kept his hands to himself by sleeping near the front, while I holed myself up in the back and turned my luggage into a makeshift fort. I didn’t want any more half assed encounters.
Alejandro and I spent a good portion of our day wandering around the Piazza San Marco. He had obviously been to Venice before because he was more interested in watching my reactions to everything I saw.
“I have tourist written all over me don’t I?” I asked with a laugh.
“I think it’s the hat,” he teased.
“There’s nothing wrong with my hat, Señor Castillo!” I replied adjusting the large black floppy hat I was wearing on my head. I gave him a playful shove and he laughed.
“You look beautiful today, Olivia. I’m only teasing you.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and smoothed out the bottom of my black and purple sundress. It was a warm day in Venice and I wanted to be able to enjoy it without sweating all over the place, so I dressed lightly and even though he told me it would be a bad idea, completed my outfit with black wedged flip flops.
“How far is Rome from here?” I asked, holding up my phone and taking another picture of the Basilica.
“About four hours by train,” he replied. “We can go tomorrow if you’d like. Today, I’d rather spend in Venice.”
“Yeah, that would be cool!” I replied enthusiastically.
“Then it’s settled,” he replied with a nod. I glanced up at him and grinned. Maybe he was bueno and maybe I should be focusing more on him than my phone and the sights to see around me. I mean if I wound up choosing Alejandro, then we’d come to Venice whenever we wanted.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, rubbing his stomach.
“I see you are,” I replied poking his arm. Alejo laughed and I threw an arm around his waist. “I could eat. Besides, I wanted to tell you a story.”
I let him lead me a very short walk away from the Piazza to a place called Caffe Florian. When we entered, I felt like I had been taken back in time to 19th century Venice. It was absolutely breathtaking inside and when I put my hand to my chest and gasped in absolute wonder, Alejo leaned down and kissed the top of my head.
“Still not as beautiful as you,” he whispered.
I felt my face turn red as he gave me a gentle squeeze before launching into rapid Italian with the waiter that had greeted us. He’s pretty cute, I thought looking at the young man with the thick black hair, chocolate brown eyes, and huge smile.
“That hat isn’t hiding that you find him attractive, you know,” Alejo leaned down and whispered to me as we followed the waiter. I giggled and he gave my ass a gentle slap before we reached our table.
Once we were both seated, I opted for coffee and some kind of pastry that Alejo had to explain to me. He opted for almost the same except he wound up getting three pastries and told me we’d have to go somewhere else to eat after this because it wouldn’t do a thing to fill him. It was true though; I remember reading one time that men that had some muscle to them ate an insane amount of calories a day to coincide with their work outs.
“So, you said you wanted to tell me a story?” he asked, leaning back in his seat.
“Yeah. I guess I should start by pointing out the obvious. My last name isn’t really Kingsley; it’s Mitch’s. I introduced myself like that to you because I was just so used to it, especially since he is –was my fiancée. Anyway,” I leaned back in my seat as the waiter brought our order and waited for him to leave before I continued, “My last name is Nixon.”
I stopped to sip my coffee and break a piece off of my pastry. It was white crusted and had some kind of red fruit filling in the middle. I tasted it carefully and sighed at the decadence.
“This is so good,” I said happily. “Try a piece.”
Alejandro leaned forward and bit part of it off, nodding in agreement. Then he leaned back in his chair again and tapped his spoon lightly against the saucer his cup came on, waiting for me to go on.
“I met Mitch when I was 16. I had dropped out of high school and he had just graduated. I think I met him at a skate park, but to be honest with you that was so long ago that I can’t be sure. I kind of fell in love with his charisma; I mean I was such a young kid and watching the way he interacted with everyone, you could never distinguish between who was his friend and who was a stranger.” I stopped momentarily and sighed, “If you don’t want to hear this, I’ll stop. I just wanted to get this out is all.”
“If I didn’t want to hear what you had to say, I would have already requested that you stop,” Alejo replied gently. “Please continue.”
I smiled at him and bit another piece of my pastry off before I continued. “Okay so anyway, Mitch saw me sitting off by myself under one of the trees just watching everyone on the ramps and stuff and he came over to talk to me. I mean he was super cool about it; he introduced himself even though I was painfully shy, he almost immediately pulled me out of my shell when he started to talk video games. I didn’t know it then but Mitch could look at a person and figure out something they liked and go from there. I think he guessed mine so easily because I had a small pair of dangly Nintendo controller earrings on.
We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon chatting. He made me laugh a lot, but then again that’s one thing Mitch is really good at. At the end of that first day, he helped me get to my feet and I remember hugging him thinking that I had found a great friend. And I honestly did, but we didn’t stay just friends for long. It took about six months before he finally made a move and I was so smitten with him that I just let it happen I guess. Maybe a year after that I moved in with him.
The first year was great. I mean it was sex all the time, we barely fought; just drank ourselves silly and played video games from the time the sun went up to when the sun went down on the weekends. On the weekdays, I couldn’t wait to get home from work so I could go home and just be near him.
That didn’t last longer than a year though. The sex slowed down dramatically and I was always made to feel like I had done something wrong. Always. He would play video games still but he would sit in the other room while I stayed in the bedroom watching Netflix alone. I wound up getting a second job just so I wouldn’t feel so alone all the time. On the rare occasion that he did decide that I was good enough to fuck, it was usually a three minute jamboree session and when he was done it was over.
I honestly believe in my heart that’s the reason I was so eager to go off with you, Alejo. I saw an old spark of Mitch in your eyes and I wanted to feel loved again. I wanted to feel like I was the only one that mattered to someone and you gave that to me.