Page 78 of Two Chances With You

“Hey, Step?”

“Yes?”

“How many places will we be hitting?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, seeing that we’re going to eat one item in each place, just to understand how many there will be. Otherwise, I’m afraid I might simply burst. Yes, tell me, how many places will we be stopping at?”

“Twenty-one!”

Gin suddenly stops. She halts in the middle of the street and digs in her heels.

“What’s going on now?”

She grabs me suddenly by the jacket and pulls me to her with both hands, gripping my lapels.

“Tell me who you stole it from?”

“The Audi, I told you, my brother.”

“No, this idea. Eating something different in every single place. Where did you get it?”

I laugh as I shake my head, drunker than ever, high on the fun as much as on the alcohol. “I thought it up myself.”

“Do you mean that this was an idea all yours, that you didn’t steal it from anyone else? I mean, some stupid book, some romantic film, some urban legend?”

I spread both arms wide, and I shrug my shoulders slightly. “It’s all mine. It just occurred to me, like that.” I snap my fingers.

Gin is still gripping me by the lapels, and she gazes into my face with a still slightly dubious expression. “And you’ve never done this with any other girl?”

“No. It’s for you and you alone. As far as that goes, I’ve never even been to any of the places that I selected with any other girl.”

She lets go of me all at once, shoving me backward. “Come on! This time you lied!”

I grab her by the lapels and spin her around before she can get too far away. She turns a one-eighty and winds up close to my face.

“Okay, I spouted bullshit. But it was always the bunch of us, in a group. Never alone, the way I am here, now, with you.”

“Okay, that’s already much better. Now I can believe it.”

“You’d better believe it.” My voice drops an octave, and I’m as surprised as anybody to hear it sounding so choked and suffocated, almost whispering, into her ears, around her neck, tangled in her hair. I look into her eyes. I smile sincerely. She appreciates that, I think. But I’m determined to put the seal on it. “I swear…”

She smiles back and lets herself go. I kiss her. A soft kiss, a slow kiss, a non-invasive kiss. A Traminer-scented kiss, a light kiss, a kiss that tastes of surf, a kiss that rides the wave, a kiss with a nibble and a bite, a kiss that’s an “I want to go further but I can’t.” An “it’s not possible” kiss. A “there’s people all around us” kiss…

Chapter 27

Ican’t believe this. It’s me, Gin, here on Via del Governo Vecchio, kissing publicly on the street. People walking past me, people looking at me, people stopping, people staring at me…

And me, right in the middle of the street. Without thinking, without looking, without worrying. Eyes shut. People all around me. In fact, I think that, right this second, there might be someone staring at us kissing from a comfortable vantage point just two inches away from our kiss.

I open my right eye ever so slightly. Nothing to be seen. All quiet on that front. I shut my eye again. Who knows what there might be on the other side…

But I don’t give a damn! It’s me and Step. That’s all I know for sure. I wrap my arms around him even tighter, and we go on kissing like that, without problems, without a single thought in our heads. Then we burst out laughing, who even knows why. I press my right cheek against his shoulder, smiling, leaning sideways against him, letting a shiver run through me. Or maybe it was a burst of desire.

“Come on. Primi della Classe are waiting for us. The Heads of the Class.”

“Who are they, some egghead friends of yours?”

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