SEEING ALESSANDRA AND NOT BEING ABLE TO HOLD her was a special kind of torture. It’d been two days, thirteen hours, and thirty-three minutes since our dinner together, and I had spent every waking moment since replaying it. She was right next door, but I was afraid that if I didn’t etch her into my mind deeply enough, she would slip away like grains of sand through my fingers.
Fortunately, Buzios was small, and we ran into each other everywhere. At the beach. At the boardwalk. At the supermarket shopping for fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, our interactions in those places were limited at best.
Alessandra was still wary of me. Her response to my plea on Monday night had been a mere “I need to go,” and she eyed me like I was a cobra waiting to strike every time she saw me. It made me feel like shit because I knew she had every right not to believe me, but at the same time, I loved watching her in the quick moments before she realized I was there. The flash of her smile, the glow of her face, the untouchable, intangible something that harkened back to the girl who’d taken me under her wing at Thayer and hadn’t let go until I could fly on my own.
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“Here’s your coffee. Black with no sugar or cream. Just the way you like it, for whatever reason.” Alessandra was the first person I saw when I walked out of Professor Ruth’s classroom. She handed me the cardboard cup, her expression a mix of anticipation and trepidation. “So, how did it go?”
“Fine.” I took a sip, savoring the bitterness she always wrinkled her nose at. “Professor Ruth didn’t imprison us until we could recite Shakespeare’s full body of work by memory, which I count as a win.”
“Ha ha. Very funny.” She pinned me with a droll stare even as her mouth twitched. “I’m talking about your final exam, smartass. Did you… did you pass?”
Alessandra looked so nervous, I abandoned my original plan to drag this out and fuck with her a little longer.
“Seventy-eight.” I couldn’t stop the slow spread of a smile. “I passed.” It wasn’t the best grade in the class, but fuck it, it was leagues better than what I’d gotten the last time I took English comp. Thanks to Alessandra, I’d done fairly well on my midterms, and I’d needed at least a seventy-five on the final to pass the class.
“You passed? Oh my God, you passed!” Alessandra squealed and threw her arms around me, nearly knocking me over. I hastily tossed the coffee into a nearby trash can before I spilled it over both of us. “You did it! I never doubted you for a second.”
“That’s why you looked like you wanted to throw up when you asked how I did, right?”
“Well, my reputation as a tutor was on the line. I couldn’t ruin my one- hundred-percent success rate, you know.” She pulled back, her eyes sparkling with pride. My stomach clenched. She was the only person who’d ever cared about my accomplishments. Hell, she probably cared more than me, and I had no idea how to deal with that sort of thing. “But seriously, I knew you could do it. You’re one of the smartest people I know, Dominic. You just show it in a different way.”
Heat singed my cheeks and neck. “Thank you.” I cleared my throat and disentangled myself from her. Alessandra felt alarmingly good in my arms, and I was afraid that if I didn’t break free now, I’d never let her go. “I’m
glad you didn’t give up on me even when I was being an asshole, because I couldn’t have done it without you.”
The sentiment came out easier than expected. I’d always had a hard time saying thank you, but maybe that was because no one had truly deserved it until now.
Alessandra’s face softened. “You did this, not me. I merely guided you on the way.”
“Right.” I rubbed my hand over the back of my neck, the heat escalating. “Well, I guess this is it. Thanks again for everything. Maybe I’ll see you at graduation.”
There was no reason for us to see each other again. My classes next semester were all finance and economics, which I could pass with my eyes closed, and despite our many late-night study sessions, I wasn’t naive enough to think we were friends.
Alessandra blinked, seemingly caught off-guard by my abrupt goodbye. “Oh. I mean, you’re welcome.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and glanced around at the stream of students passing us. “Um, I guess I’ll see you at graduation then.”
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was disappointed.
“Right. See you.” I sounded like a broken record. Why couldn’t I come up with more words?
She hesitated like she was waiting for me to say something else. When I didn’t, she gave me an awkward wave and turned to walk away.
My heart kicked against my ribcage. She was at the end of the corridor. Soon, she’d be lost in the crowd, and who knew if we would see each other again? Granted, Thayer was a small campus and I had her number, but instinct told me I was letting something special slip through my fingers if I didn’t stop her right fucking now.
She was almost out of sight.
Panic spurred me into action. I broke into a flat-out run and caught up with her right as she turned the corner. “Wait! Alessandra.”
She stopped, her brow knitting with confusion at my flushed face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I mean…” Just spit it out. “When are you heading home for the holidays?” Classes didn’t officially end until next week, but a lot of students went home early if they didn’t have mandatory in-person exams.
Her puzzlement visibly mounted. “Tuesday. Why?”
“I was wondering…that is…” Fuck. I sounded like an inexperienced schoolboy asking his crush out for the first time. What was wrong with me? “Do you want to grab dinner on Saturday? Just the two of us.”
Alessandra’s confusion melted, replaced with a familiar teasing smile that kicked my heart rate from a canter into a gallop. “Dominic Davenport, are you asking me on a date?”
Hell, if I was going to do it, I might as well go all in. No ifs, ands, or buts. “Yes.”
Her smile widened. “In that case, I would love to have dinner with you.”
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The memory of our first official step toward dating distracted me enough that I almost walked past the diving center. I doubled back, trying to shake off the pang in my gut.
Although I was in Buzios for Alessandra, I really did need a vacation. I couldn’t mope around town the entire time; that was too pathetic even for my current circumstances. I was taking virtual meetings and working early in the mornings, but I trusted my team to keep things running while I was gone.
I gave them Thanksgiving off but had to prep them for my extended absence the following day. It was the only reason I hadn’t flown to Brazil the same morning as Alessandra.
The problem was, I’d never gone on a solo vacation before. Now that I was here, I didn’t know what to do, so I’d booked every activity that looked interesting. Scuba diving today, a boat tour tomorrow.
And if I just so happened to have booked the same scuba diving class as Alessandra after Marcelo slipped up and told me about it during our grocery
store run-in yesterday…well, it was a small town. There were limited options.
I checked in at the front desk and joined the small group of first-time divers out back. My gaze skipped over the silver-haired man, the pair of giggling coeds, and the couple whispering furiously to each other under their breath. It landed on a glossy brown ponytail at the edge of the group… and stayed there.
When was the last time Alessandra had put her hair in a ponytail? I couldn’t remember. It was such a small detail, but it was yet another sign of how far we’d grown apart over the years. We’d used to play tennis together; she was the one who’d introduced me to the sport, and she’d worn the same ponytail and all-white outfit every time.
She was checking something on her phone, but she must’ve felt the heat of my stare because she looked up and froze. She didn’t utter a word, but she didn’t have to; her expression said it all.
“Small world.” I stopped opposite her. “Good morning, Alessandra.” “Good morning.” She didn’t return my smile. “What a coincidence
we’re signed up for the same dive excursion at the exact same time.”
“Like I said, it’s a small world,” I drawled, ignoring her pointed tone. My gaze skimmed over the curve of her shoulder and up her neck to her face. “You look beautiful.”
Her hair had lightened into a sun-kissed brown, and she’d developed a healthy tan from the beach. A tiny constellation of freckles scattered over her nose and cheeks, so faint they would’ve been unnoticeable had I not been so familiar with her features that even the slightest change stood out. Most of all, the stiffness that had cloaked her in New York had melted away, revealing a relaxed easiness that did more than any makeup or fancy dress could.
Alessandra was always stunning, but here she glowed in a way that made my chest ache—partly because she was so beautiful, I couldn’t believe she was real, and partly because it took her leaving the city, leaving me, to find happiness again. Out of everything, that hurt the most.
Regret formed a jagged rock in my stomach, and emotion flickered across her face before she looked away.
It was only then that I realized the rest of the group had fallen silent. The silver-haired man was on his phone, but the coeds and couple were watching us with avid interest.
“Bom dia!” Our diving instructor interrupted the awkward tension and approached us with a toothy grin. He looked like one of those twenty- somethings who spent their days stoned or surfing, which already irritated me. Then his gaze lingered on Alessandra for an extra beat, and the irritation ignited into sudden, fierce possessiveness. It took all my willpower not to punch him in the fucking face.
“I’m Ignacio, your diving instructor today. It’s our beginner’s course, so it’ll be nice and easy.” He spoke in Portuguese first before translating into English. He stood way too damn close to Alessandra as he droned on about our itinerary and the safety protocols. He made a stupid joke about whales that made her laugh, and my fantasy evolved from punching him to ripping his tongue out.
After an eternity, we boarded the boat and headed out to the dive site. Maybe I’d get lucky and Ignacio would fall off the side and get eaten by a shark. Stranger things have happened.
“You okay? You look like you want to kill our instructor,” Josh, the guy half of the couple in our group, joked. “If you do, wait until we’ve returned to shore. Jules is scared of sharks.”
We’d introduced ourselves earlier. Josh and Jules, the couple, were a doctor and lawyer from Washington, DC. The older man was a businessman visiting from Argentina, and the coeds were students taking a long weekend off from the University of São Paulo.
“I’m not scared of them.” Jules notched her chin up. “I simply have no interest in meeting them.”
“That’s not what you said when we were watching Shark Week.”
“Excuse me for not liking creatures with that many teeth. At least I don’t cry over Disney movies…”
I tuned out their playful bickering and refocused on Alessandra, who stared out at the ocean with a pensive expression.
“Nervous?” I asked softly. She was fine with surface-level activities like swimming and surfing, but she was terrified of going under the ocean. She’d refused to go scuba diving during our honeymoon, which was why I’d been surprised when Marcelo had told me her plans for the day.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve gone diving before.” She didn’t look away from the water.
A fresh wave of surprise rippled through me. “When?” “Last year when I went to the Bahamas.”
I vaguely remembered her girls’ trip in the Caribbean. That was the same weekend I’d flown to London to close a deal, and I didn’t recall us ever discussing our respective trips with each other after the fact. I hadn’t asked; she hadn’t offered.
The regret expanded and filled my lungs.
“How did it go?” She must’ve been terrified.
Shame soaked through me. If I hadn’t been so damn oblivious during our marriage, I would’ve been the one she went scuba diving with for the first time. I would’ve held her hand on the boat ride over, distracted her with jokes, and just fucking been there.
We’d stood at the altar and vowed to share our milestones together, but how many had I missed since I had uttered that promise?
Too many.
Alessandra shrugged. “It went well enough that I’m doing it again.”
“Good.” I tapped my fingers against my seat. Nerves twisted through my gut; I felt like a freshman trying—and failing—to talk to the most popular girl in school. “What made you decide to take the plunge? No pun intended.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. The line was so corny I wanted to snatch it back before it fully left my mouth, but at least it got her to look at me. A shadow of amusement crossed her face, and I decided I would deliver as many corny jokes as she wanted if it meant she would look at me with anything other than sadness or wariness.
“I wanted to try something new,” she said. “It was about time. Besides, I stopped being so afraid of the ocean a while ago. I don’t plan on breaking any dive records, but the basic stuff…it’s not so bad. We all have to face our fears eventually, right?”
Some of them. Other fears were better left intact.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to see it,” I said quietly. I should’ve been there. I should’ve been a lot of places on a lot of occasions over the years.
My gut churned in time with the engine behind us.
“It’s fine. I was used to it.” Alessandra’s tone was matter of fact, which cut deeper than if she’d spoken out of anger.
Hatred, I could battle. But indifference? That was the death knell for any relationship.
The boat stopped at the dive site. I tried talking to Alessandra again, but she either didn’t hear me or was actively ignoring me as we prepared to go into the water.
Frustration chafed at my skin. The waters surrounding Buzios contained incredible marine life, but I was so focused on Alessandra I barely paid attention to my underwater surroundings.
It was hard to believe she was the same woman who’d lost all color when I’d suggested diving during our honeymoon in Jamaica. Now, she lingered by the corals, marveled at a passing sea turtle, and swam alongside a school of yellow fish. The only time she freaked out was when an eel brushed her shin, but overall, she handled herself with such grace I couldn’t help but smile.
I hated that we’d grown apart, but I loved how much more at ease she was with something that had once terrified her. I was so fucking proud.
The entire excursion lasted four hours, including transport to and from the dive center. By the time we made it back to land, the group was equal parts exhausted and exhilarated.
The businessman immediately left while the students crowded around their phones, giggling at the pictures they’d taken. The couple, Josh and Jules, announced they were getting drinks at a nearby beach bar and that we were free to join before splitting off.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, falling in step with Alessandra as we walked into the main building. “There’s a good restaurant down the street for lunch.”
She shook her head. “I’m eating at the house with Marcelo.” “Why wasn’t he on the dive too?”
“He woke up late.”
“Typical.” Alessandra was a morning person, but her brother was a night owl. One time, he’d visited us in New York and hadn’t woken up before noon the first three days.
We lapsed into silence as we entered the dive center.
“What about dinner?” I tried again. “I can get us a table at the new restaurant near Tartaruga Beach. Including Marcelo.” The restaurant was booked out during high season, but I could easily pull a few strings.
Alessandra stared at the floor. “I haven’t decided yet. We might eat in tonight too.”
“Right.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know. You have my number, or you can…I mean, I’m right next door.”
The familiar heat of humiliation crept beneath my skin.
I hadn’t stumbled over my words so badly since my high school English teacher had forced the class to take turns reading Hamlet aloud. It’d taken me an eternity to get through one sentence while everyone else snickered behind their hands.
“I know.” Alessandra’s voice softened a smidge. It wasn’t much, but I’d take anything I could get. “I have to go. I’ll, um, see you around.”
I watched her walk away, deflated. I hadn’t expected her to jump back into my arms simply because we were on the same excursion, but I’d expected…fuck, I didn’t know. More. More talking, more progress.
Then again, perhaps I didn’t deserve more.
Instead of staying in town, I returned to the villa and caught up on the news by the pool. The latest job data, market fluctuations, and press conference held by the new head of Sunfolk Bank, whose previous CEO died of cancer a couple of months ago. Between Sunfolk and Orion, there’d
been a lot of bank CEO deaths lately, but none of the news was interesting enough to capture my attention or distract me from the woman next door until I spotted a name that hit me like a punch in the gut.
Thayer University Regents approved naming a wing of Carter Hall to honor former professor David Ehrlich, who died in 2017. The David Ehrlich Wing is home to Thayer’s Department of Economics, which served as Ehrlich’s academic home for more than twenty years.
I read the paragraph twice, partly to make sure I was understanding it correctly and partly because I couldn’t believe Ehrlich’s name was resurfacing again after so long.
It was about damn time. He’d been one of the best professors at Thayer and the only teacher who’d treated me like I was a normal student instead of an annoyance they (barely) tolerated. We’d kept in touch after graduation, and his death had devastated me.
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“You have to eat.” Alessandra came up behind me, her voice gentle. “You can’t subsist on alcohol alone.”
“I’m not hungry.” I stared out the window, where rain poured from the sky in a relentless river of grief. It was late afternoon. It’d rained nonstop since the morning, and it seemed fitting that Ehrlich’s funeral had taken place during the most miserable day of the year.
The procession, the casket, the eulogy. They’d been a blur. All I remembered was the ceaseless, biting chill in my bones.
“Two bites.” Alessandra handed me a sandwich. “That’s it. You’ve barely eaten since…”
Since I got the news that Ehrlich had died of a stroke two weeks ago. If it weren’t for her, I’d have drowned at the bottom of a bottle by now.
Some people might have wondered why I was so torn up over the death of a former professor, but I could count the number of people I cared about who also cared about me on one hand.
If Ehrlich hadn’t pushed me into tutoring, I would’ve never met Alessandra, and if he hadn’t leveraged his connections to help me the past few years, I wouldn’t be opening my own company next month.
He’d been a friend, a mentor, and the closest thing I’d had to a father figure. He’d worked so hard on Davenport Capital with me, and he would never see it come to fruition.
A boulder lodged itself in my chest and blocked the flow of oxygen to my lungs.
“One bite.” Alessandra brushed her fingers through my hair. “Last offer.”
I had zero appetite, but I took a bite for her. I’d been so surly and irritable the past two weeks I was surprised she hadn’t left, but she’d stayed by my side through the mood swings, late nights, and restless mornings.
I didn’t know what I’d done in my past life to deserve her. I wish I did so I could repeat it on a loop and ensure we found our way to each other in every lifetime.
“See? That wasn’t so bad,” she teased, taking the empty wrapper from my hand and tossing it in the trash.
I glanced down, surprised to see I’d eaten the whole sandwich. “You tricked me.”
“Don’t blame me. I said one bite. You’re the one who kept going.” Alessandra laughed. Her expression gentled as she slid onto my lap and looped her arms around my neck. My hand settled on her hip, savoring her warmth.
“We’ll get through this,” she said. “I promise.”
“I know.” Grief ebbed and flowed. I wouldn’t drown forever, but Ehrlich’s death would always echo.
“I actually have something for you.” She reached into her pocket and retrieved a small silver object. She pressed it into my free hand, her eyes so
tender it wrenched at my heart. “A reminder. No matter how dark it gets, you can always find a light.”
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The sun had set, cloaking the town in shadows. Alessandra and Marcelo’s house was dark and quiet; they’d gone out for dinner after all.
The click of my lighter was the only sound interrupting the stillness. I stared at the flame as it danced against the night and illuminated the words engraved in silver.
To Dom
Love always, Ále
