didn’t really know what that meant, but she could hear the weary resignation in her friend’s voice and it troubled her.
‘I hear your Nico is back,’ Antonietta said.
‘He is not my Nico,’ Aurora said.
‘No,’ Chi-Chi agreed, and made a scoffing noise. ‘You should forget about him,’ she said. And then she nudged her as a fire truck turned into the hillside, bringing weary firefighters for a break, some food, and maybe a kiss…
But Antonietta caught Aurora’s arm. ‘If Nico is back, then what are you doing here?’
‘He doesn’t want me,’ Aurora said.
But Antonietta, though only newly twenty-one, had an old head on her young shoulders.
‘Go home,’ Antonietta said. ‘Fix what you can, while you still can. I heard my father speaking to his men about the direction of the fire…’
And hearing the solemn note in Antonietta’s voice, and watching the weary firefighters approach, Aurora no longer wanted to be out in the valley tonight.
This… Nico thought as he sat at the table with Aurora’s parents playing cards. This would have been my life.
Hard work out on the vines by day, and a tired body at night.
Except no amount of labour would be enough to tire his mind.
Yet, on the plus side, he would be sitting with Aurora in the now vacant house across the road, rather than looking at Bruno’s hairy arms as he shuffled the cards.
Just because Nico did not want to be married to Aurora, and just because Nico did not want to stay, it did not mean there was not desire. It did not mean he did not care.
And he loathed the thought of her out there tonight.
‘I’m going to check on my father,’ Nico said.
He found Geo deeply asleep, and as he came out Nico felt the hot winds lick his face. He looked at the glowing mountains, and the approaching fire spreading towards them, and in the distance he could see lightning strikes.
They were sitting ducks, Nico thought as he went back into the Messina house.
‘Bruno, can I borrow your car and go and get Aurora? The fire is moving fast…’
But Aurora’s work-shy brother had just taken it, Bruno said. ‘And anyway, Aurora will not thank you if you interfere with her plans for tonight. I’ve told you she is in the safest place. They’re not going to let the chief firefighter’s house burn.’
Dio! Nico wanted to shout. Do you really think the fire will give them a choice?
‘If it gets much closer,’ Bruno continued, ‘Aurora knows to come home and we will head to the beach.’
He wanted to shake Bruno and ask, Is it not better that we all die together? But then, he did not want to worry her mother.
‘Grab a cushion from Aurora’s room,’ Bruno said, ‘You know where it is.’
Oh, he knew.
The scent of Aurora lingered in the air. He looked down and saw her gold cross on the floorboards. He picked it up and held it in his palm for a moment.
He caught sight of the book on her chest of drawers and he was intrigued, because he knew that poetry was not her thing. Even before he opened it Nico almost knew what he would see.
The little packet of pills, half of them gone, had been left for him to see, Nico was sure.
He replaced the book in her top drawer.
Message received, Aurora. Loud and clear.
And tonight it was killing him.
The sofa was soft.
Nico was not.
He heard the taxi drop some people off in the street, followed by some chatter—but not Aurora’s throaty voice.
The taxi service stopped at midnight.
It was ten past midnight now.
He thumped the cushion and put it over his head to block out the sound of Bruno’s snores.
Signora Messina must have had enough, because she shouted for her husband to be quiet and for a short while silence reigned. Except for the drone of the firebombers, filling up in the ocean and then heading back to the hills.
Then, deep in the night, he heard the baker’s truck rattle past and stop. He knew that truck was the last chance to get home, for he had taken it many times—except in his case Nico would often leave Silibri in it, heading to the next village.
Anything to get away.
He ached from his calves to his groin to hear Aurora’s footsteps. From the small of his back to his chest, need gripped him tightly and fear for her choked him.
And then the door opened quietly, and Nico breathed a sigh of relief when he heard the pad of bare feet and guessed that she was carrying her shoes.
Aurora tiptoed past him.
She couldn’t really see him on the sofa—it was more she could feel that he was there.
She was so sick of Nico and his effect on her that it was all she could do not to spit in his direction.
Instead, she crept into the bathroom and stared at her streaked mascara and wild hair for a moment before she brushed her teeth.
She couldn’t even kiss anyone else.
The fireman was quite attractive.
Big and bearded, he was the type of man who would get on with her father. He lived in the next village and had said he was more than happy to come and meet her family, if that was what it took to get to know Aurora some more.
He was perfectly nice—but he was not Nico.
In every dream, in every thought, it was Nico she kissed, Nico who was her first, and she did not know how to change the grooves in which her mind was stuck.
Nico’s hands on her body.
Nico’s mouth on hers.
She washed her face, stripped off her clothes and pulled on a baggy old T-shirt that had seen better days.
But instead of heading to her bedroom it was the kitchen to which she headed, her choice fully made.
Nico would be her first.
He
