Mr. Big(53)

Mia closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet and fresh salty air, letting it fill all of her in a great breath, and as it filled her, and then left her when she exhaled, she believed that she would find the peace she so desperately sought there.

She decided to go for a walk on the beach and as she walked out into the late spring afternoon, she felt grateful that she was one of the few people there in the village and on the pebble covered beach. There weren’t many people around and it enabled her to feel as if she could have the solitude that she craved.

Her phone rang, and it startled her. Looking down at it with a frown, the frown quickly changed to a wide smile as she saw who it was and answered it right away.

“Liam! How are you?” she asked with delight. “What on earth are you doing calling me?”

He laughed at her. “Well, to begin with, I’m just fine. I’m calling you to make sure that you’re fine as well. I am worried about you. You didn’t seem like you were too good a shape when you left, and I wanted to make sure that you arrived in Italia safely, because I didn’t hear from you my darling, and I wanted to know how your trip is going so far.”

She felt a huge bubble of happiness welling up in her just from the sound of her friend’s voice, and she sat down on the beach and watched the waves rolling in, holding her phone close to hear him, and to have his voice as near to her as she could.

“Well, I did make it safely, and Italy is amazing. Rome was incredible… you know, we know it’s old, but you get there, and you walk around in it and see the ruins and you see the Vatican, and then you really slowly being to realize just how old it is, and it’s kind of mind-boggling. Our country is a couple of hundred years old. That city itself is a couple of thousand years old, and the contrast is just… unbelievable. It’s kind of hard to wrap your mind around.”

He chuckled. “I felt like that in London the first time I went.” He said with a fond smile that she could hear as he spoke. “So you loved Rome. Are you still in Rome? How is the wine? How is the food? Did you meet anyone yet?”

She laughed a little and realized that she hadn’t laughed in a long time. It felt good to her, like a little release, and she wanted more of it. “Well, I was in Rome, and the wine was excellent of course, and the food was some of the best I’ve ever had. I’ll tell you something, Liam, we think we have good Italian food in the city; and it’s all right, even in little Italy there on the south side of Manhattan, we think we have good Italian…”

He chuckled, “Yes, we do…”

Mia shook her head. “We do not know anything about Italian food. It’s so much better here, and I don’t mean just a little bit. Every flavor, every texture… all of it. It’s unbelievable. I didn’t know food could taste this good. I’m going to come back heavier than I left, that’s for sure!” she laughed again and loved being able to do it.

“It is the motherland of food, that’s true,” he agreed. “So what else? Did you meet anyone? What’s going on?”

She smiled a little and looked out at the gently rolling waves that lapped into shore, washing the pebbles and making a hushing sound as if the sea was softly kissing the land over and over.

“Well, I left Rome. There were couples everywhere and it was kind of crazy and busy, not as crazy as Manhattan is, but just… it was too much. Sensory overload. I needed some peace. I needed a place to…” she paused. She wanted to be careful about how and what she said. “I needed a place to kind of regroup, I guess, and Rome was wonderful, but it wasn’t the place I needed to be.”

There was quiet at the other end of the line for a long moment. She wondered if the call had been dropped.

“Mia, I am going to ask you this and I want you to be honest with me. Are you trying to get over a certain tall, handsome, big man?” he asked quietly.

She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. She didn’t know how Liam knew her so well. She supposed that it was because he was indeed her best friend, but she could not hold anything back from him any longer.

A hot tear found its way from her thick dark eyelashes and rolled down her cheek. “Yes…” she finally admitted.

“Mia, honey, did you fall in love with him?” he asked her quietly.

She drew a deep breath in slowly so that it would not choke her with emotion and she let the sweet air calm her before she answered. “Yes, Liam, I guess I did. I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to believe it. It happened so fast! I mean, one minute I’m doing that silly challenge, trying to get him to sleep with me and then leave him, and then the next minute, he is making me wait and get to know him, he’s taking his time, and showing me parts of him that I just couldn’t resist. He is such an interesting, intelligent, good man. He sees the world like no one else does, and I can’t believe I didn’t try to hold on to him for as long as I could with everything in me. He’s a really truly good man, and I couldn’t help it… he was so romantic, so enigmatic, and oh my god was he a good lover. He’s everything all wrapped up in one incredible person, and I wrecked it. I threw it away and lost him, and now I am having to deal with that and try to get over him.” More tears stung at her eyes and she sniffed and tried to wipe them away.