Page 117 of Rules Of Engagement: St. Louis
“I said I was buying dinner for the most beautiful woman in Sicily.”
“You’re shameless.”
“Accurate, not shameless.”
An elderly woman selling olives gestured for us to try her wares, speaking rapidly in Sicilian while offering us samples on small pieces of bread. The olives were unlike anything I’d ever tasted, briny and complex, with herbs and spices I couldn’t identify.
“Brava!” she exclaimed when she saw my reaction, pressing a container into my hands while refusing Christian’s money. “Per amore!” she said, making kissing sounds and gesturing between us.
“She says it’s for love,” Christian translated, his arm sliding around my waist.
“I gathered that much.”
By the time we finished shopping, we had enough food for a feast. Fresh fruit, local cheese, wine from a vineyard on the slopes of Mount Etna, and pastries that looked too beautiful to eat.
“Would you like to have a picnic?” Christian asked, hefting our bags.
“I’d love to.”
Being at The Valley of the Temples was like making an appearance in an episode on the History Channel. Ancient Greek columns, against the blue sunny sky, could be a snapshot in a magazine.
We spread our blanket in the shade of a tree, close enough to the Temple of Concordia to touch its foundation stones.Christian unpacked our feast while I stared at the ruins in wonder.
“How old are these?” I asked, running my fingers along the carved stone.
“Fifth century BCE. They were already ancient when Rome was just getting started.”
“It’s humbling. All these people who lived and loved and died, and we’re here admiring what they built.”
Christian paused in opening the wine to look at me. “You know what I love about traveling with you?”
“What?”
“You see the humanity in everything. Most people would take photos and move on, but you’re thinking about the actual people who walked here thousands of years ago.”
“Thousands of years from now, maybe someone will sit where we’re sitting and wonder about us.”
“What do you think they’ll wonder?”
I accepted the glass of wine he handed me. “Whether we were happy. Whether we loved each other enough.”
“And what would you tell them?”
“That, yes, we were ridiculously happy. And yes, we loved each other more than we knew how to handle.”
Christian’s eyes grew serious as he moved closer to me on the blanket. “Naomi, I?—”
“No serious conversations,” I interrupted, pressing my finger to his lips. “Just this. You and me. Right now.”
He kissed my finger, then my palm, and pulled me against his chest, so we were lying together on the blanket.
“Open up.”
He opened his mouth, and I put a small block of cheese on his tongue. He sucked my finger and ate the cheese, and I had to stifle a moan. We shared fresh figs and savored sips of wine, and I was the most relaxed I’d ever been.
“When I was here for the summer during law school, I got lost three times trying to find this place.”
“That must have been frustrating.”
