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He’s not even being funny right now, he gets off on this, which proves the point I’m about to make, even more.
“A composite is two distinct and complex materials that combine to produce something so structural, so functional, that it can’t be found in any other individual component.”
He rests his forehead against mine, and I run my hands across his shoulders, down his pecs where I feel his heart beating, “Better together, Cole.”
Nineteen
Autodromo Nazionale Monza - Monza, Italy
Cole
I should have let Mila book the hotel room.
But oh no, I was going to be sweet and romantic and put effort into wooing Emily correctly, do it myself.
We have a black-tie gala tomorrow night in Milan, I have a stylist and dresses coming for Em—I did ask Mika for help with those, I’m not that much of an idiot—it was going to be perfect and cinched with a beautiful hotel suite.
“It looks like a nursing home exploded,” I look around in horror, throwing our suitcases on the bed, which is complete with a mint green and white gingham duvet. Or maybe it’s a repurposed picnic tablecloth.
“It’s not so bad. It’s… certainly historic,” Emily teases, taking in the framed drawings that line the walls. Each one is a person long since dead, most of them wearing white powdered wigs, likely from the last time this room was remodeled.
Some Mozart looking dude watching me go down on my girlfriend was not my idea of sexy-time when I booked the most expensive suite at the five-star hotel in Monza.
Ruffled curtains, so many frilly curtains, line the windows that let in enough light to really magnify the horror that is the wallpaper—pink and teal flowers with bluebirds. Red checkered couches sit next to antique end tables covered in doilies. There are enough vases for a funeral home starter-pack.
This is the least sexy hotel room I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of hotel rooms.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and do what I should have done to begin with.
As soon as Mila answers, I get right to the point. “Can you please get us a suite at the Four Seasons or something?”
Emily spins around from examining a plastic apple on a bureau alongside some small, touristy bottles of olive oil and other random crap. “No, you don’t have to do that, it’s fine.”
I hold up a hand because Mila’s yelling at me, half in German, about how I should have listened to her, but fuck no, this is not fine.
I wanted to do something nice for Emily. Not put her up in Shady Acres.
“Surely, there is a suite left somewhere in this city.”
Mila is checking, but she swears there is not.
Emily walks out of the bathroom and is biting her bottom lip, her cheeks red and puffed out from trying not to laugh.
“What?” I step past her, and then I see what she’s laughing at.
“I don’t care what it costs. The bathroom is 1970’s yellow, it’s like Big Bird’s nest up in here. I am not a snob,” I argue with Mila, who is now insistent every room in the city is long since booked up for the race.
My eyes crinkle up at the family tree of dead people on the wall when Emily takes the phone from my hand.
“Mila, the room is fine. Yes. Yes, I know. I’ll tell him. You’re right. Okay, thank you.” Emily disconnects the call and sets my phone down on a table next to a tea set.
“You’re kind of a snob,” she stands on her tiptoes and kisses the tip of my nose.
Of course, to a woman who would rather ride on a dilapidated Vespa than inside a Ferrari, I might appear snobbish. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case, but toh-may-toe toe-mah-toe.
“Newsflash Em, nice things are nice. This hotel sucks.”
“You’re a grump,” she pushes our suitcases to the edge of the bed and flops down, immediately groaning and clutching her lower back. “It’s unnatural, it’s like bedrock,” she cries and inspects under the sheets like the mattress may actually be made of stone.
