CRAVING U (The Rook Café) Read Free Page B

successful this time.”
    A pause.  Each of them was trying to read
the other’s thoughts.  How strange!   Up ‘til this moment, a glance had
been enough for them to understand each other.
    And so Matteo took a step onto shaky
ground.  “You’re not afraid of her, are you?”
    “I’m only afraid of losing you,” she
admitted, giving in to an uncontrollable impulse.  She lowered her face so as
to conceal her true feelings and tried to throw up a desperation shot: “As a
friend, I mean.”
    “Of course.”  His joking tone told that he
was making fun of her for having said the obvious, laughing at her and her
silly insecurities.  “But why should that ever happen?”  He pulled her toward
him, pinching her waist and thighs in an instinctive game of possession,
treating her like a snake that swings and sways to the sounds of its
enchanter.  “You’ve been my best friend forever.”
    Squirming under his grip, Marika
considered whether this was the moment to make the leap, like Carlotta had been
telling her to do for ages, or to take a step back, considering how she had just
won the consolation prize of Best Friend of the Year ....  Game Over!
    But before she could decide what to do,
Marcello interrupted them.
    Marcello was a few years older, tall with
wide shoulders and a narrow waist hidden somewhere amid his sculpted abs.  He
had dark, wild hair that hung to his neck, and black, penetrating eyes.  His
face was rough-cut, accentuated by a wiry goatee and a hard-set jaw.  After
finishing vocational school he had found a job in the warehouse at a
lumberyard.  He was a mysterious figure, and rather rough in his ways.  He
loved freedom – his freedom above all – and motorcycles more than anything
else.  He played soccer too, as a striker on the same team as Matteo.  For a
while now, Carlotta had suspected that Marcello had some kind of
not-easily-defined interest in Marika, but she hadn’t mentioned it to anyone,
considering the strangeness of the source.
    “Pardon the interruption!”  He hit them
with all his sarcasm.  “I didn’t know this was a private party.”
    “Ha-ha, very funny.”  Marika slid from
Matteo’s arms, chirping gaily, “Don’t be such an idiot!”
    “You looking for someone?” Matteo asked.
    “Take it easy!” he needled.  “It just
looked like your priorities, at the moment, were set on something else, or am I
wrong?”
    “I don’t see how it makes any difference
to you,” Matteo replied coldly.  “Or am I wrong?”
    It was obvious that something had come
between the two friends, and the tension in the air was thick.  “Come on, guys,
knock it off.”  Marika herself had noticed the hostility in their voices.  “Let’s
go back inside, Carlotta is calling us for the cake.”
    She headed toward the house and Marcello
turned to follow her, when he felt himself being held back.
    “Cut it out with this crap,” Matteo warned
him in a friendly tone.  “It’s getting old.”
    “Oh I promise I can do better,” he
snarled, his lips drawn tight.  “Just try me.”  He looked Matteo up and down,
just waiting to go toe to toe.  “You aren’t scared, are you?”
    “Oh yeah,” Matteo snickered, “I’m shaking
like a leaf.”
    They stood off in front of each other.
    “Hey, you coming or not?” Dario called
from the double-doors.  “Marika’s about to open her presents.”
    Matteo reached the entryway without saying
a word.
    “You running away?”  Marcello kept goading
him, hoping for a reaction.
    “Don’t worry, there will be many other
chances, I promise you,” was Matteo’s reply, without even turning his head.
    “It can’t be soon enough.”  Marcello
rubbed a fist in the palm of his hand.  It seemed as if his friend – for
reasons of his own – couldn’t wait to have it out with him.  Matteo’s reaction,
in fact, was a clear sign that he felt threatened by Marcello in some way, or
at the very least felt himself to be in