“
Shall we go get gelato to celebrate?” Stu asks.
“Yeah! Gelato!” Andi says enthusiastically. “We’ve been eating gelato all over Italy, haven’t we, Stu? What’s the best place to get some in Venice?”
“Near here, it is Gelato Fantasy,” Luca says. “I can take you.”
“Don’t you need to get back to the airport?” Evan says, the first time he’s spoken since Luca and Kelly got out of the water taxi. “I mean, if you’ve got somewhere you need to be…”
Luca turns to flash him the most dazzling of smiles, pushing back his black hair with his long pale fingers.
“Ma no!” he says, so charmingly that I know he’s being totally fake. “Per niente! Now it is too late, my flight has gone. And I am very happy to show you all where to find some good gelato. Andiamo!”
“Wow,” Andi sighs as Luca leads us into the piazza. “Luca’s hot. I mean, I love you, Stu, but that’s just how I pictured Italian men. So handsome and sophisticated.”
“He’s a prince, too!” Paige says enthusiastically.
“Oh my God, you’re kidding!” Andi exclaims. “Kelly, you got rescued by a prince! That’s crazy!”
“I was so lucky he was at the airport,” Kelly says in heartfelt tones. “I don’t know what I’d’ve done without him.”
“We’d have turned up!” I say, for some reason finding it almost intolerable to hear Luca praised to the skies. “Kendra would’ve got a taxi, and we’d have come and found you. You would’ve been okay.”
“I’m just saying he was really nice,” Kelly says quietly to me.
”
”