The boy stops in front of us as the other children continue running around the garden. He looks up with big brown eyes and short scruffy hair that’s beginning to wet from his sweat at the sides, his cheeks blushing. “You really think so?”
I laugh at the boy’s answer, and Antonio’s eyes lift to look at me.
“Hey Luca, say hello to my friend Mia.”
Luca screws his face up at me. “Hi.”
I smile.
“Luca’s my little cousin. Going to be in the Olympics by the looks of it, ain’t that right?”
The boy shrugs his shoulders.
Antonio laughs, ruffles the boy’s hair. “Go on, go play.”
And just like that, Luca runs off with an unchanged enthusiasm.
This whole time, it never occurred to me that these men, people like Antonio, would have anything that resembled something close to normality in their lives. Yet, here we are, strolling in the garden with kids seemingly excited to see him. The business he’s in somehow fades to the back of my mind.
We reach this large pond that’s either manmade or the most perfect water feature I’ve ever seen, so clean and round. And just before the water’s edge, on a large wooden deck, other members of Antonio’s family—women and children, friends are barbecuing—are drinking wine as if on holiday. It’s not just the setting, either. One look at the man that took me away from my house at gunpoint, and you’d be excused if you thought him to be someone who’s dashing and romantic. What difference a setting makes on your perspective of a person’s character. It’s only when he makes me wait a few feet away from the barbecue while he gets a couple of glasses of wine from their table, that I see how those people never dare to look up at me and am I reminded of my actual circumstances.
“Come on, it’s just around the corner.”
I follow with a glass of red wine in my hand as we pace a few yards further, where the grass and the trees seem to grow wilder, around to a side of the pond that’s been secluded by that wildness, as any view of the house or family barbecue becomes hidden.
“This is it.” Antonio tells me. Ahead of us is a smaller wooden pavilion that reaches out over the water, with a wooden bench sheltered by the pavilion’s roof. “Take a seat.”
“What is this place?” I ask as both of us sit down on the bench, putting our wine glasses on the deck at our feet. While we’ve spent a good amount of time together by now, it isn’t lost on me that now it’s more casual than it’s ever been. I’m not even sure how to sit next to him without trembling in lust mixed with fear. The thought makes me suddenly aware of the slight tingling my ass feels against the wooden bench.
Meanwhile, Antonio looks onto the water thoughtfully. “It was built to honor my mother. She always liked to come down here, especially during the last months.”
I’m not sure how to respond, and as if sensing that, he answers my question for me.
“She had a stroke, and although it didn’t take her straight away, she could never fully recover. But I guess you know what that’s like?”
I shake my head, wondering exactly how much he knows about my past, about the time I can’t even remember. “Not really. I can’t remember my mother. All my memories are with my father.” I reach down to take my glass and lift it to my mouth before settling it on my lap, the stem between my fingers.
“Yeah, your father.” He nods, before his eyes narrow in thought. “Tell me something—was it at least worth it? Did you have a good childhood?”
“I guess,” I answer with a shrug, spinning the glass by the stem absentmindedly. “I don’t remember there being a time when I was unhappy. Everything just seemed normal to me.”
“Normal?” He angles himself to face me on the bench, watching me with a frown, waiting for my story. It feels as though he actually wants to know, as though he’s truly curious about me and how I became who I am today.
“Yeah,” I say. A strand of my hair falls in front of my eyes, and before I can settle my glass in one hand to reach up and wipe it away, Antonio tucks it behind my ear, keeping his hand by the side of my head for a moment longer than necessary. He trails his thumb down my jawline when he drops it.
“Normal is good.” He says softly, not moving his gaze away from my face.
The leaves from the trees around the pond rattle as the air of a gentle breeze hits them. His questioning about my father causes me to consider what on earth I’m doing here. And I don’t mean here as in at this house, but here with Antonio. Enjoying his touches and his stares, while my father is no doubt stressing for my life.
“Antonio,” I say, putting my glass down as I feel that I have to say my piece. “Whatever’s happened between us has happened—is still happening. And I don’t know what your plan is for me, or my father, but I want to know that he’s going to be safe. Do what you want with me but tell me that he’s going to be okay.”
Antonio raises his eyebrows, almost shocked at my directness, his jaw clenching while his eyes bounce between mine. Instead of answering me, he lifts a hand to cup my neck, brushes my cheek with his thumb, and then pushes his lips against mine. I know he’s distracting me from my question, but the tenderness in his kiss today is something new, something intoxicating. I can’t help but melt into it and lean toward him, opening my mouth to invite his prying tongue inside. My hand finds its way to his chest, slides up, and squeezes his shoulder eagerly. Antonio continues kissing me, taking it deeper by the second. Eventually, I’m seated up against him, my arm around his neck and his arm around my waist.
This kiss is sweet. Before it was urgent and lustful, and while I did enjoy those desperate kisses, this one shows me a whole new side of Antonio, and of myself. I’d kissed boys before but this is a man tenderly kissing a woman. This is actual passion, the kind that leads to the more lustful moments. I’ve given up hope, allowing myself to be distracted, and decide to try to ignore the slow dawning realization that it’s I who will be saving my father and not the other way around.