoke, she say it is schifoso. So I stop.”
I think about this. Luca not only gave up smoking because I didn’t like it; he told his mother that I was the reason he did it. That I was important enough to him for him to listen to me. It gives me the bravery the principessa lacks.
“Let me tell Luca,” I offer.
The principessa leans toward me, her blue eyes--blue as Luca’s--fixed on my face.
“Oh, wonderful! You are good for ’im,” she says earnestly. “You ’elp ’im. ’E listens to you. I know that if you tell ’im this, ’e will listen. And then I will come to see ’im when ’e knows. Please. I am not brave like you. And Luca--ti vuole bene. Ti vuole veramente bene.”
“He cares about you. He truly cares about you.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“I take the search systematically, starting with the picture gallery, covering the south wing first, where there are a lot of public rooms. I don’t want to run around calling his name; but as I find myself pushing open the double doors that obviously lead to the family’s private quarters, I decide that, if I won’t call out for him, I’ll knock on every closed door. The last thing I want is to barge in on Luca doing something private and start this massively important conversation on a completely wrong note.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Il signore?” I ask. “Luca? Dov’è?”
“Where’s Luca?” I’m asking. I’m so close. I’m trembling as she says:
Non lo so, signorina. Mi dispiace.”
She doesn’t know: oh well. I don’t care if I have to comb the entire castle for him.
“Prova su di sopra,” she adds, jabbing the ceiling with her duster; he’s somewhere upstairs.
Oh well, that narrows it down. Only about twenty thousand square feet to search, rather than thirty thousand.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“L’amore è bello.”
Love is beautiful.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“I’m engaged,” she says.
The train jolts. My elbows bounce painfully on the table. And I barely even notice. I’m staring at Paige, who looks positively transformed; she’s glowing. Her face is prettier, more gentle, than I’ve ever seen it.
“My folks are completely against it, of course,” she says calmly. “They say we’re much too young. Which is way hypocritical, ’cause Mom was twenty-three when she had Evan. But you know, blah blah blah, I have to go to college and have a life and date a lot before I’m ready to settle down, and you know what? I want to go to college and have a life, I just don’t want to date a lot! I want to be with Miguel.”
I’m so taken aback by all this that I focus on the least important part of her entire speech.
“Miguel?” I echo. “Is he Spanish?”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“The orchestra’s still playing a waltz, and Evan says to me:
“Violet, do you want to dance?”
I know he’s pitched it so Luca can hear; I see Luca’s shoulders stiffen. Because of course, I’m looking at him, not at Evan.
“I’m a bit knackered from all that running around,” I lie. “Another time.”
And I smile up at Evan, because he’s really nice, and because he likes me, and because I have to stop obsessing about Luca, about how much I would like it to be Luca asking me to dance…
“Stu?” Andi says to him wistfully. “Just this once?”
“Oh, Ev!” Stu says to his friend reproachfully. “You had to go ask a girl to dance! Now you’ve dropped me in it!”
“Sorry, dude,” Evan says, not sounding remotely remorseful.
“Stu,” Andi wails to her boyfriend. “It’s so romantic…”
“Jeez, Andi,” Stu says, wrapping his arm around her. “You know guys only dance with chicks to get--uh, to get to know them. Once you’ve, uh, got to know them, you don’t need to dance anymore. Right, Ev?”
Evan falls back, and Stu emits an “Oof” that sounds as if Evan’s smacked him on the head.
“Dropped you in it right back, buddy!” Stu says cheerfully.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Shall we go get gelato to celebrate?” Stu asks.
“Yeah! Gelato!” Andi says enthusiastically. “We’ve been eating gelato all over Italy, haven’t we, Stu? What’s the best place to get some in Venice?”
“Near here, it is Gelato Fantasy,” Luca says. “I can take you.”
“Don’t you need to get back to the airport?” Evan says, the first time he’s spoken since Luca and Kelly got out of the water taxi. “I mean, if you’ve got somewhere you need to be…”
Luca turns to flash him the most dazzling of smiles, pushing back his black hair with his long pale fingers.
“Ma no!” he says, so charmingly that I know he’s being totally fake. “Per niente! Now it is too late, my flight has gone. And I am very happy to show you all where to find some good gelato. Andiamo!”
“Wow,” Andi sighs as Luca leads us into the piazza. “Luca’s hot. I mean, I love you, Stu, but that’s just how I pictured Italian men. So handsome and sophisticated.”
“He’s a prince, too!” Paige says enthusiastically.
“Oh my God, you’re kidding!” Andi exclaims. “Kelly, you got rescued by a prince! That’s crazy!”
“I was so lucky he was at the airport,” Kelly says in heartfelt tones. “I don’t know what I’d’ve done without him.”
“We’d have turned up!” I say, for some reason finding it almost intolerable to hear Luca praised to the skies. “Kendra would’ve got a taxi, and we’d have come and found you. You would’ve been okay.”
“I’m just saying he was really nice,” Kelly says quietly to me.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Hey,” Andi says as we pass the Alilaguna stop on our way back to Piazza San Marco. “I just figured out what ‘Alilaguna’ means: ‘Wings of the Lagoon.’ I love that! Doesn’t it sound like a romance novel?”
“Totally!” Paige agrees enthusiastically.
“Wings of the Lagoon!” Andi continues. “A beautiful American girl comes to Venice in the nineteenth century and gets swept away by a handsome gondolier…”
“Only her rich and powerful parents are way too snobby to allow them to date…,” Kendra chimes in.
“So they run away together in the gondola,” Andi says, “but get caught up in a terrible storm…”
“And her parents think they’re dead…,” Kendra adds.
“So they send out a search party and find them floating in the gondola, arms wrapped around each other,” Kelly suggests. “Still alive, but barely…”
“And the parents forgive her and say they can be together…,” Andi says.
“And then it turns out he’s the son of a Venetian duke who was going to have an arranged marriage, but he ran away to be a gondolier ’cause he wanted to find a girl who loved him for himself…” Kelly’s voice is getting stronger and more confident.
“And they both live happily ever after!” Paige carols happily. “I love this story!”
She, Kelly, Andi, and Kendra exchange high fives.
“It’s nice when a story has a happy ending,” Luca says softly in my ear. I hadn’t realized he was so close to me. “In real life, it’s not so easy…”
I swallow hard at the sound of his voice, at his words. All I can do is shake my head vehemently. No. It’s not so easy. You come to Italy and meet the son of a Florentine prince and you don’t live happily ever after. Not at all.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“I’m sorry I was such a cow this afternoon, Violet,” Kelly says to me. “It was really nice of you to eat my pasta.”
“Paige put hers in her napkin,” I say.
“Oh really?” Kelly manages a giggle. “I should do that next time.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“I’m a dog in the manger. I can’t have him myself but I don’t want anyone else to have him either.
Wow. The more I learn about myself, the more selfish I turn out to be.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Seeing Luca like this is like something slammed into my chest. I didn’t know if I would ever see him again; if bringing us to Venice was to keep me away from the di Vesperi family. For all I knew, Catia would make sure we didn’t ever go back to Villa Barbiano. I had done my best to convince myself that we would never meet again, to tell myself I was okay with it.
And now I’m faced with the fact that I’ve been lying to myself. I wasn’t okay with it at all.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Bygones are gone. That’s not right, is it?”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Luca and I can’t say a word: we’re staring at each other, tongue-tied. It’s Kendra who exclaims:
“Kelly! I’m so glad you came back!” so sincerely that Kelly promptly bursts into tears.
“Madonna,” Luca drawls, recovering his usual worldly-wise pose. “I spend such a long time making her calm, and now you make her cry all over again. Grazie tante.”
“Kelly!” Paige, thundering up behind us, crashes past me and Kendra, throwing herself on Kelly. “Yay! You came back! OMG, we were soo worried! Kendra was going to pay for a taxi to the airport to try to find you!”
“Really?” Kelly sobs. “Really, she was?”
“Yes!” Paige hugs her. “It’s all okay. Bygones are gone. That’s not right, is it? Anyway, you’re back! Hooray!”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Luca looks up, sees us, and stops dead. For a brief moment he stares at me, and, taken completely by surprise, without a chance to compose his usual cynical, careless expression, I can see his true emotions. He’s looking at me with so much longing in his blue eyes that if this were the end of a romantic film I would be tearing across the few feet of pier that separate us, throwing myself into his arms, knowing that they would lock tightly around me and his mouth would come down on mine.
I know then that my attraction to Evan, nice, down-to-earth Evan, is nothing compared to what I feel for Luca. Evan’s come up behind us, towering over me, solid and secure. I must be the biggest idiot in the world to prefer Luca, sarcastic, shrugging, dismissive, moody Luca, to sweet, even-tempered Evan. But I can’t help it. I learn in that moment that you can be attracted to more than one boy at a time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Not if, when you look into the eyes of the boy who means the world to you, you know with absolute certainty that he’s the one.
Luca is the one. And from the way he’s gazing at me, I know with equal certainty that he feels the same. That I’m the one for him, as much as he is for me.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Why did she run off like this?” he asks. “She seemed like she was having a good time! Did you girls have a fight?”
Evan’s not an idiot. He hasn’t grown up with Paige without knowing how girls can pull and tear and rip at each other till they can make their victim feel like they’re going insane.
And suddenly, there’s nothing more important to me than Evan knowing I’m not like that. I’m not one of those girls.
“She didn’t fight with me!” I say as fast as my pattering feet. “I even ate all her mussel pasta at lunch so she wouldn’t have to!”
Evan laughs. “That was nice of you.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Yay!” Paige is caroling in my ear, and I jump.
“Evan’s here!” she sings. I keep saying that Paige sings, carols, yodels, and she really does. She can’t actually carry a tune, but the enthusiasm with which she communicates makes her voice go up and down so much that it’s weirdly melodic.
“Here at the palazzo?” I ask, dropping the cue on the table and turning to look at her.
“Here in Venice! Cool, huh? He met his friends and they all decided to come see us! I mean, who doesn’t want to come to Venice?”
“Kelly and Kendra,” I say sarcastically.
“Ha!” She rolls her big brown eyes. “Okay, apart from those losers!”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“In Britain, it’s kind of an old-guy thing to do,” I explain as she gleefully chalks up a cue stick.
“You’re kidding! We have them in all the bars where I live.” She pantomimes a big theatrical wink. “Not that I’ve been in any, of course. Here, I’ll teach you to play pool. Though ‘snooker’ is a really cool word. Snooker!” she says, and it sounds hilarious in her accent.
Who’d have thought it--me and Paige. If not BFFs, we’re certainly BFTs. Best Temporary Friends. I certainly didn’t see that coming. But we’re united, at least, in refusing to withdraw into the kind of slump that both Kendra and Kelly are indulging in. It may be unfair of me, but I think it’s selfish of them. We’re all in this together, away from home, and though the group could cope with one of the four throwing a wobbly, two is unquestionably a downer.
Thank goodness, Paige teaching me pool is a lot of fun, especially as she keeps showing me how guys put their arms around girls from behind to do what I call copping a feel and she calls doing a booty rub. We laugh, a lot. We laugh so much that Paige’s mobile rings four times before we hear it, and she only just answers it before it goes to voice mail.
“Hey, Ev! No, I wasn’t ignoring you--Violet and I were playing pool. She calls it snooker! Isn’t that such a great word?”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“But she’s reading the email over and over again and playing Adele and Amy Winehouse,” Paige reveals.
"Adele and Amy Winehouse? Oh no. We’d better keep an eye on her,” I say grimly.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“Hey,” I say back.
“How’s yours?” she asks.
“Crying. How’s yours?”
“Oh boy.” She pulls a face. “She got this email from him. Saying he loves her and that she’s the only one.”
I scowl. “The only one? After his wife and that girl from two years ago?”
“I know, right? The only one right now. Or when he was writing the email. Pig.” Paige is scowling too. “So she’s all psyched up again. I swear, it’s pathetic.”
“His wife’s pregnant,” I say hopelessly, because it seems to me such a huge deal--another baby coming!--that it should stop dead any debate Kendra’s having with herself about whether she should believe Luigi.
“I know! But she’s reading the email over and over again and playing Adele and Amy Winehouse,” Paige reveals.
“Adele and Amy Winehouse? Oh no. We’d better keep an eye on her,” I say grimly.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian

“You’re still hungry?” I mutter to her. “You ate everything!”
“Are you kidding?” she hisses back. “I dumped it all in my napkin!”
“Oh, I wish I’d thought of that! I had to have Kelly’s as well as my own!”
“This had better not keep up,” she says grimly. “I’m going to need some pizza soon.”
― Lauren Henderson, Kissing in Italian