Kristin Rae

“I just figured someone like him would be named Fabio or something.”
I want to be angry, I really do, but I can’t resist laughing. “That’s what I thought the first time I met him,” I admit.
Darren actually cracks a smile, and hope blooms inside my chest for an instant before it fizzles. I’m itching to tell Darren that he’s the one I want. But I don’t know how, or if I should. Keeping Darren at an emotionally safe distance might be the only way I make it through this summer unscathed. If that’s even possible at this point.
“Well, whatever his name is. I still don’t like him.” His voice is rough and his bright brown eyes pierce straight through me.
Tell me why you don’t like him. Tell me it’s because you’re jealous he kissed me and you haven’t. Tell me you want to. Want me.
“Gag,” Nina says with a groan. “Would you two just kiss and be done with it already?”
Darren and I gape at her. Fire creeps up my neck, and I press my body against the window, as far from Darren as possible.
“I thought you were asleep,” Darren says to her.
“With the both of you whining like children? Please,” she huffs. “I’m going to the little girl’s room.” She stands and her long legs step over Tate’s without waking him. “Fix this or we’re all going to be miserable,” she whispers to Darren loud enough for me to hear.”
― Kristin Rae, Wish You Were Italian

“Bruno, this is my friend Pippa. Pippa, my cousin Bruno.”
Bruno. The in-with-the-wrong-crowd Bruno. Divinely and supernaturally gorgeous Bruno.
And he just winked at me. Not good.
He closes the distance between us in two long strides of his tight white pants and says “Piacere!”--which I remember from my phrase book means “pleased to meet you”--before taking ahold of my shoulders and kissing each of my cheeks. His lips are on my cheeks.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and want to die. It’s physically impossible for a face to be any redder.
I try to say “Piacere!” back but only a squeaky noise escapes my lips. I raise my shirt just enough to hide behind and fake a coughing fit, waving with the other hand for him to leave the room. He laughs and mutters something in Italian as he walks off. Chiara closes the door.
Way to make a great first impression on the sexy Italian.
“What did you say to him?” I ask when I’ve recovered the ability to speak.
“I told him that he should knock on doors that are closed. That you are American and do not lie on the beach with le tette out. You are private.”
“Le tette? What’s that?” My face pinks again. “My boobs?”
“Si.” She sprawls across the bottom bunk. “I think it is sweet. Leaves room for the imagination.”
“Um…thanks.” I finish getting dressed. “What did he say?”
She laughs. “He said, ‘She will one day.’”
My nose scrunches at the thought of baring it all on a beach towel in a foreign country, with Bruno and other guys who look like Bruno watching. I shudder. “Doubtful. There are some parts of me the sun just wasn’t meant to see.”
Chiara rolls to her side and looks at me. “So you have never been swimming without clothes on?”
“Skinny-dipping?” I smile as I stow my dirty clothes into my suitcase. “Well, the moon can handle those parts of me just fine.”
― Kristin Rae, Wish You Were Italian