by Sophie Love
She was sat at her laptop, on the desk in the window, writing her article and waiting for Cristiano to wake up, which he had now done.
“Someone’s excited,” he murmured, as he turned on the kettle to make their morning coffee.
“Of course I’m excited,” Keira told him. “It’s bridge tour day.”
Cristiano laughed. “And what is that exactly?”
“We were saying the other day how we’d not been on enough bridges, and since Paris is filled with them, I thought we should do a tour. Canal St Martin has loads and since we have been there yet, I figured that would be where we did. What do you think?”
“I think you’re crazy, but very cute with it,” he replied.
The water in the kettle finished boiling, and Cristiano filled up the cafetiere.
“It’s only a twenty minute walk,” Keira added. “Although we’ll have to add extra time for all the bridge crossing, photograph taking and general frolicing.”
Cristiano chuckled and poured them both a coffee. He brought Keira’s over to her, placing it on the coster beside her laptop, then kissed her forehead. She smiled up at him, lovingly.
“This all sounds delightful,” he said, “But have you factored in breakfast?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course I have.” She took out their trusty map and pointed at a place she’d circled. “We’re going here. If that’s okay with you?”
“Anywhere is okay with me, as long as it serves coffee and croissants.”
She tsked. “And to think just two weeks ago you were a bagel man.”
Cristiano let out one of his large, barking laughs. Keira grinned, happy to know everything was back to normal with them.
They drank their coffee and got ready for their morning stroll. It was another rare rain-free day, but Keira couldn’t bear the thought of leaving their umbrella behind, so took it with her. Then they headed out of the hotel and onto the (dry, for once) streets of Paris.
The canal started at the border of Marais — the neighborhood they were currently staying in — and the tenth arrondissement, so it was only a short walk to the start of it. Immediately, there was a bridge, a cute one consisting entirely of steps, with iron railings around it.
“Yay! Bridge tour!” Keira cried, dragging Cristiano onto it.
Once in the center, she pulled out her camera and made him pose for a shot, with the whole view of the canal behind them.
They’d barely walked for five more minutes along the cobbled, tree-lined canal when they came to the next bridge.
“Um, Keira,” Cristiano said, “I have a feeling there’s quite a lot of these. We’re going to be doing a heck lot of bridge walking today!”
She gave him a look. “Obviously. It wouldn’t be a tour if there weren’t a ton of them.”
“And you want to cross them all?”
“Why not?” she shrugged.
They climbed the steps of their second bridge which Keira had to admit was exactly the same as the last bridge in its design. They posed for another photo at the top, then crossed down the other side, now back on the side of the street they’d originally started.
“I have a feeling I’m going to get very dizzy today,” Cristiano said.
“Perhaps,” she said.
They ambled along quietly, taking in the sight of a real Parisian neighborhood with rather normal looking apartment buildings. It was a change from the opulent, grand architecture they’d become accustomed to.
“There’s your next bridge,” Cristiano said, pointing ahead.
This one was different to the others. There was a stone platform leading up to a mint green iron bridge.
“This is a movie bridge if ever I saw one,” Keira said as they walked up to the center.
They took another photo. She noticed Cristiano seemed a little quiet.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Is my bridge tour annoying you?”
He smiled and shook his head. “I’m just a little hungry is all.”
“Of course.” She pointed ahead. “There’s our cafe.”
They hurried along to their breakfast pit-stop. Once again, it was a really beautiful little bistro, somewhat quieter than the cafes in the more tourist-heavy places. The decor was chic; consisting of a series of wooden booths around the edges, the center filled with a mismatched collection of second-hand retro tables and chairs. There were large tropical plants with huge leaves all over the place and modern artworks on the wall. They took a seat in a booth and waited for their server to come over and take their usual coffee and croissant order.
A gentleman came over with a beard and beanie hat.
“Morning,” he said in English.
Keira immediately heard his American accent. It warmed her to hear a little slice of home. But it also hit her with a sudden pang of homesickness. She didn’t usually miss her family, but suddenly, right now, she did.
“Where are you from?” Keira asked him, intrigued.
“Oregon. You’re New York, I take it,” he said smiling.
Keira nodded. “Yeah! How long have you lived here?”
“A couple of years now,” he told her.
“Ever miss home?” she asked, feeling her own yearning for her homeland grow.
“Of course,” he said. “Especially this time of year.”
She nodded, understanding entirely. Out the corner of her eye she caught sight of Cristiano. He looked a little impatient.
“Sorry, we should order,” she said hurriedly. “Coffee and croissants please.”
“Uh,” the guy said, “We don’t do croissants. Sorry. It’s a sort of American-French fusion menu.”
Keira looked at the menu for the first time. There wasn’t anything particularly French on it at all.
“I’ll have the breakfast burrito, in that case,” she said, folding her menu.
Cristiano seemed to take a long time making his selection. Finally he sighed and said, “Same. Thanks.”
Their server left them, and Keira bit her lip, worried about Cristiano’s attitude.
“I think this place is a bit too hip for us,” she whispered across the table.
It was filled with cool looking people covered in tattoos. More so than Keira, Cristiano seemed uncomfortable and out of place. She felt bad for dragging him along on her bridge tour. She’d just gotten a little over-excited.
“We don’t have to keep walking the canal route,” she added. “If you’d prefer to do something else.”
Cristiano shook his head. “I’m fine. Stop worrying.”
She remembered how rocky things had felt after their first fight. Maybe Cristiano was just finding his footing again. She ought not to push him too much, but just give him time to work things through in his mind.
Her phone buzzed then and she looked at it. Bryn had sent her a photograph of her Thanksgiving center piece, an ugly homemade creation she appeared to be very proud of. Keria smiled, but felt a pang of sadness.
“What is it?” Cristiano asked.
She showed him the photo. “I’m sad to be missing Thanksgiving this year,” Keira admitted.
She remembered then the conversation she’d had with Nina yesterday morning, about asking for what she wanted, about not letting herself get pushed and pulled around. Suddenly, she was hit with inspiration.
“How would you feel about spending Thanksgiving in New York City?” she asked Cristiano.
He frowned. “You mean cut our trip short?”
She shrugged. “Why not? I’ve almost finished my article and, I don’t know, have we seen everything we want to? You’re not exactly loving the bridge tour!”
“It’s not that, I told you,” he said, sounding a little huffy. “But you know I’d love to spend more time with your family. And I hardly got to see New York, so it would still feel like a vacation for me.” A small smile appeared on his lips.
Keira felt a little surge of excitement. She’d been so resigned to doing things Viatorum’s way she hadn’t considered actually
asking for something from them, but Nina had made her realize she should be doing just that.
She picked up her cell phone and searched for the magazine’s number in her contacts.
“What are you doing?” Cristiano asked.
“I’m asking Elliot for flights home tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” he cried, his eyes widening. “That’s too soon.”
“It’s the only way we’ll get there in time,” she told him, listening to the ring on the other end.
She couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the idea of leaving tomorrow was panicking Cristiano. She didn’t know why, and paranoia began to take hold.
“You don’t have to come,” she added. “If you don’t want. We can always arrange another time for you to be in New York City. We don’t have to be glued at the hip.”
“I want to come,” he said, confidently and with determination.
The call connected then, and Keira heard Elliot’s voice. Perfect. Just the man she needed to speak to.
“I wanted to ask you a favor,” Keira told him. Then she shook her head. “Not a favor, that’s not the right word. I’d like to negotiate my end date here.”
“Oh?” Elliot said, sounding a little surprised.
“I’d like to spend Thanksgiving with my family. I don’t want to work that day. It’s not right. I should be with my mother.”
There was a pause. Keira grit her teeth, worried she’d overstepped the mark, or that Nina had misjudged how much she mattered to the magazine.
“Have you got enough material for you article?” he asked.
“Yes, I think I do,” she replied, then checked herself. “I do.”
There was another long pause. Finally, Elliot replied. “Fine. I’ll get Heather to book you flights home.”
“Both of us,” she added. “Me and Cristiano.”
“Both of you,” he repeated, sounding a bit put out. But that was to be expected. Anything that cost the magazine money was an annoyance for Elliot; his mind was always on the figures, the profits, the graphs, the bottom line. That didn’t mean she didn’t deserve to benefit from its profits sometimes!
“Thanks,” she said.
The call ended and she looked up at Cristiano and grinned. It wasn’t often that she got what she wanted just by asking for it. It felt thrilling to have achieved that.
“We’re leaving tomorrow then?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “That is okay, isn’t it?”
He nodded but his expression seemed to suggest something different. He seemed stressed.
“Do you think…” he began, then he stopped and collected his thoughts. “Do you think we’ll be able to get an apartment once we’re there?”
“Oh, you’re not looking forward to sleeping at my mom’s or Bryn’s again?” she chuckled.
“I’m serious,” Cristiano said. “When we’re back in New York is that where things really begin for us?”
She frowned, pensive. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I need a job at some point. To put down roots. Will that be in New York City with you?”
Suddenly, she realized why Cristiano had been so quiet, so distracted. She’d forced him, inadvertently, to think of the future, their future, and what it looked like.
“I thought we were living in the moment,” she told him. “Wasn’t that as far as the plan needed to go?”
He nodded, but it wasn’t very convincing. “When I was back in Italy, I spoke to Pippa and my mom.”
She winced, not wanting to think back to how horrible it had felt when he was gone, when she thought it was all over between them. “Okay…” she prompted, urging him on.
“And, they mentioned something to me. About how I should marry you.”
Keira’s eyes widened with surprise. This was not where she was expecting the conversation to go.
“And you keep dropping hints…”
“Wait, wait, wait,” she interrupted. “Dropping hints? Like when?”
“In the church yesterday you said you wanted to get married there…”
“I didn’t mean imminently,” she told him.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s on your mind. It’s on mine too.”
Keira felt a surge of sensation erupt inside of her. Marriage was the last thing on her mind! Hearing Cristiano talk about it shocked her; he was supposed to be the more live-in-the-moment of the two of them. The idea of him wanting to settle down was secretly terrifying.
“What would it look like?” she said. “Us married. I can’t picture it. I don’t even know what country I’ll be in next month!”
He shrugged then. “That doesn’t matter.”
“How doesn’t it matter?” she asked. “Marriage is a commitment. How can you commit to something when you don’t know what it involves?”
“What country we’re in bares no relation on what’s important. That it’s us. That we’re together.”
Typical, Keira thought, that Cristiano had somehow taken the most important decision either of them would make and applied his Italian attitude to it, that what happened would happen, what would be would be. She couldn’t work like that, not with something so important.
Cristiano must have sensed her hesitation. “You don’t think we’d just find a way? That we know how to make one another happy and would simply continue doing so?”
“I don’t know…” she stammered. This conversation had come out of nowhere. She had no answers. She’d not even considered it, really, only in passing because of everyone else planting ideas in her head. “I’d need to think about it. A lot.”
“Of course,” he said. “There’s no rush. Just something to consider.”
Then he went back to eating his breakfast, as if they hadn’t just had the most mind-bending conversation of Keira’s life. She watched him, stunned, feeling like the whole world had shifted beneath her feet in one sudden moment.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
The rest of the bridge tour passed Keira by in a blur. She couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation they’d had over breakfast. Even when they entered the museums and art galleries that lined the Canal St Martin, Keira could hardly focus on what was in front of her face. She was lost in her mind, in her thoughts, reeling them over and over, going through all the possibilities.
“We should go out for a special meal,” Cristiano said as they strolled in silence across yet another bridge, their romantic appeal suddenly having disappeared for Keira. “If this is our last chance to see Paris at night. Maybe we should try and stay up to watch the sunrise from the rooftops.”
She smiled. “That sounds nice.” Then she added, on second thoughts, “We should nap in that case. Because I don’t know about you but I don’t think I can stay up all night!”
“Sure,” he said, tugging her gently back in the direction of their hotel.
On the way, she received an email from Heather with details of their flights back to New York. Suddenly they took on a whole new significance for Keira. They weren’t just a victory for her, a triumph, now they were more, the beginning of the rest of their lives, the return to reality, to no longer living in the moment.
They reached the hotel and took the elevator up to their room.
“I’ll be sad to leave this place behind,” Cristiano said, looking around at the mess they’d created, signifiers of love, lust and companionship.
“Yeah, I don’t want to think about that,” Keira said.
She was extremely tired all of a sudden, and began to take her clothes off ready to snuggle into bed. Now a nap seemed like the best idea in the world.
Cristiano came into the bed beside her, reaching for her and wrapping her in his strong, warm arms. For the first time the sensation of his body next to hers felt unfamiliar. Could this be it for her, forever? Could she be content with Cristiano for the rest of her life?
She knew she was obsessing over it but how could she not?
She felt Cristiano’s kisses on her neck, soft, inviting. She
moved away from him.
“Can we just sleep?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, looking a little bemused by her request.
He’d clearly thought her request for a nap was a euphemism. But it was actually the only way she could think to give her mind a chance to work things through.
She listened to Cristiano’s breath slow. As usual, he fell asleep quickly, his expression peaceful and worry free. How could he sleep so easily after their dramatic conversation earlier? It just made her think that he didn’t put as much thought into these things as he ought to, as she did. But that assessment didn’t seem fair, not after everything he’d told her about Maria, his ex wife. He’d told her that he was careful with his heart, that he shielded it from pain, that it was only because of her that he’d felt able to date again. Cristiano wasn’t taking this lightly at all. For him, marriage was serious.
She recalled how he’d been all day. Quiet. Withdrawn. Lost in his own thoughts. That had all changed when he’d brought up the topic of marriage. After that he’d been back to his bright, breezy self. It was as if he’d been ruminating on it, worrying, and after having spoken of it aloud he’d felt relief. But really all that had happened was that he’d transferred the burden of worry onto her shoulders!
With her anxious mind ticking over, Keira somehow managed to fall asleep.
She found herself surrounded by clouds, and somewhere in the back of her subconscious she knew this was a dream, a dream she’d had before. There, to her left, was Cristiano, flying, dressed in white, a cross between his usual self and a great white eagle. And there, on her other side, was the little girl, their daughter, with her beautiful olive skin, dark hair and near-black eyes. The spit of her father. They began to descend through the clouds, just as they had the last time she’d dreamed this dream.
But the further they went, the darker and grayer the clouds grew. Keira realized they were flying straight through a thunderstorm.
Keira was gripped by panic. She turned, looking for their daughter, reaching a hand out to her. But as a flash of lightning illuminated the clouds around her, Keira saw the girl had gone. She looked to her other side, trying to find Cristiano, but he wasn’t there either. She called out for him, desperate, alone.
