Whoever invented body spray for men has a lot to answer for. I don’t mind when a guy dabs a little bit of cologne on his wrists or splashes on some aftershave. In fact, it can be kind of nice, especially if he wears something that makes him smell like he just went for a romantic walk in a pine forest wearing a leather coat.
But, for some reason, there are guys who don’t understand less is more when it comes to body spray. They spray and spray and spray until the can is empty, take a quick sniff of their armpits and call it good. Then they head out to slay the ladies.
What they don’t realize is that the ladies aren’t speechless in their presence because they’re so enraptured by their charm and rugged good looks. No, the ladies are speechless because they’re choking on the aroma cloud the guys have swirling around them. It’s kind of hard to talk when a girl can’t breathe.
Maybe I’m not being fair. Some men don’t know their own strength. Maybe when they press down on the button on the canister with their big thumbs, it breaks and they inadvertently get every last drop of the fragrance inside the can all over them.
I check out the two guys sitting next to us. There’s not an awful lot of upper body strength going on with these two. I’m pretty sure I could take them in an arm wrestling competition. And their thumbs seem smaller than mine. Thumb wrestling would be a breeze.
Nope, there’s no excuse for their overwhelming smell—this was not a case of overpowering thumb strength. What makes it even worse is that they don’t smell like sandalwood or citrus fruit. That might have been bearable. But this…I don’t even know how to describe it.
Wait. I’ve got it. Imagine a cross between bubblegum and doggy doo-doo. Yep, that about sums it up.
I’m desperate for fresh air. I pinch my nose shut and try to open the window, but the latch is jammed. I start coughing and collapse back in my seat.
“Here, let me get that,” Preston offers. I watch as he effortlessly lowers the window, using his normal-sized thumbs to depress the latches.
“Thanks,” I say before leaning out the window and taking several deep breaths.
He glances at our neighbors and gives me a conspiratorial look. “Better?” he asks.
“Much.” The breeze coming through the window blows the offending odor away from us.
Of course, “away from us” means that it’s blowing directly at where my friends are sitting. I chuckle as Mia wrinkles her nose and scowls. I’m impressed with how quickly she lowers her window.
The bubblegum doggy doo-doo guys say something to each other in Italian.
I cup my hand near my face to shield my lips and whisper to Preston, “They’re talking about how cold it is in here. You don’t think they’re going to want us to close the window, do you?”
He furrows his brow. “They didn’t say anything about the temperature. They’re talking about soccer.”
“No, they’re not. They’re talking about the weather. It’s basic Italian 101 stuff.” I reach into my purse. “I’ve got a grammar book in here somewhere. You can look it up.”
“That’s okay,” he says. “My Italian is pretty good.”
“Uh, I hate to break it to you, but when you ran into me on the platform, you kept asking me if the fish was fresh. That’s the kind of thing you say at the market, not after you’ve knocked someone to the ground.”
“Maybe you should be the one studying that book of yours. I was asking if you were okay, not about fish.”
I shake my head. “Nope, it was fish.”
“Did you hit your head when you fell?” he asks, biting back a smile. “I think you might have a screw loose. I didn’t say anything about cod, haddock, flounder, or any other kind of seafood.”
I hold up my hands and shrug. “Fine, have it your way.”
“This isn’t about my way versus your way.” He holds my gaze for what seems like an eternity, those blue eyes of his momentarily hypnotizing me again.
Then he abruptly turns and says something in rapid-fire Italian to the nasally impaired guys. They laugh, then proceed to engage him in a conversation about model airplanes.
At least I think that’s what they’re talking about. To be honest—and promise you won’t tell Preston this—I don’t understand everything they’re saying. I blame it on the bubblegum doggy doo-doo body spray. If you breathe too much of it in, it can cause your cognitive processes to be impaired. That’s just basic science for you.
I pull a novel out of my purse and try to ignore their chattering. The book is far from riveting, but it will be better than listening to the guys prattle on about balsa wood and glue. I flip through the pages, trying to find where I left off.
“What are you reading?” Preston asks as he grabs the book from my hands. “Hmm…a mystery. I thought you would have been reading something sci-fi.”
I pull the book back. “I’m broadening my horizons.”
“Fair enough,” he says as he pulls a familiar-looking hardback book out of his backpack and holds it in front of him. “I had an ex who was always trying to get me to read fiction, but I could never really get into it. I prefer to read about stuff that’s real, not stuff that’s make-believe.”
I tilt my head and try to read the title on the spine of the book. He turns the book around so I can see it—Sanitation in the Roman Empire. “Probably not your cup of tea.”
“You know, Witmer’s theory about the cultural importance of aqueducts is wrong,” I say.
He taps the cover of the book. “You’ve read this?”
“Uh, no…of course not,” I splutter before adding, “Only a dweeb would read something like that.”
Total lie. Not only have I read it, I wrote a research paper on the subject of how the Romans piped water into their latrines.
“Well, then how do you know about it?” he asks with a quizzical look on his face.
“Oh, um, some guy mentioned it.”
“Some guy mentioned it? Seems like an oddly specific conversation.”
“Well, it wasn’t so much a conversation as it was a pickup line.”
“That was his pickup line—Witmer is wrong about the cultural significance of aqueducts?”
I nod.
“Did it work?”
I take a deep breath and look out the window. Something like that worked once. The first time I met what’s-his-name, he dazzled me with his insights about the sewage systems at the Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall. But now I can see that it was a load of, um…how should I put this? It was a load of doggy doo-doo.
“No, not at all,” I say, turning back to Preston. “I don’t go for history buffs.”
I do a fist pump when the conductor announces that Bologna will be the next stop. I am so ready to get off this train, and not just because of the body spray stench. Preston is getting on my nerves. He keeps trying to engage me in conversation, asking all sorts of intrusive questions like, “Where are you from?”
That one’s an easy one. I go with the truth—Florida. Then I ramble on for a few minutes about the best way to make orange juice, going into great detail about how to hold the oranges when you squeeze them.
He follows up with a more complicated question. “What do you do for a living?”
I toy with my charm bracelet while I try to think up an answer to give Preston that won’t cause me to burst out sobbing. Technically, I’m unemployed. I mean, I used to be a graduate student, but that’s not a real job and you certainly don’t get rich doing it. In fact, you get poorer as student loans mount up. Now I’m a nothing. A big fat nothing whose only employable skill involves squeezing oranges.
He runs his fingers through his wavy brown hair while he waits for my answer.
Finally, I blurt out, “I’m a chef.”
Which is kind of true. Or at least it will be in the future once I finish cooking school. Isn’t that what all those self-help books tell you to do? Fake it until you make it? Faking it is my new mantra.
Then he asks what kind of cuisine I make. I tell him my specialty is jus d’orange, which is French for orange juice. Mia taught me that while we were on the cruise ship.
Apparently, Preston doesn’t speak French because he looks suitably impressed. Or he has heartburn. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.
“So, what are your travel plans? Where are you going after Bologna?” he asks next.
I opt for an evasive answer. No need for him to know that I’m catching a train to Ravenna once we get to Bologna. I shrug and say, “I’m footloose and fancy free.”
Then I laugh. A nervous kind of laugh. I’ve never been footloose or fancy free in my life. I went straight from high school (straight As, thank you very much) to college (graduated with an honors degree in history), then on to graduate school. My plan was so clear—get a doctorate in history, then become a professor. I never questioned it. I never thought of doing anything else.
Then my plan fell apart.
Preston leans across the table, interrupting my thoughts. “Do you have a b—?”
I can’t hear the rest of his question because the conductor makes another announcement.
“Two minutes to Bologna. Two minutes,” he says in English and Italian over the crackling loudspeaker.
What was Preston going to ask? Do I have a ball? A balloon? A book? A banana?
Before I can find out, the train comes to a halt and we’re busy collecting our belongings.
Preston and I follow the two body spray guys down the aisle to the end of the car. When we reach the luggage rack, I put my weight on my good foot, then grab hold of the handle of my suitcase. It’s wedged between a duffel bag and a large cardboard box. As I try to yank it out, I lose my balance and stumble backward.
“Here, let me help you with that,” I hear Preston say as he grabs my waist to steady me. I gasp as I feel the heat of his hands burning through my t-shirt. Then I feel my face redden. Does he think I gasped because of his touch?
“You okay?” he asks, and I feel his right thumb press into my back, right above the waistband of my jeans.
I inhale sharply, then close my eyes and let my breath out slowly. “It’s just my foot. It still hurts from earlier.” I spin around to face him while hopping on one leg.
He leans down and says softly, “I’m sorry to have caused you so much pain.”
He’s managed to make me forget all about my ankle. Instead, all I can think about is the fact that he smells like he just came back from a long walk in a pine forest wearing a leather jacket. We’ve been sitting on a train for the past five hours. If anything, he should be smelling like bubblegum and doggy doo-doo by now.
And just like that, the spell is broken. Amazing how the thought of bubblegum and doggy doo-doo will do that.
“No worries,” I say, pulling back. “It’ll be fine.”
“Well, the least I can do is help you with your bag.”
He lifts it down from the rack and carries it off the train. After he sets it down on the platform, I hold out my hand. “Thanks for your help.”
Preston shakes my hand, a bemused smile on his face. I notice that he holds my hand a bit longer than you normally do when you’ve just met someone.
“I can take it from here,” I say.
He releases my hand. “Your suitcase is too heavy for you to carry with your bad ankle.”
“No, it’s got wheels, remember?” I pull it back and forth a few times to demonstrate how easy it is to operate. “Besides, my friends can help if I need it. Where are they, by the way?” I was so distracted by Preston that I almost forgot I wasn’t traveling alone.
“I think they got trapped behind that little boy and his mom,” he says. “It was taking a while for the mom to pack up all of their belongings.”
I hear Isabelle’s voice before I see her. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she says as she pushes her way through the crowd, Mia trailing behind her.
“There you are! We thought we’d lost you,” Mia says when she catches up.
Isabelle nudges me. “Or that you’d run off with the hot guy you were sitting across from.”
My eyes widen. Why are they embarrassing me in front of Preston?
“What did you do with him?” Mia asks.
“What do you mean? He’s right here,” I say, looking to my left. But all I see are the bubblegum doggy doo-doo guys. I bite my lip. “I don’t know where he went.”
“I see him over there,” Isabelle says. “It looks like he’s pointing something out on a map to that woman.” She looks at me slyly. “You seem disappointed that he’s talking to another girl.”
“Nope, not at all. He may be cute, but he’s definitely not my type.”
We catch our next train without another injury being inflicted on my ankle. After an hour rolling through the pretty countryside, the train pulls into Ravenna. We hail a taxi, then head to the apartment Isabelle and Mia got a last-minute rental deal on. As we pull up in front of a rustic three-story brick building, Isabelle’s phone beeps.
“That was the owner,” she says, reading the text. “He’s running late. We’re supposed to wait for him in the courtyard and he’ll be here soon to give us the keys.” She pushes open a green wooden gate and peeks her head through. “This must be it.” Isabelle grabs her suitcase and leads the way inside.
“This is so pretty,” I say, inhaling the scent of flowers overflowing from terracotta containers. A large cat lying on a black wrought-iron table looks at us and meows softly before closing his eyes. Water bubbles in a marble fountain in the center of the brick patio. The smell of roasting meat wafts down from a window on the second floor. I wrap my arms around myself and sigh contentedly. This is exactly what I was hoping my Italian vacation would be like—beautiful, charming, and relaxing.
“Buona sera,” a deep voice says behind me.
I turn and see a man who looks like he just came from a fashion shoot—dark hair swept back into a ponytail, smoldering eyes, and a shirt unbuttoned just far enough so that you know you want to see what else is underneath.
He sets a bottle of wine on the table, then smacks his fingers to his lips before saying, “Che belle signore.”
“Oh, I know this one,” Mia says. “He called us beautiful ladies.”
I frown. Mia really needs to work on her Italian skills. I’m pretty sure he was talking about the price of gas.
“Which one of you is Isabelle?” he asks, his Italian accent making each word sound utterly delicious.
“That’s me,” she says. “You must be Lorenzo.”
He steps toward her and kisses her on both her cheeks in that way Europeans do. “Welcome to Ravenna,” he says.
After Isabelle introduces him to Mia, and he does that kissing thing again, he turns to me. “And who is this lovely lady?”
“Ginny.” I turn my head slightly so that he can plant his lips on my cheek, but instead he grabs my hand and kisses it passionately.
“What do you Americans call the color of your hair?” he asks as he caresses one of my curls.
I can’t speak. I move my lips and try to form words, but nothing comes out. I don’t know what kind of body spray Lorenzo is wearing, but it’s really intoxicating. Intoxicating in a good way.
Isabelle pipes up. “Auburn.”
“Auburn,” he slowly repeats, holding my gaze. “It is very pretty.” Then he breaks eye contact with me and turns to Isabelle. “The reservation was for only two, but I can arrange for an extra cot.”
“Ginny isn’t staying with us,” Isabelle says. “She’s attending a cooking program.”
Lorenzo smiles at me. “Ah, you’re a chef.”
“No,” I say. “I’m a novice cook. The program is for beginners.”
He rubs his hand across the stubble on his chin. “Where is this program?”
“It’s being held at the Villa Romano-Ricci. Do you know it?”
“Yes. It’s on the outskirts of Ravenna. They’ve converted it into a retreat center. They run programs during the summer months for American tourists.” He cocks his head to one side. “You don’t seem like their typical participant. They’re usually, how do you say…ma…ma…mature? Is that the right word?”
I look down at my faded jeans and t-shirt, my typical type of outfit when I was a grad student. I guess a t-shirt with a slogan does look a little immature. Maybe I should have worn something dressier.
“Come,” Lorenzo says, motioning us toward the table. He holds up the bottle of wine. “Let’s have a toast to your stay in Ravenna before I show you your apartment.”
The cat stretches, then paws at the corkscrew lying on the table, trying to knock it to the ground. Lorenzo scoops up the cat and places him in my arms. “Bad cat,” he says as he scratches the top of his head.
I hold out the cat at arm’s length from my body and scowl. “Can someone take this from me, please?”
Lorenzo chuckles as he opens the bottle of wine. “You don’t like cats?”
“No, it’s not that,” I say as the cat squirms in my arms. “They’re fine…at a distance.”
He looks at me sympathetically. “Oh, I see. You’re allergic to them.”
“No, it’s not that either.” I shudder. “They always drool on me. Cat drool freaks me out.”
Mia and Isabelle break out into laughter.
“You’re afraid of cat drool?” Mia asks. “That sounds like one of those phobias you’re always talking about.”
“It’s not a phobia,” I say. “Phobias are irrational fears. Being afraid of cat drool is perfectly rational. It’s gross. Simple as that.”
Isabelle takes pity on me and grabs the cat. He purrs loudly as she cuddles him against her neck.
“Freaks out,” Lorenzo says. “This is a new expression for me.”
He pours a glass of the sparkling red wine for each of us and explains that the Emilia-Romagna region, where Ravenna is located, is known for its Lambrusco. When I take a sip, the bubbles tickle my nose. Naturally that makes me think about how Preston’s breath tickled my neck when he leaned in to steady me on the train.
What is wrong with me? Why am I thinking about that nerdy guy when I could be thinking about the hunky Italian standing in front of me?
I take another sip of wine and listen as Lorenzo tells Mia and Isabelle about the West Byzantine mosaics that decorate the fifteen-hundred-year-old churches in Ravenna.
Great, another history buff. Why are the cute ones always obsessed with history?
“Are you a tour guide?” Isabelle asks. “Maybe we could hire you for a private tour of the city.”
“No, I, uh, how do you say it…” He makes a hammering motion. “I make the houses.”
“You’re a construction worker,” Mia says brightly.
He beams at her. “Yes. I am a construction worker. It is the family business. My grandfather started it.”
“So, not a historian?” I ask. He shakes his head. “You don’t like to read books about the Roman Empire or watch documentaries?”
“No, not really,” he says.
“Ooh. Do you like sci-fi?” Mia asks.
Lorenzo pulls out his phone, presses the screen a few times and shows it to her. “This is what I like.”
“Love the costumes,” she says before she hands the phone to me.
I watch the video, then grin. “I can’t believe it. You’re into lucha libre. I used to watch this all the time in between Spanish-language soap operas.”
“Lucha what?” Isabelle asks, grabbing the phone from me.
“Mexican wrestling,” I say, sizing Lorenzo up with interest. A construction worker who spends his time watching wrestlers in outlandish costumes toss each other around a ring. You can’t get much further from a history professor than that.