by Tracey Ward
She nods sympathetically, watching my stylist return and hand me a cup of water. “That happens a lot with an enlisted man. You have to be flexible, ready for anything at any time.”
“How do you plan a life around that?”
She chuckles. “You don’t. You can’t.”
My lips pinch together tightly. “I’m not good at that,” I murmur.
“Good at what?”
“Not knowing.
“Ken told me you’re having trouble planning your future.”
My head jerks toward her, making my stylist sigh with annoyance. “He did? He told you that?”
“Please don’t be mad at him,” she implores. “He wasn’t gossiping or complaining. He told me because he was worried about you. He wants you to find what will make you happy, not what other people want you to do.”
I chuckle unhappily. “At this point, I’d take making other people happy.”
“What do you enjoy?”
“Lately? Jax. He’s what makes me happier than anything else.” I grin, feeling embarrassed and silly. “But I can’t make a career out of loving him.”
“Why not? I made a career of loving Bill. And my children.”
“I’m… I’m not sure if…”
She smiles. “You’re not sure if being a wife and mother is the career you’re looking for?”
“Maybe,” I admit, worried I’ve offended her.
She sighs. “I don’t envy young women today. You and Amber, you don’t have it easy. People expect you to marry, to be a wife, to have children, to be a mother, to get an education, to find a career. If you don’t work, you’re considered a kept woman—feeble-minded and archaic, your only purpose to birth babies and make dinner for your man. If you work, you’re neglectful. You’re pawning your children off on others to raise them and sacrificing that maternal bond for the love of money or your own selfish need to have a life of your own outside your family. You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”
I grin. “Was there advice in there somewhere?”
“No,” she laughs. “Only an observation. Just my way of saying that I understand. Do you want my advice?”
“Absolutely.”
“All right. Here it is: Life is long and it never looks the way you imagined it would. You think you’re at the starting line of a race right now, but you’re not. The race began before you could even comprehend it and where you’re at is just another leg of it, one that will take you through hills and valleys no matter how you run it. But I promise you that if you follow your heart, there are no wrong turns. Don’t read the mile markers, pay no attention to the signs trying to direct you. Make the choices that are right for you right now and leave the rest for later, because later might never come.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
We’re lost.
We took a plane, then a bus, then a ferry, and there are more islands in the area around Venice than we expected, and we’re lost. The schedule for the ferries that travel between each island are confusing as balls. I can’t make heads or tails of them. It should be easy! We navigated the London Underground, figured out the buses in France and Dublin. How hard is a transit schedule?
Fucking hard, that’s the answer.
“We should ask for directions,” Jax suggests, glancing around.
“Do you suddenly speak Italian?”
“No, but you speak Spanish.”
“Not totally the same thing,” I remind him slowly.
He shrugs. “Close enough. Romance language, right?”
“Yeah, but so is French. Doesn’t mean I speak French.”
“You’ve gotta admit that Spanish is closer to Italian than French.”
I groan, shifting my backpack on my aching shoulders. “All right, I’ll give it a try.”
“Go for that table of old guys over there at the café.”
“Why them?”
“Because you’re young and pretty and they’ll love you.”
I narrow my eyes at him, suddenly remembering the table of Italians at Oktoberfest. The ones he saved me from. “You want me to ask for directions because I’m a girl, not because I speak Spanish, don’t you?”
“No,” he lies.
I watch him intently, not blinking.
“All right, yes. People are more likely to help a lost girl than a lost guy.”
“Not if you walked up to a bunch of young Italian girls. I promise you that this,” I say, gesturing to his height, his dark hair, his impossibly blue eyes, “will get a better reaction than what I got going on.”
“If we see a gaggle of girls I’ll ask them. For now we have these guys.”
“Gaggle?”
He pushes on my back lightly. “Just go.”
I walk reluctantly forward, my pride prickling on my skin in angry bursts. They see me coming and I smile, gaining a round of smiles in return.
“Scusi,” I say, because that and ciao are the two Italian words every person on the entire planet knows. I’ve officially used half of my functioning vocabulary. “Que ist el nombre de este isla?”
I’m pretty sure I just spoke a weird mix of Latin and Spanish to a group of Italians. This is going so well!
One of them responds far too fast for me to understand. I pinch my brows, shaking my head. “Mas despasio?”
He gets the gist of what I’m trying to say and slows his words down. I think he’s asking me where I’m trying to go.
“Murano,” I answer.
The entire table lights up with understanding, then it devolves into a mass of directions. They all point the same way, back the way we came, and I understand nothing except for the fact that this is not the island of Murano. They continue to tell me directions, some of it is numbers, and I’m guessing I’m being told which ferries to take to get where I need to go.
I retain absolutely none of it.
“You’re trying to get to Murano, yes?”
A waiter for the café has overheard us and bless his beautiful brown eyes, he speaks English.
“Yes,” I tell him eagerly. “Yes, we’re trying to get to Murano.”
He smiles graciously and points the same way the older gentlemen had, back toward the ferries. “Take one more ferry. You are almost there. You get off too early.”
“Thank you so much!” I turn to the table of gentlemen who tried to help me and smile brightly at them. “Grazi!”
Strike that: I know three words of Italian. Add in the food items I can pronounce and I’m nearly fluent.
Jax and I make a dash for the ferries, still not sure if they close for the night at any point, and we get on the next one heading out. The sun is nearly set when we reach Murano, a large sign telling us plainly that we made it to the right place. We finally reach our hotel, drag the poor owner out of his home to check us in, and head up to our room. The key isn’t a card like you find at pretty much every hotel in the States. It’s old and made of metal, attached to a beautiful swirling piece of glass made up of greens, blues, and golds that remind me of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. It’s old and kind of romantic.
When we finally close the door behind us, we’re exhausted. We don’t even bother turning on the TV or getting under the covers. Instead we collapse on the bed, backs pressed together, and we fall asleep to the sound of the water on the canals coming in through the high open window.
***
The next day is spent seeing the city. It’s amazing. It’s so ancient and beautiful and breathtaking. It’s nothing like Paris was. Both are very touristy, but there’s something about Italy that feels different from France. It feels more raw. Less pretentious and much more historic.
Jax tries to get me to ride a gondola with him, but I refuse. It’s another romantic moment, a snapshot from a millions movies. I don’t know how to act inside that photo, and that’s part of the problem. I feel like they’re an act. Riding in a gondola on the canals of Venice sounds amazing, but to me it’s like a female version of a threesome with twins. It�
�s a stereotype. It’s not romantic because I feel this sense of love in the moment, it’s romantic because Danielle Steele says it is. I want a moment to be meaningful because it is, not because it’s supposed to be.
Jax doesn’t totally get it, but he respects it. To a degree.
“See that gondolier?” he asks me, pointing to a man sitting on a sleek black boat with no one inside. “His kids are probably at home starving. Do you know why?”
“Because I hate romance?” I ask in monotone.
He nods solemnly. “Because you hate romance.”
And so it goes. All. Fucking. Day.
It’s still a great day, though. Jax pulls me into a jewelry shop and asks me to help pick out a bracelet for his mom made from the famous Murano glass. He says he has no idea what her tastes are in the stuff and to just pick one that I’d like and he’ll get that. I choose a beautiful teal and white mixed bracelet with flecks of gold inside like our hotel key and he buys it immediately, stuffing the small white box in his pocket.
We hit all of the sights throughout the day. We stand on the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal, we visit San Marco Square, we eat fresh seafood pasta in one of the alleyways filled with bridges arcing over a small canal. We get lost, round a corner, and nearly step into a section of sidewalk that’s being submerged in water. We wander with no plan in mind, no agenda, no schedule—just us and the sun and the water. The people and the street performers, the vendors, the delicious food, the architecture. It’s relaxing and fun.
Every now and then Jax stops me, wraps his arms around my waist, and kisses me lightly. I start to notice it’s happening on bridges, and when I point it out he says that he read it’s good luck.
“It’s not romantic, though,” he warns me seriously. “It’s science.”
I nod in agreement. “Sure, yeah. Like hedging your bets.”
“We’re strengthening our odds. Mathematically speaking, this is like an insurance policy.”
“Nothing sexy about that.”
“It’s actually a chore, to be honest.”
“It’s smart, though. Like investing.”
“We should find more bridges.”
I push away from him, grinning. “I’ll race you.”
I run away, heading straight down a strip of canal to the next bridge that’s sitting in plain sight. I hear Jax behind me, his feet falling hard and fast, and I know he could catch me if he wanted. I’m not athletic. I’m not in good shape, and he works out every single day. But he doesn’t catch me, not until we’re on the bridge, then he barrels into me and weaves his arms around me. He’s breathing a little hard and so am I, and the flush in my cheeks and the race of his heart against mine sets off something inside of me. Something real and vital.
I step up on my toes and kiss him hard, slipping my tongue past his lips and into his mouth where it dances against his. His hands are splayed out on my back, his fingers gripped in my shirt and pinning my body to his.
I suddenly push away, my tingling lips immediately curving into a sly smile, and I’m off again, running for the next bridge.
And Jax is right behind me.
We gather luck all over the city like the pigeons in the square hunting for bread. We’re single-minded and relentless, untiring and excited over something so small. Something so sweet.
By the time I call it quits I’m out of breath, my legs are burning, and our kisses have become almost indecent. On the last bridge Jax had his leg pressed between mine, his thigh on my heat, and his hands on my hips under my shirt. It was a secluded spot and no one saw us, but still I worry where we’re going here. With his hands on my body, his mouth on mine, and his eyes so full of sea and sun, I’m not sure how strong my willpower is.
It’s when we get back to the hotel that I find out I have none at all.
He sits on the bed and pulls me by my hips until I’m straddling his lap. He lies back and I slowly drape my body on top of his. He gets his leg between mine again and I moan when he lifts it to push me farther up on top of him until we’re aligned like the stars in a constellation that bursts with blinding white light and searing heat. A fragile whimper escapes my throat and I surge against his body, sending him into a frenzy of fingers and feeling that devours every inch of me. I need all of him at once and his body isn’t enough but he’s everything. He’s everywhere.
The window is open, the cold air from the sea rolling in, and I breathe it in deeply as I gasp and choke on words I can’t form, sounds that tumble past my lips in a tide of surrender as he rolls over my body. I’m falling away. I’m losing time. I’m clinging to him and I’m in the moment because it’s so perfect and unrehearsed—so outside of anything in the world because it’s Jax and it’s me and it’s only ours. It belongs to these four walls and our ears, our eyes, our hands, and no part of me doesn’t feel it. It’s in me, he is in me, to the blood. To the bone. To the marrow and the hard thrum of my heart.
This is my romance. Breath and body behind closed doors.
Melody and music only we can hear.
***
“I have no idea what’s going on.”
Jax snorts, threading his fingers lazily through mine. “Only Chuck Norris can understand Chuck Norris.”
I watch the TV screen as Walker, Texas Ranger plays out in a nonsensical course of action, Italian, and Chuck Norris staring into nothing. “Maybe if I spoke Italian I’d get it.”
“I thought you did speak Italian.”
“Shut up.”
He chuckles. “You still wouldn’t get it. It’s ungettable.”
“Because it’s Chuck Norris?”
He nods slowly. “Because it’s Chuck mother-fuckin’ Norris.”
“Do you get it?”
“Yeah, of course. I’m a dude.”
“And dudes inherently understand all things Chuck Norris?”
“I have a hidden stash of knowledge I’m born with. One that makes me better than you at math and able to interpret the subtlety of an action movie.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“You get what I’m saying, though.”
“Where is this hidden knowledge of yours?”
He smirks at me, squeezing my hand. “Where do you think?”
“Your balls,” I drone.
“It’s the perfect hiding place.”
“What about me? What do I have hidden in my boobs?”
“Emotions. A lot of them. It’s what makes you crazy and easy for us men to control.”
I jerk my hand away, shoving him across the bed. “I hate you.”
He smiles, fighting against my hands and coming at me. “No, you don’t.” He kisses the inside of my elbow, looking up at me with those baby blues. “You love me.”
I relent, letting him come closer and groaning grudgingly. “I hate when you’re right.”
He kisses my shoulder. “That I believe.”
I love this so much—being with him. As he nuzzles his nose into my neck I’m acutely aware of the fact that this is coming to an end. That once we leave Venice tomorrow, that’s it. I have a couple days with him in Germany, but then I’m going home. My heart collapses in on itself, pinching tightly at the thought, and I push him back so I can see his face.
He looks at me expectantly and I fight the urge to cry.
“I’m going to miss you,” I whisper.
His face softens and he nods faintly. “I’m going to miss you too, Wren.”
I smile sadly. “I don’t want to say goodbye to you anymore. We say it so much. I wish I could just be with you. Forever.”
Jax sits back, his face changing. The softness evaporates and it’s replaced by something else. Something almost tense. When his eyes dart away for a second, I realize what it is: he looks nervous.
“Do you mean that?” he asks quietly.
“Of course I do.”
“Even the forever part?”
“Yeah,” I reply hesitantly. “Don’t you?”
His eyes snap to mine and he
nods jerkily. “I do. I definitely do. I—before we came here I was talking to my mom about you. About how I felt about you. And I told her that I—that I was thinking about…” He swallows hard, then his words tumble from his mouth in a rush. “I was thinking about asking you to marry me.”
Everything stops. Maybe the world outside carries on, I’ll never know, but for one millisecond every sense in my body and every corner of my brain shuts down. I am weightless and nothing, floating in the air, up off the bed, and into the stars.
Then with a blink the world snaps back into focus and I’m staring at Jax. I’m sitting on a bed in a hotel in Murano, Italy watching Italian Chuck Norris and the man I love is asking me to marry him.
Wait. Is he?
“Are you…” I try to ask, but I don’t know how.
He takes my hand in his and it feels so warm, so solid, that I grip it tightly with mine. “I don’t ever want to be without you again.”
“I don’t want to be without you either.”
“Is that a yes?”
I laugh. “If you’re asking, I’m saying yes.”
He smiles, pulling me toward him. “It’s a yes.”
He kisses me sweetly, softly, and I laugh against his lips.
I’ve never been so happy.
Or so overwhelmingly terrified.
Chapter Thirty
“Are you okay?” Jax asks.
It’s not the first time. He’s been asking me that question all morning and I’ve given the same answer every time. I smile tightly and nod my head. It’s not a lie. Not exactly.
I’m freaking out. I had a hard time sleeping last night and this morning I’ve been really distracted. I took a shower and forgot to pull the curtain all the way inside the tub. I ended up soaking the floor and it’s still damp as I stand in front of the mirror trying to get my blow-dryer to work. I have an adapter, but it doesn’t fit well in the socket. I have to push it in harder than I did in Germany, and when I get it going I wonder if it was worth it. The heat in the room is already stifling and the last thing I want to do is heat up even more, but my hair will frizz out in this humidity if I let it dry naturally, so I suck it up and get to work.
