#Naples Golf Guy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

harryandmolly · 5 years

Text

Complicit // 14 // Final

summary: Shawn is under more pressure than he’s ever known. He craves release and comfort, the simplicity of sex. He gets more than he bargained for.

warnings: language, love, love languages

WC: 8k

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He really, really should’ve had a plan.

But, in all fairness, Shawn’s never done the whole “jump on a 12 hour flight on a whim to chase after the love of his life” thing before, so how could he have been expected to make such a plan?

But still, he thinks, standing against a wall under a baseball cap outside Naples International Airport, he could’ve done some more thinking before all this. Or at least could’ve made a pseudo-plan on the plane.

The most Silver could give him in terms of guidance was the address of the house and that Naples is the closest airport. She’s never been to the “Vineyard” before. When Shawn asked if the “Vineyard” was a nickname or if it meant the house is on an actual vineyard, she didn’t know that either. Not extremely helpful, but he’ll figure it out. He has to.

From what he gathers on Google Maps, sucking up international roaming data charges like nobody’s business, Ravello is about an hour and a half southeast of Naples. Not ideal. But the Amalfi Coast is a pretty big attraction, so he figures there’s probably a train. He just has to find a train station.

On the way out the door with his backpack, the only luggage he bothered to pack, he Googles a train route.

Walk half an hour to the Calata di… something something and take the N5 to… somewhere and walk 3 minutes to somewhere else to catch a bus to somewhere…

.... no fucking way.

He bites into his lip and squints around. Should he rent a car? He winces. Driving in Italy sounds terrifying. What if he gets into a crash? Who is he supposed to call?

No. He needs to hire a car to take him to Ravello. That’s the plan.

More Googling. More squinting. He’s vaguely grateful that he’s been able to stay under the radar so far. He’s not sure he could handle this and dozens of screaming Italian girls begging for selfies without snapping.

He ducks behind a large leafy fig tree when he sees what looks like a group of middle school-aged girls on a field trip scramble past, squealing and laughing. Close call.

He leans against a column and sighs. Silver also gave him Mia’s personal cell number. He could just call her and tell her he’s here and hope she wants to see him and come pick him up.

Shawn sighs heavily, pouting. He’s not going to do that. This is his only shot at being a romantic hero, like, ever. He’s not going to pansy out and call her for a ride. He’s going to show the fuck up because that’s what Mia deserves.

Whether she wants to see him is another matter and he’d rather not worry about that until about halfway up her driveway.

He sets off toward the transportation center at a quick stride, curls fluttering between the brim of his cap and his forehead. He swerves suddenly to avoid another throng of young women that look ready for a beach vacation.

He parks in front of a driving service and a tall, unnaturally beautiful blonde man who doesn’t look up at him.

“Uh, ciao?” Shawn tries.

He glances up. Shawn holds his breath for the pop star response. It doesn’t come. He exhales.

“Do you speak English?” Shawn asks, wincing at how ignorant he sounds. The man nods boredly.

“Cool. Uh. Ok. I need to go to Ravello.”

“Si, Ravello. There is a train,” the man drawls, the slowest talking Italian Shawn’s ever met.

Shawn nods, uncertain. “Yeah. Right, yeah. But… can I get a car to drive me?”

The man even blinks slowly. “There is also a bus.”

Does this guy just not want business? Shawn sighs.

“Do you not take people to Ravello?” he tries, looking to bridge whatever gap this is as quickly as possible.

Finally, the man seems to give in. “Ravello is a long drive. 125 euro. We take--”

Shawn slaps his Visa down so fast the man stops abruptly and stares at him. He sees a tinge of crazy in Shawn’s travel-weary eyes. He fights the urge to roll his own and books the trip.

Shawn had hoped he’d start to relax in the car since at least then he’d know he was heading somewhere. There was no relaxing to be done.

His driver Giorgio seems to have gotten his start in Formula One. Shawn figures he should be grateful, given that the speed they’re driving at will probably cut the travel time in half. But he can’t help but wonder about the headlines if he dies in a fiery crash against the side of an Italian coastal mountain.

Pop Superstar Shawn Mendes Dies In Search Of Love, Giorgio to Blame

Shawn Mendes Perishes At The Height Of His Career, Unrecognizably Mangled

Shawn Mendes Is An Idiot, Fatally

He’s so sure there’s no way they’ll make it between the two trucks Giorgio decides to squeeze them through, but they do. Shawn slams his eyes shut and focuses on the Cez-approved meditation breathing exercises that, by the way, do not save you from your crazy Italian driver who almost plows into the back of a Peugeot going god knows how fast on the E45.

But at least he points out Mount Vesuvius. And doesn’t crash them into it.

They lose sight of the ocean for a while, which makes Shawn panic. The guy isn’t using a GPS, claims he knows every corner of every town on the Amalfi Coast. That sounded a lot better to Shawn before he got in the car, before they were winding through something called the “Riserva Statale Valle delle Ferriere,” which seems as good a place as any to ditch a body.

Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

It’s a chant in his head until, by some miracle, he catches sight of the water again and it’s exactly like every Instagram travel post he’s ever seen of the Amalfi Coast. He thanks whatever god there is, and thanks Giorgio, too, who grunts.

Ravello, Shawn’s not surprised to report, is fucking beautiful. Cliffs appear out of nowhere and spill off down bleached white coastline to crystalline turquoise water. It’s a goddamn postcard. The town, from what he can see of it from above, is a scattered board of colorful post-its clinging to the side of a mountain. His hungry brain tells him he can smell fresh pasta and seafood, but he knows it’s just an illusion of a man who ate half an airplane meal and a couple stale biscotti several hours ago.

Rather than descend toward the coast, Giorgio winds him around the hills past farms of lemon trees. The sun hangs low. Shawn thanks his lucky stars that he’s not having to deal with locating this place in the dark.

Giorgio stops at the base of a dirt road sporting a sign with Mia’s address. Shawn practically flings himself out of the car, almost forgetting his backpack. He shoves his Tom Ford sunglasses on against the harsh snap of the late afternoon sun. He looks around. Along the dirt path, hardly even a road, are rows upon rows of grape vines. It seems the house name is literal after all. He’ll be sure to tell Silver if he makes it out of this alive.

He starts walking.

It’s a trudge, really, up a reasonably steep hill. He slips once or twice and puts a knee into the dust, kicking up a froth of it around him that clings to his sweaty skin and white t-shirt. By the time he finds Mia, he’s going to look like he swam and crawled all the way to her.

Good.

He crests the hill to find… more hills. There are a series of large buildings that don’t look anything like homes, more like warehouses or farmhouses. Given that it’s not yet harvest season, only a few hands are out tending the vines. He descends towards them, probably looking as ridiculous as he ever has in his life.

They seem to want to ignore him. It’s a habit of Italian men, maybe. He has to wave and walk straight up to the closest figure, an older, shorter man with only a few teeth to speak of.

“Ciao. Uh… Mia Bianchi?”

Shawn hopes if she’s the lady of the house, they’ll know to take him to her. The man stares back blankly.

“Uh… dove… Mia Bianchi?” he tries again. The man looks over his shoulder at his coworkers, who’ve stopped to stare at the tall, sunburnt Canadian idiot. Shawn sighs.

He doesn’t even have a picture to show them. She’s the love of his stupid life and he doesn’t even have a picture of her.

Except that he does. He has a lot of them. Black and white and sparkling. And completely inappropriate to be sharing with a bunch of strange farmhands. He grunts and reaches for his phone anyway, nearly dead, just like his chances of making this stupid romantic gesture work.

Shawn zooms in carefully to just her face and shows it to the smaller man. He squints and attempts to touch the screen, but Shawn nearly slaps his hand away.

“Dove Mia Bianchi?” he almost whines.

One of the younger hands strides up and glances at the picture. He exchanges a few words with the others and looks Shawn over. He sighs and nods at a golf cart a few yards away, then walks towards it.

Shawn blinks, then follows.

If nothing else, it’s a faster way to get over the hills. Plus, if he’s on the vineyard, she can’t be far, right?

“Mia?” Shawn asks, eyes wide and hopeful.

The guy shrugs. It’s not very comforting. But Shawn’s out of options, so he gets in the cart.

The hills just keep going. After about ten minutes of cruising along and over them with nothing but vines in sight, he’s suddenly incredibly grateful for the ride. He glances over at his driver, seemingly much more sane than Giorgio.

“Shawn,” Shawn says, pointing to himself with a flat smile and a little wave.

The man nods. “Maurizio.”

“Grazie, Maurizio,” Shawn grunts, sitting back as they ascend another, steeper hill. He worries for a moment about the possibilities of this golf cart skidding back down from whence it came. It becomes unimportant when they reach the peak and he sees a house.

Well, it’s not just a house. It’s practically a palace. From behind it, he can see the way it sprawls over tens of thousands of square feet. There’s a pool, he thinks, and a few different gardens, and it looks like a grove of trees, maybe olive or citrus, he’s not sure. At some point, the path turns from dirt to pebbles and the ride gets louder. It almost drowns out Shawn’s heartbeat in his ears.

Maurizio slows under the shade of two old stone pine trees and turns up a narrow path lined by lush, well-tended gardens replete with color. He takes the curve around the fountain in the center of the path slow enough for Shawn to notice the detailing. The basin of the fountain is held up by a sculpture of a renaissance-style naked woman. Curled against her, with his arm around her hips, is a man helping her hold it up. His face is tucked tenderly into her neck.

The cart stops. Maurizio clears his throat. Shawn stands and steps off.

“Uh, grazie!” he calls as Maurizio starts to gun it back down the path. Maurizio looks back at him and laughs in a way Shawn doesn’t need translated.

You’re a fucking idiot.

Shawn sighs for the millionth time that afternoon. He knows.

It’s golden hour on the coast. Behind the red tiled roof, the sun spills marigold light everywhere it touches, including the belltower on the chapel beside the main house. Green shudders flap gently in the evening breeze. The front door is wide open. The smell of fresh bread has Shawn’s mouth filling with saliva. He starts to head toward the door when he hears something.

Off to the left, down a grassy footpath, he follows it. It’s as familiar to him now as her perfume, as the feeling of her hair in his fingers, as the smile she gives him when he’s very good for her.

He’d know Ol’ Blue Eyes anywhere now.

It’s one of his Italian tracks, playing off a turntable parked in another open door on the side of the house. He drops his bag beside it, smiling when he hears pruning shears and quiet steps. The record sleeve reads “Come Back to Sorrento.”

He takes a deep breath and follows the sound of the shuffling steps. Sinatra’s voice fades as Shawn nears a small grove of olive trees. The grass below his feet is dappled with shade and the streaming sunset light. A breeze rustles a wave of red fabric out behind the trunk of a tree toward the back of the grove.

Shawn holds his breath, watching a long bronzed leg follow it, stepping backward, then another. She’s on her tiptoes, barefoot in a deeply red mid-length sundress, the cap sleeves fluttering around her arms that follow her focused eyes to the branches above her head. She hasn’t spotted him yet. He could still run. He doesn’t have to stand here until she throws her pruning shears at his head for showing up at her family home unannounced in fucking Italy.

Mia turns her head to check on another branch and he lands in her periphery. Her lips part. Her eyes blow wide like saucers. The shears fall by her feet. She lowers off her toes to face him. The wrap dress hugs her everywhere he’d like to.

“Oh my god,” she breathes, lifting a hand into her hair just as another breeze picks up around them, lifting her dress around her knees to wave at him.

“So… uh… ciao,” Shawn nearly chokes.

Mia just stares for a minute. It feels like forever since she’s seen him, even if it’s only been a couple weeks.

He’s fucking glorious even covered in dirt. His hair is a little matted and sweaty, like he was wearing a hat. His white shirt clings to him. His black jeans have patches of dirt on the knees that give her flashbacks to the day she took him to Malibu in her Aston Martin. She shivers.

“What-- I mean, how… I don’t…”

“Silver told me you quit,” he blurts.

Mia’s eyes seem to swell again, then shut as she groans. “She gave you the address.”

“Yeah. I think… I think maybe she wanted you to want to see me.”

Mia chews on the inside of her lip. Another breeze tickles through the olive branches, surrounding them with a light earthy scent. Shawn shifts anxiously on his feet.

“So you just… showed up,” Mia murmurs. It’s a statement of fact, expressionless. She doesn’t sound annoyed or surprised or, to Shawn’s slight disappointment, pleased. But he knew better than to expect that. Or he thinks he should have.

Shawn shrugs. “I think after everything you’ve done for me, you deserve the effort.”

Mia’s lips tuck in slightly at the corners. She nods down at her feet. “Effort, huh?”

Shawn fights the urge to reach for her, even though it feels right. He wants to do this delicately.

Patience. That’s what Silver told him. If there’s anyone besides Mia he should be listening to right now, it’s Silver.

“I came because I want to talk to you. About everything.” His voice sounds impressively calm to his own ears, even as he feels his hands shake.

Mia looks up and immediately past him into the kitchen. She cards a fluttering strand of hair behind her ear and clears her throat.

“I have extra towels. You can clean up in the guest bath.”

She swerves around him and into the house. He stands there in the grove for a moment or two, blinking after her.

He’s not knocked out, he’s just… regrouping. That’s what Shawn decides in the shower as he scrubs the salty sweat from his hair and watches reddish dust swirl down the drain.

He was struck dumb when she led him up the stairs to one of what looks like many guest rooms. She got him a fluffy towel and showed him how to work the faucet because it’s a bit tricky. She turned and left without another word.

Shawn didn’t have a speech prepared or anything, he didn’t write a sonnet on the long trudge up to the house, but he didn’t expect her to shut down as soon as he started getting into it, whatever it was going to be. That took the wind out of his sails.

He’s not giving up. Not yet. If after a real conversation she says she does not love him and wants him out of her house, he’ll go. He’ll hold his head high and leave, knowing he put his heart on the line. And he’ll be ok.

Shawn’s breath shakes. He blinks quickly under the spew of warm water above his head. He plants a hand against the wall for stability. It’s the first time he’s let himself think about it, really consider the idea. What if he really actually made all this up in his head? What if she’s really as good as what he pays for and feels nothing for him beyond a professional sort of fondness? Or perhaps worse, what if she’s had feelings, but they’re not enough?

He closes his eyes and slowly scrubs his face with his pruny hands. He’s conspicuously been in the shower a long time. He bets she doesn’t mind -- gives her time to strategize.

Shawn lifts his head and turns off the faucet. He doesn’t want her strategies or her carefully delivered lines. He wants her.

He wants Mia as much as he wants Penny.

For once, Mia does something that would make the former owner of this home, her great grandmother, very proud. She sets aside her panic, confusion, irritation and angst and prepares for a guest.

She sets the table. She decants a bottle of Castello di Ama chianti. She hauls the record player back inside and switches over to Dean Martin’s Italian Love Songs and decides not to overthink the choice. She sets to work on a quick spaghetti alla vongole with the clams she bought at the market this morning. Her homemade loaf of ciabatta rests warm in a checkered cloth on the table.

Anything to distract herself.

But then she almost lops off a finger slicing the bread. She nicks the pad of her thumb and gasps, instinctively squeezing her fingers around the wound to staunch the bleeding.

“Hold on, I’ll get a napkin.”

She turns from the counter to see Shawn in a t-shirt and sweats at the bottom of the stairs, his hair shining wet against his neck. He swipes a paper napkin off a credenza and meets her at the counter. She watches him as he checks the cut, dabs it with the paper, wraps his hand around it to apply pressure and holds it over her head.

He looks down at her. “Does it hurt?”

“No, not really,” she murmurs, sounding sheepish.

He’s closer now to her than he was before. Holding her arm over her head seems an oddly intimate gesture between two people who’ve seen and done a lot more. It’s heightened by the way he caresses her palm with his fingers. He doesn’t even seem to notice he’s doing it.

“God, I missed you so much,” he says quietly, shaking his head.

Mia aches with the returning words and lets them rattle through her bones. She’s not going to say them back.

“I really don’t know what you were thinking coming here. Did you cancel work stuff? What about the album? And the tour?”

Shawn seems unfazed. “I’m on a break before we start working on tour promo. I actually went to your house. Got worried when I didn’t see Pammy’s leash outside.”

Mia’s eyes flash with affection. “She’s… staying with Gus for a while.”

Shawn nods slowly. “I bet you miss her.”

Mia’s eyes drop. Her other hand, gripping the counter behind her to keep from grabbing at him, squeezes tighter.

“Of course. All the time.”

After another few seconds of Shawn’s intense staring and Mia’s equally intense avoidance, he lowers her hand. The small cut has stopped bleeding. He cups her palm, kissing it gently. Mia turns away.

Shawn’s head drops. He sighs.

“So. You quit.”

Mia continues slicing bread. “Yes.”

“I’m surprised. I know how happy it made you.”

Mia’s stomach swoops. The ease with which he talks about her profession still strikes her sometimes when she least expects it. He talks about it like it’s any other job, like he never for a second thought to judge her for it.

“It got too complicated. I have other things I wanted to focus on.”

She takes the freshly sliced bread to the table. He follows with the bowls of salad and pasta.

“Like what?” he chirps.

Mia grunts, irritated. “A project. It’s a charitable thing.”

He seems to decide not to push for the moment. She tucks into her bowl of pasta, eager for something to shut him up.

He hums, bobbing his head as he slurps up a bite. “This is fucking great. I didn’t know you can cook.”

She shrugs. “I’m an Italian woman, Shawn. If I can’t cook, I shame my ancestors.”

He smiles as he swallows and reaches for his wine. He looks oddly relaxed, comfortable in her favorite surroundings. It strikes her as odd, suddenly, that he’s here. She’s never brought any non-family member here before. Not even Silver. Definitely not a client.

But Shawn brought himself. He flew 12 hours and, Mia knowing the journey well, probably took trains, buses, ferries and god knows what else to arrive on her doorstep.

She has yet to truly reckon with it. She sips at her own glass and watches him look around.

“This house is incredible. It’s a family place?” he asks.

Mia swallows and nods carefully. “For a long time. My great grandmother was the last one who lived here full time. We sold the vineyard in the 90s. The rest of the estate is still ours.”

Shawn looks around at the vaulted ceilings and the rustic stucco walls and stone floors. A glass door looks out onto a vast back patio strung with twinkle lights that overlooks the acres of vineyard land that used to belong to her family. The farmhands have packed it in for the evening. There’s no one in sight all the way to the horizon, where the sun has burst into flames of pink and gold. Shawn hasn’t felt this far away in a long time.

When he looks back, Mia doesn’t bother to look away. She knows the games are over. Glancing away from his pretty face so he doesn’t catch her staring won’t work anymore. He’s not here for a game. She swallows and feels her heart in her throat.

“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long,” Shawn murmurs. He sits forward across the smooth oak table. The sunset light catches him through the window. It makes his intense gaze even more entrancing. Mia’s fingers twitch around her wineglass.

“Don’t apologize. I don’t think I’m ready to hear whatever it is you’re about to say.”

She watches something flicker in his eyes uncertainly. He wets his lips and seems determined to soldier on.

“Mia, I know this wasn’t the plan. For either of us. It was never supposed to become… this. But I think it’s been something real since at least Vegas. Maybe before. And I think it’s as real to me as it is to you.”

Mia’s heart sprints. She knew what he was going to say. She’s known since he showed up in her little olive grove. She’s not sure why being so close to hearing the words has her pulsating in her own skin. She shifts in her seat.

“Shawn, please…” she begins, shaking her head, “I don’t want to put you through this. I know you’re already here and… god, I still can’t believe you’re here. But I don’t want to make you say it.”

“Why?” he presses, “Why can’t I say it?”

Mia closes her big brown eyes. He misses them immediately.

“Because it’s not going to make a difference. It can’t.”

She opens her eyes when she hears his wooden chair creak. He’s sitting back, his jaw tight, his eyes still on hers. He swirls the wine in his glass absently.

“Tell me I’m crazy. Not for coming out here, not for wanting this with you, tell me I’m crazy and I imagined all of it. Tell me it was all for show, all for money. Tell me Rio wasn’t real, or your house, or my house. Fuck, tell me Vegas wasn’t real. Mia, tell me you don’t love me. Please. If it’s true, please tell me.”

It’s silent. They’re far enough up the mountain from the town of Ravello that there’s no sound but the breeze in the trees and Mia’s heartbeat in her ears. She feels her face going scarlet with every word. Her hand shakes in her lap where he can’t see it.

She sits up tall, channeling Silver, and thumbs at the base of her glass.

“Like I said, it doesn’t make a difference.”

“How could it not?” Shawn hisses. He sits forward again, his gaze imploring, “Mia, it’s the only thing that matters.”

Mia scoffs. It’s patronizing and ugly. Shawn flinches.

“We both know better than that. We’re not teenagers, Shawn. Actually, even if we were, we’d be in the same position. You’ve been very famous for a very long time. I was never an option for you the same way you’ve never been an option for me,” Mia explains, her voice quivering under her false calm.

“Jesus Christ, Mia, you’re not an option,” Shawn spits. His eyes seem to darken, or maybe it’s a trick of the fading sun, “You’re the one. You’re the fucking one.”

Mia’s eyes drift shut as they well up. She lifts her hands into her silky hair and releases a rocky sigh.

“You’re not thinking. You have to think, Shawn, not just feel. This is your whole life we’re talking about. You know I can’t just fit into it. I would be catastrophic for you. Anyone could tell you that. Andrew would be first in line, I bet.”

Shawn stands. He walks to the door and stares at the rolling hills strung with vines like Christmas lights, neat strands growing darker with the night. He crosses his arms over his chest.

“If I let Andrew tell me who I can and can’t be with, my life isn’t mine. I’ve experienced something close enough to that this summer. I know I agreed to it, I know I was complicit in the whole thing, but I’m not interested in that anymore. If that’s where I really am in my life and my career, none of this is worth it. And that’s not even about you, Mia, that’s about me. I won’t put up with that. I’d sooner fucking quit and never play a show again if it meant I couldn’t be with someone I love because of however it looks to some people.”

Mia’s chest shudders. “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. I can’t live with that, please.”

He whirls on his heel and stares at her, eyes hot. “Don’t say what? That I’d give it up for you if I had to? Fuck, Mia, of course I would. What kind of fucking human being would I be if I picked being famous over the person that I love?”

“Stop, please,” Mia begs, shaking her head, pressing her face into her hands.

She hears him shuffle over the stone to her. His fingers are gentle as they pry her hands off her face. He cups her wrists, massaging them slowly.

“Hey,” he whispers, the aggression in his voice gone as quickly as it came, “It doesn’t matter. That’s not our reality, it doesn’t have to be. I don’t have to make that choice, so neither do you.”

Mia’s lower lip quivers. “Shawn, I don’t think you realize what would really happen if you stood up in front of the whole world and told them you love a whore.”

Shawn releases her hands. The corners of his lips turn down. His eyes are hard and somehow cracked.

“Don’t do that. Don’t say that. I know you don’t even believe that. You’ve never thought of yourself like that, I know you haven’t. You know you’re so much more than that.” His voice grows louder as he continues until he’s shouting.

Her brow furrows. “You don’t know! You don’t know anything! The things I’ve done, the things I’ve said, the things I’ve had done to me. Shawn, if you had an inkling of the depraved… fuck. If you had any idea at all, you wouldn’t be saying this. You probably wouldn’t come near me ever again.”

“Are you trying to scare me?” he barks back, his eyebrows lifting, “Really? Fine. I’ll call that bluff. I’ll sit here with you all night if you want. Tell me everything. Every filthy detail. Sorry, Mia, it’s not that fucking easy. I won’t love you any less.”

“You can say that now! You don’t know, Shawn! You don’t even know me. What do you know? You know my dog, you know my music taste, sure, you know my name. What if everything Penny did was a lie? What if you love a ghost?”

Shawn goes cold. He stiffens all over. She watches it from his eyes down. She freezes in place.

“Don’t try to tell me I love something that isn’t real,” he breathes. There isn’t even a hint of uncertainty in his face or voice. Mia looks down at her feet.

Shawn steps forward again. Slowly, gently, he cups his hands around her neck, his thumbs working softly into her jaw.

“We can talk about image and PR and logistics. We can talk about Andrew and the headlines and the future. But don’t insult me, honey. I know what’s in front of me. I know what I love. I love you. I love you, I love you. We can talk about the rest, but we can’t talk about that. That’s real and it’s not up for discussion.”

Mia’s eyes close, pressing the building tears down her cheeks. Her head lowers in defeat. Shawn’s hands skim down her shoulders to her upper arms. He plants his lips on top of her head and breathes. Two deep inhales, two deep exhales. Then he steps away and heads back up the stairs.

Neither of them sleeps that night. He’s in the guest room down the hall from her master suite. At around 3am, she gives up altogether and sits out on her balcony under the crescent moon wrapped in a chenille blanket. She’s convinced that inside she can hear him breathe.

Meanwhile he sits at the end of his bed, sheets half torn off from his tossing and turning, begging for words. He’s never had to beg before. His artistic, lyrical brain has handed them to him his whole life. Those aren’t the words he needs now. He needs the ones that will convince her.

When she wakes up, he’s downstairs in a t-shirt and boxers. His hair is sticking up everywhere. He’s staring hopelessly at her espresso machine. She knows he hears her come down the stairs, but he doesn’t turn around.

Silently, Mia arrives by his side. She presses a few buttons until the machine starts to whir. She reaches up to the cabinet above her and pulls down two tiny espresso cups. When she hands him one, their fingers touch. They both nearly jolt apart.

She spends the morning outside. She gets her white sundress filthy picking citrus off the trees. She hauls baskets and baskets full up to the porch. Each time she brings one up, it disappears and ends up on the counter, but she never sees Shawn move them.

At lunch, he smells more seafood. She glistens with sweat over a deep dutch oven full of hot oil, frying calamari. He slices lemons and opens the bottle of white she has on the counter, pouring them glasses. They eat silently, picking at their salads, letting Rosemary Clooney’s voice do their talking. When he finishes, Shawn looks at Mia. Mia looks up at Shawn. He takes her hand and guides it to his lips, a silent thank you. She lets him touch her for five seconds before she pulls away and heads back out to the lavender garden. When she comes back for dinner, the kitchen is clean and the fruit is stored in the butler’s pantry.

She roasts a chicken with rosemary and thyme, along with some potatoes and carrots and lets him rest his hand on her knee while they finish a bottle of wine.

“I found a guitar upstairs,” he confesses, chewing his wine-stained lower lip.

She glances over at him. “My grandfather’s. It’s old and shitty but yours to use if you want it.”

He nods appreciatively, rubbing his thumb into her warm skin. She aches to rest her fingers on his pulse, just to prove he’s really there.

That night, they clean up together. He walks her to her room and kisses her cheek. She doesn’t hear his footsteps walk away from her door for a long minute after she closes it.

His gentle plucking of the guitar from down the hall puts her to sleep.

She’s gone when Shawn wakes up. He lets himself panic for only a minute or two. All her stuff is still here, and this is her house, after all. She returns around lunch in an old pickup truck with bags from the market. Eggs, cream, cocoa, fresh mascarpone. She announces she’s making tiramisu for after their branzino dinner. She smiles a little, tentatively, and it nearly makes him fall at her feet.

Neither of them seems interested in disappearing today the way they did the day before. They hover near each other, rotating positions, swirling like opposing magnets. Shawn keeps the guitar close. Once he gets it in tune, it doesn’t sound too bad. He works on a melody. He thinks it must be good because she’s humming along in the kitchen while she prepares a batch of limoncello and rosemary gelato.

(He doesn’t know what army she’s cooking for, but he just hopes he gets to be a part of it.)

He finishes the song that afternoon, pacing around the lavender garden with a sprig of it tucked behind his ear. When he’s satisfied and turns to head inside around sunset, he clocks her on a balcony above looking very settled, like she’s been there a while. She’s far enough up that she didn’t hear it, so she must’ve just been watching him.

They eat in silence -- branzino with lemon, citrus salad, arugula with balsamic, then tiramisu for dessert. They nearly finish two bottles of wine, like they’re both preparing to get mouthy. Shawn goes first.

“I think I knew when I bought the necklace. Like, I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. I knew what it would mean to you to have that. I wanted so badly to give you something as meaningful as what you’ve given me.”

Mia stiffens at the sudden conversation after a long drought. She recovers quickly, thanks to the wine.

“What I gave you was sex, Shawn. A lot of it. Really good sex that required you to make no decisions, gave you no responsibility. I took care of you in a way you’ve never been taken care of before.”

His eyes flash and Mia regrets her words immediately.

“If you really think I don’t know the difference between sex and love by now, you must think I’m a fucking moron.”

Mia’s chest deflates as she sighs. “I don’t think you’re a moron.”

“Are you sure? Because you’re treating me like one,” he jabs, draining his wine. She misses his heavy, warm hand on her knee when he stands and starts pacing back and forth in front of the table.

Mia stares at him, tensed with every word she won’t let herself say, every feeling she’s been beating back for months. Her spine aches. Her brain swims. Her mouth is dry.

Shawn stops suddenly so that his boot skids a little on the stone floor. Mia blinks quickly.

He stands in front of her, staring. Slowly, without moving his eyes from hers, he lowers to his knees, turning her in her seat to face him. Having his hands on her again makes her want to scream. She waits, holding her breath.

“I just need you to say it. Please. I know you don’t think it’s enough, so it can’t hurt, right? Because there’s a part of me, the piece I hate, the piece I’ve always hated and that’s always hated me that still wants to convince me it’s not true. So please, please, just once, just say it. Say it if it’s true.”

Mia’s knuckles are white as she grips her chair. They feel oddly detached and wiry when she pries them up, flexes them, and sieves them into his hair. His eyes shut. He lowers his head to rest in her lap. She takes a deep breath.

“I love you, Shawn Mendes.”

Mia’s on the counter in an oversized t-shirt, swinging her feet, eating limoncello and rosemary gelato out of the freezer bowl. Shawn stops at the bottom of the stairs and smiles at her. His love for her gets so big it feels ready to explode out of his ears.

He shuffles up to lean beside her at the counter with the extra spoon she offers. They eat quietly, smacking their lips.

“So what’s the charity project?”

He catches her off guard while she puts away the rest of the ice cream. She stands upright, a little too straight, then catches herself and forces herself to relax.

“Uhm… it’s an idea I had a long time ago. A non-profit sort of thing for La Splendeur. A way to look out for the girls that are working jobs like mine but on the street. It’s always seemed so arbitrary to me, you know? The women that wind up as courtesans making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year flying all around the world doing the same thing that women standing on street corners do, constantly putting their lives in danger. Sex work is so odd that way.”

Shawn nods thoughtfully. “How can you help them?”

He watches her brighten a little, scooping hair behind her ears as she explains.

“Resources make all the difference. Women like that end up there because they don’t have resources. We can provide shelter, safety, rehabilitation if necessary. We can start a scholarship fund. We can offer career counseling and interview practice and resume building. Or we can help them organize and stay safe so they don’t end up with pimps. They just need help, and money can provide a lot of that.”

He bobs his head, clearly interested. “So where does the money come from?”

“Philanthropists and investments. Between Silver and I, our network is pretty vast. A lot of the donors will likely prefer to remain anonymous because of the nature of it, but we only need a couple powerful people that would speak up and draw attention. If they say it’s ok to care, it’s ok to care. Julia Granger and Christian Becker could be those people.”

Shawn cracks a smile. “So where are you in all this?”

Mia smiles back, infected by the pride written all over his face. “Silver and I are finalizing the paperwork for the creation of the non-profit. We’ll start approaching investors formally when I get home.”

Shawn ducks his head, turning his enormous, goofy smile down at his feet. “That’s incredible, Mia.”

His voice is gentle, touched. She tingles all over. She wants to run into his arms just to feel them around her again. She locks her own around her chest instead.

“Th-thank you. It’s been a long time coming.”

They lock eyes again. The air sizzles.

Mia smiles sadly. The silence is pregnant with potential headlines written about the Canadian golden boy loving the whore who wants to help the whores. Shawn scrabbles for words to fight them off but comes up choked and huffing breath.

He watches her disappear outside, heading for the vineyard.

The bottoms of Mia’s feet are nearly black. She takes a sick sort of pleasure in it. It makes her feel like a kid again, she guesses. Reminds her of chasing Peter around the gazebo, skinning knees, playing “scuba divers” in the pool while their family ate and drank and sang, happier in Ravello than they ever were in New Jersey.

She sits on the swing beneath the pergola, listening to him sing now. The house is so much quieter than it used to be, but no less filled with love. It’s a different kind of love. And despite their desperation to beat it away, it gets stronger every second. Shawn is the strong one, the brave one, she thinks, letting it into his heart before she could.

Because it’s not like he’s not scared. She knows he is. She can hear it in his voice and see it in the way he holds himself around her. He can’t know what would happen if they made it real -- could they last? Could they manage to see past all the bullshit the papers would surely print and hold on? If they did, would their love be worth anything after all the bulletholes and sharp words?

She hugs her knees to her chest and closes her eyes, leaning into his melody. She has the song memorized now. He keeps playing it the same way like he’s planning on changing something but never does. She already knows it’s perfect.

It’s a love song about tortured yearning, a hidden love, a love that’s bursting, searching for the sunlight. Mia thinks it’s his best ever. She considers herself biased.

After the sun sets, she heads inside. He’s not really playing anymore, just kind of plucking away. She needs to think about getting dinner ready. He’s sweet, offering to cook, since she does so much of it, but she really loves cooking Italian food with Italian ingredients in Italy and won’t think of wasting an opportunity. Plus, she still loves taking care of him.

The stairs to the wine cellar are cool, worn stone. The cellar is built into the foundation of the house, which was once part of a fortress that stood on their property in the 11th century. Now lined with shelves of hundreds of bottles of every variety of Italian wine, it’s one of Mia’s favorite spots.

His footsteps are quiet, too. He’s adopted her barefoot lifestyle. He stops at the bottom of the stairs.

Facing the wall of dolcettos from the 80s, Mia twirls a finger around a protruding bottle, covered in dust, with a foil cap.

“I used to hide down here when Peter and I played hide and seek. For some reason he never thought to look down here. I always thought it was so obvious.”

Shawn steps closer, hands in the pockets of his jeans, shoulders slightly hunched.

“Maybe he wanted to let you win.”

Mia smirks, looking over her shoulder at him. “Maybe.”

She turns, her arms crossed behind her back, leaning against a shelf. He fixes his eyes on hers, biting the inside of his lip.

“I’m not… I mean, I’m not saying it would be easy,” Shawn murmurs, rubbing at the back of his sunburnt neck, “I know better than anyone how it all works. I don’t want you to think I’m just ready to throw us both to the wolves. I wouldn’t do that to you or to us. I just want to talk about it, for real. I… I know we’re worth it, honey.”

Mia’s chest inflates. She tilts her eyes up at the low ceiling. Her tears start hot and fast.

“I could be the thing that ruins everything you worked so hard for. I don’t want that for either of us. I’m not sorry about who I am or what I’ve done, despite what I’ve said. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to be ripped apart publicly for it. That kind of attention puts more pressure on a relationship than either of us is really prepared for. You have to know that.”

Shawn nods slowly. “I do. I know. I don’t want that for you or for me. But I don’t think that’s the only outcome possible. I think this would take a lot of thought and discussion about what we’re both comfortable with. And it’s going to take some of both of us… letting go a little. Which I know isn’t your favorite thing.” He looks at her pointedly, the corner of his mouth lifting.

Mia chuckles for the first time in days. “Point taken.”

Shawn senses cracks in the veneer with the way she’s looking at him now, like she actually might be considering it, all of it. For him. With him.

He takes a chance, and takes her hand.

“And the most important thing is we go at our own pace. We… I mean, obviously, we’ve done and seen a lot already. And I know I have so much left to learn about you. We can focus on that first, just getting to know each other more. I know how to make a relationship really loud, but I know how to keep it quiet, too. If that’s what you want.”

She looks down at their entwined fingers. She blinks quickly and feels her heart rate pick up, like her body knows something her mind hasn’t decided yet. She swallows and looks back up at him.

“I’ve never been both Penny and Mia with one person before. Because I know I am both. Penny’s as much a part of me as Mia is. I got good at letting them share my body because they never inhabited it at the same time. I’m still trying to figure out how that’s supposed to work. How I’m going to be caretaker and businesswoman, domme and girlfriend. I don’t know how to be someone who wants to be honest and upfront about my history and also wants a big white wedding and a couple kids. So if I don’t know how to do that, be that, how can you know and love that about me?”

Shawn’s smile is cautious but warm. He scoops up her other hand and cradles them close to his chest. He’s not afraid of showing her how his heart is clanging around in his chest. She’s had a piece of it in her body for a while now.

“Because it’s you, Mi. Whether or not you’ve meant to, you’ve let me know both. I’ve loved both this whole time. I just want the chance to be there with you as you figure it out.”

Mia looks up at him. She thinks about the night they met -- watching him come completely undone, taking a sip from his glass, waking up to see him slam his eyes shut to pretend he wasn’t watching her. She sees the same look of wonder in his eyes now as he looks down at her, all of her. Mia always knew she was worth loving. Having someone else figure that out was always the part she wasn’t sure of. But she’s sure now. He is, too.

Mia pulls her hands from his, sliding them up his chest. She plucks at the curls at the back of his neck, tugging him closer as she presses back against the shelf. Shawn’s breath hitches in his chest. His hands fall to her hips.

Mia nods, no words of protest left. His lips are gentle against hers, confident and calm. She lets him take the lead this time.

--------------

Grazie mille 💜

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