Read Online Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson - Free Book Online

“This proves it,” she adds gloomily. “God is
definitely
a guy.”

     
    The appearance of the Italian girls, brief though it was, has killed our mood. The sun is sinking in the sky, and I think we all want time to unpack, bathe, and primp ourselves to the nines before dinner, now that we’re aware of the level of competition there will be around the dining table. We’ve discussed the girls and decided that they must be Catia’s daughters: the website for Villa Barbiano’s summer course mentioned the whole Cerboni family, and Paige, bless her, blurted out that she’d been hoping that this meant a ton of hot sons.
    “
Not
skinny daughters,” she’d said gloomily as we parted in the antechamber to go into our separate rooms. “Which totally
sucks
.”
    Kelly showers first, and I unpack; when it’s my turn for the bathroom, I luxuriate in the shower for the longest time. I’ve never had a bathroom like this before, one where the marble-lined shower stall is so huge it doesn’t even need a door or a curtain; the water pours down in a wide arc, hitting the stone below, running down into the brass drain, saturating the stone. It’s such a novelty that I stand there for ages, stretching my arms, feeling the cool grain of the marble under my fingers, turned at an angle so I can look at the view out of the window, the rising hill behind the houseplanted with lines of fluffy-topped olive trees, their leaves steely green.
    I’m practically in a trance. So when Kelly bursts into the bathroom, jumping across my eyeline, gesticulating frantically, I scream my head off with shock.
    “Come and see! You’ve got to come
now
!” she yells, turning pink at the sight of my naked body and averting her eyes immediately. Despite sharing a room with her sisters, Kelly is turning out to be very modest.
    “But what—”
    “Just
come
!” She gallops out of the room, flip-flops flapping as she goes. I grab a towel, throw it around me, and dash in her wake into our bedroom, over to the windowsill, where Kelly’s kneeling, her body so far into the window frame that it looks as if she’s about to jump.
    “Look!” she hisses without turning her head.
“Boys!”

It’s War
     
    “Wow,”
I breathe as I hang out the window next to Kelly, seeing exactly why she’s summoned me so urgently. I hear a suppressed giggle and turn my head a little to see Paige and Kendra doing exactly what we’re doing—huddling in their own window seat, staring at the same riveting sight below. I dart a quick glance up and am reassured to see that the low, slanting roof projects above us far enough that it would be really hard for someone in the grounds below to look up and spot four excited girls clustering at the top-floor windows, half hidden under the eaves, gawking shamelessly at the exciting view.
    Whatever prayers Paige has been chanting in the last hour or so have paid off massively. Because in the gravelparking area behind the stand of pine trees, swinging their jeans-clad legs off Vespa scooters, taking off their helmets and tossing back their hair, are two answers to any girl’s prayer. Two gorgeous, sexy, strutting Italian boys. Just like my mother said.
    A tiny sigh escapes my lips.
    “I
know
, right?” Kelly says eagerly beside me, a little too loudly, because Kendra hisses a “Shh!” to shut us up.
    The boys are stowing their helmets under the Vespa seats, unzipping leather jackets, adjusting their sunglasses, raking their fingers through their thick hair, taking the steps up to the lawn in a couple of long-limbed jumps.
    “They’re like an aftershave ad!” Kelly whispers, ecstatic, into my ear. “Oh my God, the one on the left … he’s
soooo
handsome.…”
    I honestly can’t see much variation between them; they’re both slim, designer-stubbled, in fitted white shirts tucked into their jeans, which no cool English boy would do but which actually looks really sharp. Kelly’s fave has lighter hair—golden maple to the