Before I Forget His Name novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Decide Every Day

We did not make it back to the apartment before I stopped being polite about it.

Bruno drove us. I sat in the back with my hand inside Adriano's coat, on his ribs, and neither of us said a word.

In the corridor he stopped outside his door.

"Your room," he said. "Or the sofa. Or I go back to the hotel. You choose."

"I've chosen."

"Livia, you don't know me."

"I know you." I took the cigar case out of his pocket and set it on the hall table.

"I know the leather. I know your hands shake when you're scared."

"They're not shaking."

"They are a little."

I pulled him inside by his shirt and shut the door.

The lamp was on in the bedroom. He had left the bed made, with a black shirt folded square on the pillow.

I turned around to face him.

"I'm choosing this as someone who doesn't remember you. I want you to hear that.

I'm not doing it for the woman on the recording."

"I hear it."

"Then take your shirt off."

He did.

I put both palms flat on his chest and felt his heart going under the old scars.

I had touched him this way once, a week ago. I couldn't remember it.

That didn't matter. It was new, and I was there for it.

I kissed his collarbone, then his throat.

He put his hands to the scarf at the back of my head and took it off very gently.

"You don't have to," I said.

"I want to see you."

"I'm bald."

"You're mine. You always were."

"I'm not anyone's," I said, and felt his hands go still.

He nodded slowly.

"Yours," he said. "Whatever you decide I am."

I stepped back and took off my sweater and my bra.

He looked at my breasts and then at my face, and he made a rough sound in his chest.

"Come here," I said.

He crossed the room in two steps and lifted me onto the bed, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

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