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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 heard the fridge door open and water being poured, but feigned sleep as she stood over him.
‘I know you’re awake,’ Aurora said.
‘How come you’re back?’
She didn’t answer.
‘What have you been doing?’
‘I don’t answer to you,’ Aurora said, and then shrugged. ‘I was just sitting on the hillside, talking…’
‘With?’
‘You forfeited any right to ask, Nico.’
