Chapter Three

Keira woke to the shrill sound of her alarm clock. It read seven a.m, but thanks to the jetlag and the relatively small proportion of time she and Cristiano had used the bed for sleeping, her body felt like it was still the middle of the night. She felt groggy, like she’d had a very badly timed nap in the middle of the day.

But despite the physical discomfort, mentally she was incredibly excited for the day ahead. She leaped straight out of bed, powered by excitement and exhaustion-induced adrenaline.

She looked back at Cristiano. He was still sleeping soundly.

“Wake up,” she said, leaning over him and kissing his forehead.

His eyes fluttered open. “Do I have to?” he said, yawning. “That long flight exhausted me.”

“It was the flight that exhausted you, huh?” Keira said suggestively, with a wink.

But she realized Cristiano had fallen straight back to sleep!

She decided to leave him to rest and went to freshen up for the day.

She crept into the living area. It was dark and Bryn was snoring loudly. Careful to be as quiet as possible and not waking the sleeping beast, she tiptoed past her sister and took a quick shower, cleaning away the airplane residue and last remnants of Italy from her skin.

When she made it back to the bedroom, she saw that Cristiano was still in a deep, peaceful sleep. She sighed and decided she may as well take her dirty clothes down to the laundrette on the corner. No point wasting this time, since she was back in the office tomorrow.

She quickly emptied her case and collected last night’s strewn clothes, adding them to the bundle before hurrying out of the apartment, along the corridor, down the steps, and onto the streets.

It was an exceptionally chilly morning, and she felt a wonderful sense of nostalgia. She had spent next to no time in New York over the last two months and it felt really great to be home; the familiar sound of traffic, the familiar smell of fumes. It made her think of Thanksgiving, and she smiled to herself knowing she didn’t have too long to wait until her favorite holiday. This year would be extra special with Cristiano there to enjoy it with them. If he stayed that long, anyway.

It was empty inside the laundrette, and Keira loaded several weeks worth of dirty clothes into the machine, filled the drawer with detergent, and added some quarters. She only had enough change on her for a quick wash – she’d not yet had time to get any local currency – but a thirty minute spin was better than nothing.

Once the machine was spinning, she scurried back out, wanting to get back to Cristiano, to wake him and usher him from Bryn’s apartment (and claws) as soon as possible.

But once back in the bedroom, she discovered that Cristiano was still in a very deep sleep. She kissed him again to try and wake him.

“Sleeping beauty” she said, more brightly this time, her a voice a little louder, more obnoxiously demanded. “We have to get up and get going!”

Cristiano groaned. “Can’t we have a lazy day in bed?” he moaned. “We’ve been on the go for weeks. We deserve to relax for one morning, don’t we?”

Keira shook her head, thinking of Bryn in the other room. They had to make their escape before she woke up.

“Nope,” she replied. “The whole of New York is waiting for us!”

Cristiano yawned, turning away from her loud voice. “And it will still be there in the afternoon after breakfast.”

“But it’s best enjoyed in the morning,” Keira contested, heaving the covers off of him. “Take it from a local.”

Cristiano gave up arguing, and, shivering, got out of bed.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” he moaned.

“Because there’s so much to do!” she replied, quickly pulling on a pair of Bryn’s winter boots. All her winter footwear was stored in a box somewhere, her stuff from Zach’s apartment strewn in various locations from her room in her mom’s house, to Shelby and David’s attic, to Bryn’s closet. There was even a sneaky box under her desk at Viatorum.

“Can I have a shower at least?” Cristiano asked.

Keira chewed her lip. Every minute wasted was another minute closer to Bryn waking up and attempting to get her talons into Cristiano. But Keira couldn’t deny him his basic human needs.

“Of course,” she said, brightly, feigning calmness. She went over to Bryn’s closet and pulled out a fluffy towel. “Here,” she said, handing it to him along with some shampoo and shower gel from her luggage. “The shower is just down the hall.”

He kissed her in thanks and disappeared from the room. Keira slumped to sitting on the bed, already exhausted. This was not going to be easy. She would need to find a new apartment as soon as possible. Like yesterday.

But that relied on getting her deposit back from Zach for their old apartment. She didn’t really want to initiate contact but it was clearly the lesser of two evils in this particular situation. She grabbed her cellphone and fired off a text.

Any news on the deposit? K

Against her better judgment, she added a x on the end. Buttering Zachary up wasn’t something she enjoyed doing, but if it meant she got her deposit back then it was worth it.

She peeked out the bedroom door into the living area. The blinds were still down and the room was black. The only sounds were the shower from the other end of the corridor and Bryn’s loud snoring. Luckily Cristiano hadn’t woken her on his way past either.

But she began to grow impatient. Cristiano was sure taking his time! She checked her watch and saw that her clothes in the laundrette would soon be reaching the end of their cycle. She decided to fetch them, rather than run the risk of some local stealing them the moment the lock clicked open on the machine’s door. Even at seven thirty on a Sunday morning you could never be too careful!

She left the apartment again and hurried to the laundrette. There were a couple of people in there now, both organized-looking middle aged women clearly attempting to beat the queues. Keira collected her warm, damp clothes. She didn’t have enough change for the drier so would have to hang them up around Bryn’s apartment.

She left, heading back along the street towards Bryn’s. It felt really good to do normal chores again, to be a normal person again rather than a travel writer in an exciting foreign land. There really was such a thing as too much of a good thing, it turned out.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she began climbing the stairs up to Bryn’s apartment. It was a text from Zach. She bit her lip with anticipation then read what he’d written.

Bon jour Keira! I’m in France for work. A week long conference event starting tomorrow! Can we chat about $ when I’m back?

She sighed with frustration. It would be another week before they could speak about it, not that she could even understand what there was to speak about! It should be a simple case of transferring her share of the money into her bank but of course he wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

Her eyes still on her cell phone, Keira went into Bryn’s apartment. She was immediately surprised by the sound of laughter, and looked up.

Everything had changed. The blinds were open, the lights on, the coffee machine bubbling away, and there was Bryn in the kitchen, looking far more awake than someone who had spent the last day drinking ought to. Perched with his back against the counter was Cristiano, his bare torso glistening with water droplets, nothing but a towel tied around his waist to protect his modesty.

“What’s going on?” Keira cried, startled.

Bryn looked over at her, and frowned, amused by Keira’s paranoid tone. “I’m making coffee,” she said, stating the obvious. “Where have you been?”

“I went to the laundrette,” Keira said, holding up her heavy bag of damp clothes. “I was only gone two minutes.”

Two minutes, clearly, was all it took for Bryn to take the opportunity to feast her eyes upon Cristiano’s well honed body.

“Babe,” Keira said forcefully, looking at him. “We’d better get dressed. We have to go.”

“We have time for a coffee don’t we?” he asked. “While you’re hanging your clothes up to dry?”

Keira dropped the bag on the floor, nonchalantly, and tried to sound light-hearted as she went over and steered him by his shoulders towards the bedroom.

“But I want to take you to the best coffee place in the whole of New York,” she said. “Small batch. Freshly ground. Much nicer than Bryn’s machine made coffee.”

“Oh… oh, okay…” Cristiano said, putting up no resistance. “But… your clothes?”

As she ushered him into the safety of the bedroom, Keira glanced over her shoulder at Bryn. She was watching, smirking, clearly amused by her sister’s flustered haste. Keira gave her a stern expression, a warning look to leave Cristiano alone.

“I can hang your clothes,” Bryn said with a sweet, knowing smile.

“Thank you,” Keira replied, tersely.

She went to shut the door but Bryn wasn’t done.

“Hun, if you think I’m bad,” she chuckled, “Wait until you get him out there.” She pointed to the window. “You’re going to find a whole lot worse than me. Trust me.”

Her body tense all over, Keira shut the door.

Chapter Four

Their first stop was the Upper West Side where they grabbed bagels and coffee to eat on the move. It was a far cry from the long, lazy meals they had shared in Italy, but Keira wanted Cristiano to really get a feel for what life was like in New York City.

“So this is the best coffee in New York, is it?” Cristiano asked, sipping from the paper cup with careful consideration. He didn’t look convinced.

“Oh, yeah, the best,” Keira told him, remembering the lie she’d blurted out this morning. It was good but it wasn’t the small batch, freshly ground coffee she had promised. “In my opinion, anyway.”

Cristiano just shrugged.

They strolled along the sidewalk hand in hand towards the Hudson River. Keira was acutely aware of the amounts of stares Cristiano garnered. She knew there was a discrepancy between their respective attractiveness, but she felt even more like the plain Jane back in New York, because here Cristiano was more than just a catch, he was a rare beast. Bryn had been right. There were far worse than her in the city. Having him here was going to be exhausting.

“What do you think about my sister?” she asked.

Cristiano laughed. “She’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

There was a pause, during which Cristiano was clearly trying to choose his words carefully. Finally he settled on; “Pazza.”

“What does that mean?” Keira asked, her mind conjuring up all kinds of options; beautiful, wonderful, alluring, mesmerizing.

“Crazy,” Cristiano said.

Keira laughed. It was a relief to hear him say as much. Unless he had a secret thing for crazy, she was probably safe. From Bryn, at least. There was still the rest of the female population of New York City to contend with.

They walked through Riverside Park, looking at the beautiful river, then headed towards Central Park. Since Cristiano had noticed it from the air as their plane had flown over, Keira deduced that he would also appreciate seeing it from ground level.

“This is so amazing,” he said, looking at the distant skyscrapers that surrounded them. “It doesn’t seem real.”

Keira smiled, remembering how she had said very similar things to him about Italy. It was cool to see him so entranced by her hometown, to see him marvel at things she had long ago forgotten to be inspired by.

They headed eastward, towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The culture in Italy had been astounding but Keira was competitive by nature and didn’t want Cristiano to think that his ancient European country had more going for it than New York City did! But there was so much to pack in to the day, they were only inside for an hour or so before Cristiano asked to see more of the actual city.

They took a subway to fifth avenue so Keira could show him Times Square, then headed to eleventh avenue for a stroll along the High Line so he could really take in the sights of the Manhattan skyline. They bought more coffee from one of the vendors along the bridge.

As the afternoon drew on, Keira took Cristiano to SoHo where they grabbed some lunch in one of the cafes. Cristiano seemed to especially like this part of the city, particularly all the fashionistas and interesting clothes shops. In fact, he fit right in in his Italian clothes, and found himself a new jacket that looked remarkably similar to the cut-price one they’d bought from the outlet beside the airport, the main difference being that this one cost fifty dollars instead of ten.

While they were eating lunch, Keira’s phone started ringing. Her first instinct was Bryn trying to find some way to lure them back to the apartment. But when Keira looked at her phone, she saw it was her mom calling. She answered the call.

“Darling, I’ve just been speaking to your sister,” her mom announced. “You have to bring Cristiano around tonight for dinner.”

“No, mom,” Keira said with a wince. “We want to spend the day together. We’ve planned everything out.”

“But I’ve already been to the store,” Mallory replied with a sad whine to her voice. I’ve bought everything to make lasagne.”

“Why?” Keira hissed. “You didn’t even ask me.”

She knew why. If her mom had asked her first she’d have no leverage, no way to bargain and nothing to guilt trip Keira with. This way, she had the upper hand. Keira’s refusal made her look spoiled and ungrateful.

From across the table, Cristiano looked concerned. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

Keira nodded, trying to play it cool. She spoke again into the phone. “Mom, I have to go now. We’ll do dinner another time.”

Her mom sighed loudly. “Have you even asked Cristiano if he’d like to meet me? Because it doesn’t sound like you’ve given him the choice.”

Keira grit her teeth. Rolling her eyes, she looked up at Cristiano. “My mom wants us to go around there for dinner tonight. But we were planning on going to that meatball restaurant, weren’t we? So I’m just telling her we’ll take a rain check.”

But rather than the response she was hoping to get from him, Cristiano looked thrilled by the prospect of meeting Keira’s mom.

“We can get meatballs anytime,” he said with a shrug. “If your mom wants to cook for us, we should really let her. I’d love to meet her.”

Keira let her head drop into her hands. With a sigh, she relented.

“Fine,” she said into the phone. “You win, mom. We’ll be round at eight.”

“Seven,” her mom corrected.

“Seven,” Keira repeated glumly.

“Oh how wonderful!” her mom gushed. But Keira cut the call off before she’d even finished speaking. She looked up at Cristiano. “You don’t need to be so polite, you know.”

He laughed. “Politeness isn’t my motivation, Keira. I’d very much like to meet your mom.”

“She’s cooking lasagne,” Keira added in a dry voice. “I can only assume because you’re Italian.”

“Well that’s perfect,” he replied. “Because I love lasagne.”

Keira sighed. Cristiano may be ready to meet more of her pazza family members but she certainly wasn’t. Having him here was becoming more and more stressful for her by the second.