“Nope,” I finally managed. He smiled like he didn’t believe me.
“Nico! Andiamo!”
Nico looked over his shoulder at a group of guys who were waving and calling out to him. He shouted something back to them, and they headed out the door, hooting and hollering as they went.
He stood up. He was taller than I’d first thought. Yummy tall. Way taller than me tall, and that wasn’t easy to find. “How long will you be in Monterra?”
It was such a personal question my gut reaction was to tell him to mind his own business, but to my surprise, I found myself saying, “For the next couple of weeks.”
“May I see your phone?”
I didn’t actually own a cell phone. I could barely afford food.
“No phone, and I’m not phone adjacent.”
Nico smiled again, and I wanted to melt into my chair. He reached inside his coat, pulled out a small white business card, and handed it to me. “If you do ever find yourself adjacent to a phone while you’re here, please call. I would love to take you to dinner before you leave.”
When I reached out he took my hand and turned it over, leaning down to kiss my knuckles. A lightning arc exploded inside my hand and zoomed around my entire body, all the way down to my toenails. I might have gasped, but I decided to pretend that I would never do something so lame.
He straightened back up to put the card in my shaking hand, closing my fingers around it. “I look forward to your call,” he said as he walked backward toward the exit. “Ciao, bella.”
He left and it took my eyes a second to adjust. Like I’d been staring at the sun and now had third-degree burns on my retinas. Who did that? Who just kissed people’s hands like that? This wasn’t the fifteenth century. So weird. And exciting. But weird.
The business card was white and thick. Obviously expensive. There was only a series of numbers, presumably his telephone number. I flipped the card over. Blank. Who had a card without a name on it? Just their phone number?
I’d tell you who. A guy who kissed your hand.
I closed my book and put it on the coffee table in front of me. I looked at the card again, turning it over a couple of times as I considered my decision.
I didn’t need this while I was here. And I couldn’t let Lemon see it or she’d hogtie me and force me to call him. I was here to relax, forget about my school troubles, and enjoy time with my best friend. Boys were not part of the equation.
A massive fire burned in the fireplace across the room. Decision made, I walked over and before I could change my mind, threw the card into the fire.
And informed myself that I absolutely, totally and completely did not regret it.
Lemon’s “five more minutes” turned out to be “more than an hour.” She came down, all smiles and sorries, in her bright pink snowsuit. “Come on, Kat, darlin’! Let’s go!” she said in her sweet Southern twang.
I smiled back. She’d been my best friend since our freshman year when we were assigned to be roommates in our dorm. The computer couldn’t have matched up a more polar opposite pair than us. Lemon Beauchamp was from a premiere (read: way wealthy) family in Atlanta, Georgia. She was like a tiny, modern-day Marilyn Monroe—platinum blonde, bright red lips, curves for miles.
I was from a not-so-great family in a trailer park in Colorado (read: way poor) and was tall, usually wore no makeup, and had dark brown hair. Lemon kept encouraging me to call it auburn, but it was definitely brown (with maybe a little hint of red when I went out into the sun).
She kept up a giddy, totally one-sided conversation as we gathered up our skis (hers: top-of-the-line; mine: rented), helmets, and poles. We stepped outside and the light nearly blinded me. I put my sunglasses on and shaded my eyes with my hand to look straight up at the Alps. I thought the Rocky Mountains back home were huge, but these were massive. Impressive. Majestic.
“I am so excited!” Lemon kept saying throughout her monologue. I didn’t know if anyone else on the planet loved to ski as much as she did. Lemon had come to Brighton University, our small liberal arts college, solely because of the skiing. She spent every winter weekend on the mountain. In fact, after freshman year Lemon continued living with me in a small apartment off campus instead of the condo her parents thought she rented. She used the extra money to fund her skiing habit.
I, on the other hand, had only gone skiing once about twelve years ago for a class trip in sixth grade. I remembered our group lesson, and it turned out I had exceptional balancing skills, as I was the only one to not fall forty times in the first ten minutes.
So when Lemon begged me to spend Christmas with her, offering to foot the entire bill for us to ski in some foreign country I’d never even heard of, I had to say yes. I hated that she had to pay for it, and when I offered to reimburse her, she got offended and said it was her Christmas gift to me. Her parents were off celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary on a cruise in the Caribbean, and Lemon did not want to be alone. How could I say no?