“I’m surprised I haven’t scared you off yet,” I tell him.
He smirks. “Why would you scare me off?”
“I can list a bunch of reasons.” I start counting on my fingers. “My elevator phobia, showing up on live TV without a body, my tasteless jokes about seafood…”
“Sounds like a bunch of adorable quirks to me. If you were trying to scare me off, you did a terrible job. I need more of you.”
I spread my arms out at my sides, gesturing to my body. “You got me.”
“I don’t want just your body.” He scoots a little closer to me, making my pulse speed up and my body feel a little warmer. He leans in and touches his lips softly to mine. “I want all of you.”
“My head too?”
He smiles, flashing his white teeth. “Yes. Your head too. But preferably with your body attached.”
For some reason that statement makes me think of Luca’s letter, momentarily taking me out of this moment. I take a second to recover and remember who I’m with and where I am. This is the first time that Luca has crossed my mind since Jake showed up at my door. He has this way of keeping my mind in the present, where it should be – except for now, when Luca slips back into my thoughts, uninvited.
“Don’t worry. I’m hoping to avoid being decapitated,” I say.
“Good to know.” He kisses me again, another light, sweet peck on the lips.
“Are you saying the same thing to any other women?”
He pulls back and looks at me, leaving me to wonder for a moment if I said the wrong thing. Then he laughs. “I’m going to assume you’re talking about the ‘I want you’ part of what I said because the subject of decapitations doesn’t normally come up in conversation. But no. I’m not seeing anyone else, if that’s what you’re asking. Are you?”
I shake my head, but again I find myself thinking of the two most recent letters from Luca. I’m surprised to find that I feel a little guilty. I shouldn’t feel this way. I haven’t promised anything to Luca. I can’t even write back to him.
“So, we’re on the same page?” he says tentatively.
I wonder if this is his way of asking me to be exclusive. I can’t exactly say no since I’m the one who brought it up. I don’t want to say no anyway. I open my mouth to say, “Yes,” but then I pause, an idea coming to my mind. “I know how we can make this official.”
He raises an eyebrow. “How?”
“You need to write our names in the sand. Inside of a heart.”
He thinks about it for a moment. He looks down at the wet sand we’re sitting on, then says, “I’ll do one even better. Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn around. I want it to be a surprise.”
I stand up and turn around, my back to him and the ocean. “What kind of a surprise?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
“Oh God. You’re not going to propose to me, are you? I mean, I like you and all, but I haven’t even met your parents yet.”
I can hear the laughter in his voice when he responds. “Now if we’re talking about scaring someone off, that would be the way to do it.”
“That or show up decapitated on live television,” I offer.
“I don’t think there’s anything you could do to scare me off, Naomi.”
“What if I just started peeing? Right here. Standing up. Through my shorts.”
“I would assume you got stung by a jellyfish and I just didn’t notice.”
“What if I told you that I was a robot?”
