Entangled (A Tryst Novel) (17 page)

I talked to Josh this morning, and he explained that he and Blake have promotional stuff going on into the night. I figured Blake would call me when he could, and Josh tried reassuring me that things are fine, so I’m trying not to worry about it.

Normally, I would’ve been reluctant to be so calm, but knowing my brother is there at my boyfriend’s side comes with its remedying benefits to my nerves.

I heave in a breath, and it ends in a grumble when I remember Vanessa texting me her excitement about flying out to meet Josh in New York City. I was sitting in the library trying to focus on my physics textbook, but found myself wanting to fling it across the room in bright green envy when she told me she was at the airport. I don’t have the luxury to jump planes to fancy events to see my boyfriend. Not with entering the home stretch of the ending of school.

This thought has me nearly sprinting off the campus grounds and ducking away into the nearest side street lined with shops and cafés.

I walked to school today, deciding that the grueling amount of miles would do me good, and that I could use the fresh air, but I’m considering the bus to take me home. I wish I had taken my damn car. I don’t have much patience for the day anymore.

I glance back at my phone, wondering what one infamous photographer might be doing on a Friday night.

Probably something glamorous and fantastic.

I grit my teeth.

In a panic, and with misplaced confidence from not wanting to be alone, I decide to try my luck, thinking I don’t have much to lose.

I dial Gio’s number. Blake probably wouldn’t approve, but I don’t know where to turn. I’m knotted up by not telling Blake about Jason
 
and
 
Gio before, but right now, I just need somebody. Anybody. I refuse to be blamed for that. I’m exhausted with being alone.

Within three rings I’m smiling when I hear his smug Italian accent.

“
Buonasera
,
bella
. To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”

“Am I allowed to call you to hang out, or are you too famous? This world is sorta new to me, and I can’t tell if we’re really friends or not.”

His baritone chuckles come through the phone, and I’m relieved he finds me funny.

My friends are all preoccupied, and my boyfriend is across the country. Right now, with those bricks in my backpack, I could use a friend, and Gio has become one, whether I like to admit it or not.

“Where are you?” he asks instead of answering my question.

“Just now leaving school. I don’t have my car with me, but I can head home and get it. Are you busy?”

He hums, “Is it embarrassing to admit that this, how did you say? This
famous
 
photographer
has no plans tonight.”

I grin even wider. “Terribly embarrassing. Aren’t you supposed be attending parties and bedding models?”

He laughs again. “I’m at a café on Sunset. I’ll come meet you.”

I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “Don’t, I’ll just cab it to you.”

“It’s oka—”

“Gio, just let me get a cab.”

He grumbles, but it’s still just as charming as his accent. “We can walk back to my place from here, if that’s okay with you,
bella
. Pizza? Movie? What’s your poison?”

I smile, trying to do the impossible in LA—hail a cab. “‘What’s your poison?’” I repeat back to him, “Sounds funny coming from you. How about yes to all of the above, but I can’t stay out too late.”

“
Buono
, me either. I have a flight in the morning, but could use the company. Thanks for calling.”

There’s a sad resolve that I’ve never heard in his voice before, but I don’t want to address it over the phone. “Text me the address, and I’ll see you in twenty.”

***

When I step out of the cab to see Gio on the corner managing to look devastatingly sharp in a tight, dark pair of jeans and an olive-green cotton shirt that buttons down a few inches from the collar, I worry that even for an impromptu hangout that my sweater, leggings, and boots combo is too casual.

His perfectly trimmed scruff that’s shaved in a dramatic line over his sculpted cheekbones looks as fashionable as the photographs he takes. The only thing
 
almost
 
out of place is his huge camera hanging from his neck. His hands are stuffed into his jeans pockets as he watches me.

I shake my head as I approach him. “Do you ever leave your house without that thing?” I ask, pointing to his camera.

He reveals a crooked smile. “What kind of artist would I be if I didn’t keep paintbrushes with me everywhere I go?”

I want to tell him artists don’t do that, but I let him have the metaphor.

The swanky high street that eventually branches off to his fashionable home suits him in a way that has me feeling foolish and out of my league as I sling my backpack over my shoulder.

He strides toward home, and I have to move quickly to keep up with the long stretch of his legs.

“So, how was school,
bella
?”

It feels funny for him to ask me about something so mundane in comparison to the world he’s opened my eyes to.

I shrug, allowing my eyes to get lost in the city scenery in front of us instead of Gio’s statuesque lines. “Fine.”

“Just fine?” he asks.

“Yeah, this semester has kind of sucked. It’s just very different than I imagined it would be.”

Those words are the understatement of the century. Months ago I was getting over my abusive relationship, dropped friends and got new ones, started a new job, and thought I would have Rich by my side to help me scholastically. This new world feels bizarre, uncharted, and school is a lonely road traveled.

Click. Click. Click
.

I yank my stare away from the passing cars and back to Gio, but his face is blocked by his camera, which is going off in rapid succession.

Click. Click. Click.

“GIO!”

His deep chuckle erupts from behind the camera, and I can’t help but start laughing with him while trying to cover my face.

Click. Click.

“Why do you like tormenting me so much? I’ve been in your presence ten minutes, and you’re already testing my patience.”

He lets the camera fall to his chest, baring his teeth in a startlingly radiant grin. “Funny,
bella
. People all around the word beg me to take their photos, but yet, when I take yours, I get a tongue-lashing.”

The words
 
tongue-lashing 
make me blush, and he tries reaching for his camera before I shout, “Ah-ah! Don’t you dare!”

He nods his reluctant agreement, letting go of his camera as we round the corner to his street.

“I can’t wait for you to see the photos I took of you,” he says as we walk, our shoulders nearly touching as we find a rhythm in our strides together.

“Can I see them now?” I ask, more curious than he would ever begin to realize.

He smiles. “They aren’t ready yet, but you will. In a way, you need to understand it’s hard to be around you. You’re too fascinating for your own good, and you don’t know it.”

His words remind me of Blake, and I miss him instantly.

I don’t know how I get so daydreamy or distracted around Gio, but his hum is what brings me back to his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I shrug as we approach his door. “I just miss Blake. He calls me fascinating, too. You’re both so ridiculous.”

“So, not all men are fools, then?” he replies, and I don’t quite understand his meaning as he opens his front door.

“You’re studying to be a doctor, no?” he asks as we walk inside.

Feeling the sudden weight of my backpack at his words, I slip it off my shoulder and lay it on the floor next to the door.

I watch him set his camera on a hallway table before moving on.

“Yep,” I reply, swiftly making my way to his living room.

I can feel his eyes heavily on me from behind before I plop down on his couch. “What, Gio?” I ask when I see his apprehensive stare.

“Doesn’t going to school make you happy?”

“It did,” I spit out, and my hands fling themselves to my burning cheeks at the confession. I try shaking my head clear of it. “It’s complicated now.”

Gio’s grin has a way of making me feel like it turns the earth’s axis upside down. “You like it when I take pictures of you.”

It’s not a question. He says it like a fact. My cheeks continue to burn.

“If you can’t admit it to me, then who else can you tell?” he asks. Instead of joining me on the couch he leans against the frame of the entryway to the room, his arms crossed over his broad chest and his electric stare hardening. He’s scolding me, and it causes a strange sensation of nerves to bubble in my gut.

“I don’t know,” I exclaim while flinging back against the couch, wishing the cushions would sink and swallow me whole.

“What’s wrong with liking it?”

He takes a step forward, and the whole room feels like it expands to fit his presence.

“I told you, it’s complicated. I’ve been going to school for four years with this exact goal in sight of being a doctor. I worked too hard to have that change.”

“But is that what you want?”

He finally takes a seat on the couch, but sits himself on the opposite side, giving me plenty of room to breathe.

I gulp down his words. “I do like it when you take my photo.” I exhale and deflate the stress I had been holding with that truth. The confession gifts me with an ocean of relief. It’s embarrassing to admit that something like that is hard to say out loud.
 
What’s wrong with me?

“Why are you so hard on yourself?”

I didn’t realize hanging out with Gio would feel like this, but I must admit I have felt bottled up without Blake or my brother around. Being able to say all the things I have been afraid to feels alarmingly good.

“I just—I want to make my brother proud . . . and my parents, even if they’re gone. What if I want both, school and modeling?” It feels like such a farfetched idea.

“Why not both?” Gio repeats back confidently.

“Is it that simple? Won’t one eventually take over the other?”

He strokes his chin. “I suppose you’re right, but for right now, revel in it. You’re a fiery, free spirit; just indulge for once.”

I let out a snort. “Rarely would one call their studies an indulgence.”

“You would. You like knowledge. It’s evident in who you are.”

I huff, rolling my eyes. “They could write a book on you, you know that?” I sit up straight to get a better look at him, my eyes greedily dragging over the steel features of his face. “What about you, Gio. Are you happy?”

He nods. “My happiness has lulls like anyone else’s, but what’s not to be happy about? I get to do what I love, meet the most interesting people, travel the world, and on some occasions receive random phone calls from frustrating women.”

I wrinkle my nose. “Guess there isn’t much for you to be bummed out about. I wish I had my life so figured out.”

He shakes his head. “No,” he blurts out.

I lift my chin at the finality of his tone.

He continues, “My life is
 
not
 
so simple. I have a sick mother in Florence, and a drug-addicted brother roaming somewhere in Spain, and I worry about both every damn day. When you called, I had just gotten off the phone with my mother. She has to go in for hip surgery soon, and she’s so frail, I worry she won’t make it. I try to do as much as I can, but money doesn’t solve all the world’s problems.”

His words are staggering. I just stare in silence as my heart swells for his pain.

He leans over and touches his fingertips to my chin, lifting it so my mouth closes.

“Crazy, right?” he asks. His sad tone from earlier on the phone seems to match the sad smile shown to me now.

“I had no idea,” I reply.

He shrugs. “And why would you? We were professional acquaintances at best before, and now we’re friends. I don’t tell many people about my family.” He rubs at his face, and his trailing chuckles sound more crazy than sane. “Actually, I don’t know what got me being so frank. I just wanted to show you that not all of us are as put together as you think.”

Compelled by his words, I stand up abruptly from the couch and run to grab my backpack, sprinting back to take a seat on the couch as Gio watches on curiously.

I unzip the smaller pocket, and pull out four worn envelopes. I spread them out in my hands, like you would a deck of cards.

“What are those?”

“These are my medical school acceptances—well, they could be rejections too—but letters from the med schools I applied to.”

He shakes his head again, this time with a sense of comical awe as he takes them from my hands. “Fascinating creature, indeed,” he says as he examines them more carefully. “You haven’t opened them.”

“I want to be with Blake when I do. I’m really not kidding when I say I don’t know what direction to take. Blake is busy with his movie, and gone all the time. You’re the first person I’ve shown them to.”

He hands them back to me with a carefully crafted smile, and gives my hand a gentle squeeze before sitting back. “Wait for him,
bella
. You’ll figure it out. Just know that either way you will be successful. I might be more biased than most, but I’d like to be there every step of the way if you choose the more . . .” he taps his chin, clicking his tongue as he finds the words,“ . . . the more
creative
route.”

I roll my eyes for the umpteenth time as I place the envelopes back into my bag. “Thank you for not asking me to open them.”

I peer up at him, nervous at my unabashed honesty when near him.

“I know I overwhelm you,
bella
, that much is clear, but I’d like to think I’m also getting to know you, and I know that opening those with Blake is what you need. I can’t guide you in that respect. I can only make myself available to you when you might need it.”

“Thank you,” I repeat more crisply. I like the fact that I never have to explain myself to him.