Page 40 of Bound to You

I pull my shirt off ready to get in, and when I look back Isla has gone quiet. Any smartass remarks she had left up her sleeve are gone, her smile gone, it’s like a punch to my gut as she vacantly stares into space.

I move down the steps and sink into the water, wading over closer to her.

“I can’t help but be glad that you didn’t,” I say, continuing our conversation.

A shy smile graces her face as she glances over her shoulder at me.

She moves to float on her back again, and I follow her lead doing the same.

“What are you doing here?” she asks after a moment of silence.

“Couldn’t sleep. You?”

“Same,” she murmurs.

We float in silence for a while, the only sound being the small waves hitting against the pool walls. It feels comfortable, which is something I rarely feel with someone I don’t really know. But I can’t pass up the opportunity to dig a bit deeper with her. I want to know everything about Isla, anything she is willing to share with me.

“So, why art?” I take a chance on the idea that she might open up to me.

The sound of water moving catches my attention as she moves to tread water in front of me, I match her.

She hesitates, I can almost see the cogs spinning in her mind, see her considering whether she wants to open up to me or not, before she finally caves, giving me a glimpse behind that wall of hers. “I don’t know, it’s always been something I’ve connected with.” Her eyes light up as she talks. “I like having something out there in the world that is purely mine, something that people canlook at and they can see the world the way that I see it.” I smile at her admission; a few bricks falling off the top of the wall.

“I was always attracted to the fact that it doesn’t necessarily need to be perfect, but recently I, uh…I lost sight of that a bit.” Her voice loses its spark as she admits that last part.

“Nora hasn’t mentioned you going down there at all, or have you snuck an easel into your room without management finding out?” I tease.

“No, uh...” She swims backwards, distancing herself, either from me or from the conversation, I’m not sure. “I haven’t painted in a while.”

“Why did you stop?” I ask.

“I don’t know, it just...things got a bit complicated.” She avoids my gaze, and I can’t help but feel like those bricks just got laid back up. It’s obviously not something she wants to open up about now, and that’s okay.

“Well, at some point I’d like to see the world through your eyes, if you’d let me,” I say.

She gives me a shy smile. “Maybe one day.”

What could ever make her not want to do the one thing that clearly brings her joy? I want to know, but I don’t push her on it. When it comes to Isla, I’m walking a thin line between not wanting to push her and ruin anything, and begging her to tell me everything there is to know about her.

“So why Dolce?” she asks, treading water just in front of me. “Where did the name come from?”

I smile as the thought enters my mind. “When I first saw the hotel, I fell in love immediately. It was this quaint beautiful thing, and it was up for sale. I could just see it in my head, the vision of what it could become one day. The old man who was selling it, his name was Dolce. Gabriele Dolce. He built this place, all by his own hand back in the seventies. He asked only one thing of me when I bought it off him.”

“What was it?”

“That he wasn’t forgotten. I kept that promise in the best way I knew how.” The look on her face as she takes me in is so beautiful, I want to drown in it.

“Are you a good swimmer?” I ask, changing the conversation.

“Depends on how you define a good swimmer.” Her mood has instantly lightened with the change of subject.

“Well, we‘ll have to test it now, won’t we?”

“And how do you propose we do that.” She catches the look in my eye and follows me as I move towards the end of the pool.

We both hang on to the edge with our left hands. I look to her, and determination is written all over her face. “Ready?”

She nods before counting down. “One…two…three!” She’s barely finished saying the last word before she takes off leaving me in her waves, but I’m fast, so I catch up easily enough, hitting the end wall before turning around at the same time as Isla.

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