Love Like Ours

by Sophie Love

  Suddenly, their throwing caution to the wind in a giddy haze of romance felt a little rash. It had felt amazing on the airplane but now they were on her home turf it felt different. It felt real. At some point she would need to summon the courage to have an actual conversation with him about all the practicalities of how to negotiate their long distance relationship, but the last thing she wanted to do was scare him away.

  Keira fell silent, lost in her thoughts, taking small sips of wine. She became a spectator rather than a participant to the conversation, watching on as Bryn giggled at Cristiano and commented on his lovely accent, gazing at him with adoring eyes. When she reached across the kitchen island and lightly touched his arm, Keira snapped back to attention. It was time for an exit strategy. She let out a loud yawn.

  Bryn flinched with surprise, as though she had completely forgotten Keira was even there.

  “Are you tired?” she asked. “Don’t feel like you need to stay up on my account. You’ve only got one day before you have to go back to work and you don’t want to be exhausted for it.”

  Usually, Keira found Bryn’s mother-hen impersonation irritating, but this time she welcomed the invitation of getting an early night. And getting away from her sister.

  She stood. “Sorry, I’m just so exhausted from all the traveling. Let’s catch up properly tomorrow. I have a gift for you.”

  Bryn grinned. “Awesome. I can’t wait.”

  She stood too, and the sisters hugged. Then Keira looked at Cristiano, who was still seated.

  “Are you coming?” she asked.

  He looked surprised, as though it hadn’t crossed his mind that Keira expected him to come to bed with her.

  “Ah, yeah, sure,” he replied, sounding anything but certain.

  “You don’t have to,” Bryn said hurriedly. “If you’re not tired, feel free to stay up with me and chat. I have more New Zealand Shiraz.”

  Keira narrowed her eyes at Bryn. Cristiano looked from one sister to the other as though caught between something he didn’t fully understand. Finally, he stood, clearly deciding to follow Keira. She nodded decisively in acknowledgement of her win.

  “Tomorrow,” Cristiano said to Bryn. “Thank you for the wine.”

  Keira noticed he hadn’t finished his glass. She felt bad for spiriting him away, but she knew Bryn better than he did. Leaving her alone with him would be potentially dangerous!

  “Good night,” Keira called back to Bryn, as she dragged her suitcase into the bedroom.

  Cristiano entered after her. As soon as he was inside, Keira shut the door behind him. She leaned against it and took a deep breath.

  “I’m so sorry about her,” she said.

  Cristiano looked bemused. “I don’t understand. She seemed very nice.”

  “She was flirting with you!” Keira replied, shaking her head.

  Cristiano didn’t seem concerned at all. “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I do,” Keira told him. “She’s my sister. It’s rude.”

  Cristiano just shrugged. He came over and wrapped his arms around Keira. “You know I only have eyes for you,” he told her, squeezing her body closely to his.

  “It’s not you I’m worried about,” Keira replied, relaxing into him. “It’s every other hot blooded woman in the world.”

  She was hit by a sudden realization then. In Italy, Cristiano, though undoubtedly handsome, was one among many. Here, in New York City, he was an exotic creature, a real Italian man, a model come to life from the pages of a fashion catalogue. Her home city posed a whole new set of challenges to their relationship that she had not yet even considered.

  There was only one solution. She would have to keep Cristiano completely occupied from dawn ‘til dusk, supervized morning, noon and night!

  “We should get an early start tomorrow,” she said, moving from his embrace. She began undressing for bed. “Only one day of the weekend to enjoy before I’m back at work. We have a lot of sightseeing to do.”

  Cristiano grinned. “I can’t wait. But we’re not going straight to sleep are we?” He gave her one of his suggestive looks. “I’ve been cooped up on an airplane for hours. There’s a lot of pent up energy inside of me.”

  Keira’s smile quirked up. She reached for the lightswitch. “Whatever you desire,” she murmured, then she flicked it off, plunging them into darkness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Keira woke to the shrill sound of her alarm clock. It read seven a.m, but thanks to the jetlag and the relatively small proportion of time she and Cristiano had used the bed for sleeping, her body felt like it was still the middle of the night. She felt groggy, like she’d had a very badly timed nap in the middle of the day.

  But despite the physical discomfort, mentally she was incredibly excited for the day ahead. She leaped straight out of bed, powered by excitement and exhaustion-induced adrenaline.

  She looked back at Cristiano. He was still sleeping soundly.

  “Wake up,” she said, leaning over him and kissing his forehead.

  His eyes fluttered open. “Do I have to?” he said, yawning. “That long flight exhausted me.”

  “It was the flight that exhausted you, huh?” Keira said suggestively, with a wink.

  But she realized Cristiano had fallen straight back to sleep!

  She decided to leave him to rest and went to freshen up for the day.

  She crept into the living area. It was dark and Bryn was snoring loudly. Careful to be as quiet as possible and not waking the sleeping beast, she tiptoed past her sister and took a quick shower, cleaning away the airplane residue and last remnants of Italy from her skin.

  When she made it back to the bedroom, she saw that Cristiano was still in a deep, peaceful sleep. She sighed and decided she may as well take her dirty clothes down to the laundrette on the corner. No point wasting this time, since she was back in the office tomorrow.

  She quickly emptied her case and collected last night’s strewn clothes, adding them to the bundle before hurrying out of the apartment, along the corridor, down the steps, and onto the streets.

  It was an exceptionally chilly morning, and she felt a wonderful sense of nostalgia. She had spent next to no time in New York over the last two months and it felt really great to be home; the familiar sound of traffic, the familiar smell of fumes. It made her think of Thanksgiving, and she smiled to herself knowing she didn’t have too long to wait until her favorite holiday. This year would be extra special with Cristiano there to enjoy it with them. If he stayed that long, anyway.

  It was empty inside the laundrette, and Keira loaded several weeks worth of dirty clothes into the machine, filled the drawer with detergent, and added some quarters. She only had enough change on her for a quick wash — she’d not yet had time to get any local currency — but a thirty minute spin was better than nothing.

  Once the machine was spinning, she scurried back out, wanting to get back to Cristiano, to wake him and usher him from Bryn’s apartment (and claws) as soon as possible.

  But once back in the bedroom, she discovered that Cristiano was still in a very deep sleep. She kissed him again to try and wake him.

  “Sleeping beauty” she said, more brightly this time, her a voice a little louder, more obnoxiously demanded. “We have to get up and get going!”

  Cristiano groaned. “Can’t we have a lazy day in bed?” he moaned. “We’ve been on the go for weeks. We deserve to relax for one morning, don’t we?”

  Keira shook her head, thinking of Bryn in the other room. They had to make their escape before she woke up.

  “Nope,” she replied. “The whole of New York is waiting for us!”

  Cristiano yawned, turning away from her loud voice. “And it will still be there in the afternoon after breakfast.”

  “But it’s best enjoyed in the morning,” Keira contested, heaving the covers off of him. “Take it from a local.”

  Cristiano gave up arguing, and, shivering, got out of bed.

  “Why are you
in such a hurry?” he moaned.

  “Because there’s so much to do!” she replied, quickly pulling on a pair of Bryn’s winter boots. All her winter footwear was stored in a box somewhere, her stuff from Zach’s apartment strewn in various locations from her room in her mom’s house, to Shelby and David’s attic, to Bryn’s closet. There was even a sneaky box under her desk at Viatorum.

  “Can I have a shower at least?” Cristiano asked.

  Keira chewed her lip. Every minute wasted was another minute closer to Bryn waking up and attempting to get her talons into Cristiano. But Keira couldn’t deny him his basic human needs.

  “Of course,” she said, brightly, feigning calmness. She went over to Bryn’s closet and pulled out a fluffy towel. “Here,” she said, handing it to him along with some shampoo and shower gel from her luggage. “The shower is just down the hall.”

  He kissed her in thanks and disappeared from the room. Keira slumped to sitting on the bed, already exhausted. This was not going to be easy. She would need to find a new apartment as soon as possible. Like yesterday.

  But that relied on getting her deposit back from Zach for their old apartment. She didn’t really want to initiate contact but it was clearly the lesser of two evils in this particular situation. She grabbed her cellphone and fired off a text.

  Any news on the deposit? K

  Against her better judgment, she added a x on the end. Buttering Zachary up wasn’t something she enjoyed doing, but if it meant she got her deposit back then it was worth it.

  She peeked out the bedroom door into the living area. The blinds were still down and the room was black. The only sounds were the shower from the other end of the corridor and Bryn’s loud snoring. Luckily Cristiano hadn’t woken her on his way past either.

  But she began to grow impatient. Cristiano was sure taking his time! She checked her watch and saw that her clothes in the laundrette would soon be reaching the end of their cycle. She decided to fetch them, rather than run the risk of some local stealing them the moment the lock clicked open on the machine’s door. Even at seven thirty on a Sunday morning you could never be too careful!

  She left the apartment again and hurried to the laundrette. There were a couple of people in there now, both organized-looking middle aged women clearly attempting to beat the queues. Keira collected her warm, damp clothes. She didn’t have enough change for the drier so would have to hang them up around Bryn’s apartment.

  She left, heading back along the street towards Bryn’s. It felt really good to do normal chores again, to be a normal person again rather than a travel writer in an exciting foreign land. There really was such a thing as too much of a good thing, it turned out.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she began climbing the stairs up to Bryn’s apartment. It was a text from Zach. She bit her lip with anticipation then read what he’d written.

  Bon jour Keira! I’m in France for work. A week long conference event starting tomorrow! Can we chat about $ when I’m back?

  She sighed with frustration. It would be another week before they could speak about it, not that she could even understand what there was to speak about! It should be a simple case of transferring her share of the money into her bank but of course he wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

  Her eyes still on her cell phone, Keira went into Bryn’s apartment. She was immediately surprised by the sound of laughter, and looked up.

  Everything had changed. The blinds were open, the lights on, the coffee machine bubbling away, and there was Bryn in the kitchen, looking far more awake than someone who had spent the last day drinking ought to. Perched with his back against the counter was Cristiano, his bare torso glistening with water droplets, nothing but a towel tied around his waist to protect his modesty.

  “What’s going on?” Keira cried, startled.

  Bryn looked over at her, and frowned, amused by Keira’s paranoid tone. “I’m making coffee,” she said, stating the obvious. “Where have you been?”

  “I went to the laundrette,” Keira said, holding up her heavy bag of damp clothes. “I was only gone two minutes.”

  Two minutes, clearly, was all it took for Bryn to take the opportunity to feast her eyes upon Cristiano’s well honed body.

  “Babe,” Keira said forcefully, looking at him. “We’d better get dressed. We have to go.”

  “We have time for a coffee don’t we?” he asked. “While you’re hanging your clothes up to dry?”

  Keira dropped the bag on the floor, nonchalantly, and tried to sound light-hearted as she went over and steered him by his shoulders towards the bedroom.

  “But I want to take you to the best coffee place in the whole of New York,” she said. “Small batch. Freshly ground. Much nicer than Bryn’s machine made coffee.”

  “Oh… oh, okay…” Cristiano said, putting up no resistance. “But… your clothes?”

  As she ushered him into the safety of the bedroom, Keira glanced over her shoulder at Bryn. She was watching, smirking, clearly amused by her sister’s flustered haste. Keira gave her a stern expression, a warning look to leave Cristiano alone.

  “I can hang your clothes,” Bryn said with a sweet, knowing smile.

  “Thank you,” Keira replied, tersely.

  She went to shut the door but Bryn wasn’t done.

  “Hun, if you think I’m bad,” she chuckled, “Wait until you get him out there.” She pointed to the window. “You’re going to find a whole lot worse than me. Trust me.”

  Her body tense all over, Keira shut the door.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Their first stop was the Upper West Side where they grabbed bagels and coffee to eat on the move. It was a far cry from the long, lazy meals they had shared in Italy, but Keira wanted Cristiano to really get a feel for what life was like in New York City.

  “So this is the best coffee in New York, is it?” Cristiano asked, sipping from the paper cup with careful consideration. He didn’t look convinced.

  “Oh, yeah, the best,” Keira told him, remembering the lie she’d blurted out this morning. It was good but it wasn’t the small batch, freshly ground coffee she had promised. “In my opinion, anyway.”

  Cristiano just shrugged.

  They strolled along the sidewalk hand in hand towards the Hudson River. Keira was acutely aware of the amounts of stares Cristiano garnered. She knew there was a discrepancy between their respective attractiveness, but she felt even more like the plain Jane back in New York, because here Cristiano was more than just a catch, he was a rare beast. Bryn had been right. There were far worse than her in the city. Having him here was going to be exhausting.

  “What do you think about my sister?” she asked.

  Cristiano laughed. “She’s interesting.”

  “Interesting how?”

  There was a pause, during which Cristiano was clearly trying to choose his words carefully. Finally he settled on; “Pazza.”

  “What does that mean?” Keira asked, her mind conjuring up all kinds of options; beautiful, wonderful, alluring, mesmerizing.

  “Crazy,” Cristiano said.

  Keira laughed. It was a relief to hear him say as much. Unless he had a secret thing for crazy, she was probably safe. From Bryn, at least. There was still the rest of the female population of New York City to contend with.

  They walked through Riverside Park, looking at the beautiful river, then headed towards Central Park. Since Cristiano had noticed it from the air as their plane had flown over, Keira deduced that he would also appreciate seeing it from ground level.

  “This is so amazing,” he said, looking at the distant skyscrapers that surrounded them. “It doesn’t seem real.”

  Keira smiled, remembering how she had said very similar things to him about Italy. It was cool to see him so entranced by her hometown, to see him marvel at things she had long ago forgotten to be inspired by.

  They headed eastward, towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The culture in Italy had been astound
ing but Keira was competitive by nature and didn’t want Cristiano to think that his ancient European country had more going for it than New York City did! But there was so much to pack in to the day, they were only inside for an hour or so before Cristiano asked to see more of the actual city.

  They took a subway to fifth avenue so Keira could show him Times Square, then headed to eleventh avenue for a stroll along the High Line so he could really take in the sights of the Manhattan skyline. They bought more coffee from one of the vendors along the bridge.

  As the afternoon drew on, Keira took Cristiano to SoHo where they grabbed some lunch in one of the cafes. Cristiano seemed to especially like this part of the city, particularly all the fashionistas and interesting clothes shops. In fact, he fit right in in his Italian clothes, and found himself a new jacket that looked remarkably similar to the cut-price one they’d bought from the outlet beside the airport, the main difference being that this one cost fifty dollars instead of ten.

  While they were eating lunch, Keira’s phone started ringing. Her first instinct was Bryn trying to find some way to lure them back to the apartment. But when Keira looked at her phone, she saw it was her mom calling. She answered the call.

  “Darling, I’ve just been speaking to your sister,” her mom announced. “You have to bring Cristiano around tonight for dinner.”

  “No, mom,” Keira said with a wince. “We want to spend the day together. We’ve planned everything out.”

  “But I’ve already been to the store,” Mallory replied with a sad whine to her voice. I’ve bought everything to make lasagne.”

  “Why?” Keira hissed. “You didn’t even ask me.”

  She knew why. If her mom had asked her first she’d have no leverage, no way to bargain and nothing to guilt trip Keira with. This way, she had the upper hand. Keira’s refusal made her look spoiled and ungrateful.