Page 83 of Something Like Fate

“Like what? There’s nothing holding me back.”

Her lips curl in a sly smile. “What about the possibility that your heart belongs to someone else?”

29

Can you believe Mei accused me of having feelings for Teller?” I rake my brush through my hair a little too hard. Bianca and I have been FaceTiming for the past half hour while she waits in the doctor’s office to get her new foot cast.

“Um ...” Bianca pauses, face freezing.

“You still there?” I can’t tell if it’s the Wi-Fi.

Apparently not. “Yeah. Sorry. I just ... the entire time I’ve known you, you haven’t shut up about Teller. Like, you will use any opportunity you can to bring him up.”

I scrunch my face into the camera, lowering the volume in case Teller overhears through the door. It’s a small place. “Not true.”

She rolls her eyes so hard, I’m afraid they’ll disappear into her skull. “Basically, any time we pass a bathroom, you bring up unclogging the toilets at The Cinema. Any time a depressing song comes on, you talk about how Teller would like it. And don’t even get me started on movies—”

“I don’t have feelings for Teller, okay?” I say.

It is ridiculous, after all. Teller and I are just friends.

Just.

Friends.

“I mean, sure, there was chemistry when we hooked up. And sure, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. But the other night was the result of almost a month of forced proximity. Being on vacation. Andthey always say it’s easy to get emotionally attached after sex, especially to someone I’m scared of losing.”

Bianca opens her mouth to say something, but I can’t stop rambling. “Also, lest we forget, I haven’t hooked up with someone since Mark B., forever ago. Maybe that’s all it was, me craving to be touched, desired in that way. I desperately wanted that with Caleb, and when he left, I needed to channel that energy elsewhere. Teller just happened to be available.”

Bianca slow-nods. “Right. Absolutely no feelings to be had over here.” I can tell she still doesn’t believe me. Not that it really matters. I don’t have to prove anything.

“Anyway, we need to get to the real matter at hand.”

“And what’s that?”

“Things are still weird since we hooked up.”

She shrugs. “Maybe you’ve been going about this the wrong way. I mean, you’ve been avoiding each other.”

“He’s been avoiding me,” I correct.

“You’re currently hiding in your aunt’s room,” she points out. “Too much distance has probably made things way worse. There are too many opportunities to fill in the blanks, make assumptions.”

“B? You’re a freakin’ genius,” I say, blowing her a kiss before signing off.

She’s absolutely right. If I know Teller like I think I do, space only makes him spiral into a negative vortex. Maybe what we really need is a reminder of how things used to be. A reminder that we can be us again.

“You sure you don’t want to stay in with your dad and Mei tonight? You were on the go all afternoon,” Teller says, walking a step behind as I lead the charge into town.

“Tel, we’re in Positano. We’re not staying in and playing dominos like old people,” I say, charging toward our destination.

Teller peers into the brightly lit courtyard. It’s lined with white canvases on wooden easels. “Painting?” He throws a skeptical look in my direction, but I pull him along.

Keeping on trend with our vow back in Florence to do touristy things, I found us a last-minute painting class on Airbnb Experiences. Random? Absolutely. Neither of us are particularly artistic, but I figured a night of creative expression, surrounded by other tourists, ought to loosen us up.

Our teacher, Robert (pronouncedRo-bear), is very serious in a jaunty beret and paint-splattered apron. He tells us to channel our “inner Picasso” by painting each other.

“Let the colors speak to you!” Robert says, dramatically waving an imaginary paintbrush.

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