Page 45 of Meet Me in Montreal

“I do remember saying ‘no’ to you asking me out the first few times you asked and I gave you the reason why. Youweretoo young. I thought…” She trailed off mid-sentence.

“Thought what?” he pressed carefully.

Looking at her hands, she lifted a shoulder in a shrug, then dropped it. The sun slanted against her face and painted a stroke of gold on the sweet, dark brown of her skin. Her eyes were lighter in those rays, like the soft velvet eyes of a skittish doe.

“I thought I was just an experience you wanted to have. Like some old European tradition where the young nobleman gets schooled by an old courtesan in the art of making love so his virgin princess bride can stay pure till the wedding night.”

“Marone, seven years. That’s all there is between us. Seven years!” he couldn’t help but exclaim softly. “And if a courtesan is a fancy word for ‘prostitute,’ I’m insulted for both of us.”

“Hey, no shaming sex work between fully consenting adults,” she said with a lofty chin raise. “And I agree that seven years when the younger person is like thirty and up isn’t that big of a deal. But when you’re twenty-two and that frontal lobe ain’t even closed yet, it’s a long way to twenty-nine, especially with our life experiences at that point.”

“Aw, get outta here…” he scoffed, eyebrows drawn together. “I’d been working a steady, demanding job for four years. I had a car.”

“And you were the coddled baby of your family, still living at home. Your parents bought you that car. You couldn’t cook for yourself or do your own laundry.”

“Yeah, and I bought us a house. And when we moved in together and I tried to cook or do laundry, you were like, ‘Santino, you’re doing it wrong’ and took over, every time. Then you got mad when I stopped trying,” he pointed out. “Besides that, I loved when you cooked for me. It made me feel good, like when my nonna made my favorites.”

Vanessa sighed, seemingly unsure if she should be annoyed at his summary of her role in their fights or pleased at the comparison to Nonna Greta.

“Well, I like that last part,” she allowed. “But when my dad died, I had to step up and become the second adult in the house. At fourteen, I was cooking breakfast and dinner when my mom was on shift at the hospital. I had to get Bobby ready for school, and I had to help him with his homework. I had to help clean and do laundry. And I had to bring home straight A’s or else on top of that. There was no hanging out with friends after school. No parties. I worked to help put Bobby get through undergrad and med school. I felt soold. That’s why I wasn’t even thinking about having a kid of my own until I was at least thirty. I felt like I’d already spent my childhood and my young adulthood raising somebody.”

He'd heard a lot of this before, about how she’d bore so much responsibility from such a young age, but he hadn’t understood till now how it had weighed her down.

Santino admitted, “Alright, yeah, you were way more mature than me. But you could’ve been twice my age, and I still would’ve wanted you for you, and not because you were experienced in bed. If anything, it drove me kinda crazy knowing somebody else had touched you before me.” He caressed her jawline with a fleeting touch. “And it was mutual. You wanted me, too. You saw me as a man, or you wouldn’t have let me make love to you.”

Vanessa grasped his fingers but held on, interlacing them with hers on the scratchy blanket.

“Old ladies still get horny. It be’s that way,” she said with a wry grin. At his exasperated sigh, she continued, “Anyway, look at you. How could I resist? You were gorgeous and so…I don’t know, open to life and enthusiastic. I guess because I wasn’t like that and wished I could be, I was drawn to it. Kinda like Dracula, the undead, fascinated with having a live human girlfriend. The blood is the life.”

Santino chuckled. “That’s wild. In three days, we’ve gone from you being a wolf to a vampire. See, you saying shit like that isexactly why I loved hanging out with you so much. In or out of the bathroom.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, then laughed too despite herself. “But it’s true. You just came out of nowhere and said you weren’t leaving. And I thought, ‘Okay, he’s kind of relentless, so I might as well give it a shot.’ But when you told me you were a virgin, I was shocked. If you’d given me time to think about it, I would have said no to being your first.”

“You did say no. Why? Because you thought I’d be bad at it? I was nervous, honestly.”

In a rush, she blurted out, “I knew you’d be really good, and you were. It was a magical night for me. But I always thought at some point, you’d realize the infatuation was justbecauseI was your first and you had nothing to compare me to.” He stopped smiling at that. “And I knew you’d eventually want to see what else was out there. I thought if I held you back, someday you’d resent it and you’d regret making us permanent. I didn’t think you’d be happy with some boring old nerd in the long run.”

This time, Santino pulled her to face him and cupped her cheek in his palm to look into her eyes. They were filled with lingering pain. “That’s what you thought? Even going into marriage, that’s what you thought?”

She nodded, a sheen appearing in the dark depths, a sorrow she was trying to hide behind a quirky little eye roll. He shook his head, sadness overcoming him to picture her believing that about him, about herself.

“Tesoro, no. Not for a second. When I asked you to marry me, I intended it to be forever. Why did you marrymeif that’s what you thought I’d end up doing?”

The intensity must have been too much for her, because she pulled his hand from her face. She locked their fingers again as if to keep him from trying to touch her.

“Because of Auntie Belle.” Vanessa wiped her eyes with her free hand and grinned. “We’d only been on one official date, and you asked to come meet her when she was sick in hospice because you knew she was important to me. She loved you right away. Belle could always read people, and after you left the room to get me some tea, she held my hand and said, ‘That man is gonna take good care of you.’”

It warmed Santino to his very soul to hear that. He’d remembered Aunt Belle, who was so frail she’d been swallowed up in that bed, but who’d held his hand with strength.

“That means a lot, to hear she liked me,” he said, humbled.

“Yes, she really did. But if I have to boil it down to the exact moment I decided to marry you, it was her funeral. You showed up that day at the funeral parlor. Everybody was comforting Bobby and all my cousins, but you walked in and came straight to me and didn’t leave my side for three days after. You showed up just for me. I’d never had anybody but my dad and Belle do that, be there becauseIneeded somebody. So, I married you. I wanted to have you for as long as you were willing to stay.”

Santino’s heart filled to the point where it almost couldn’t contain the overflow. He remembered that day. The way Vanessa had looked at him when he entered the room full of mourners was something he could never have forgotten, like he’d saved her from a place infinitely deeper and more frightening than that elevator in her building. She’d rushed into his arms, whispering, “I’m so glad you’re here.” He’d wanted to keep on holding her and never let go.

“You did the same for me when my nonna died. You held me down a thousand percent. And I’m still willing,” he said gruffly, squeezing her hand. “I’m trying to come back. But you have to let me. Just say yes. We could be better this time, Iknowit.”

Those velvet eyes held his, still flooded with uncertainty. “It’s Monday,” she finally said, a sweet, sarcastic smile tugging at her lips. “Ask me again on Friday.”

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