The Space Between Touches
1166 Words
They walked back down the hill slowly, arms brushing now and then but never fully tangling. Camilla liked it that way. The almost-contact. The quiet electricity. Like something that had yet to declare itself but was already undeniable.
At the village’s edge, Matteo turned to her.
“Come by tonight.”
Cam raised a brow. “That’s bold.”
“I’m cooking something that needs wine and conversation. Would feel wrong eating it alone.”
She tilted her head. “Is that your way of saying you’d like me there?”
“It’s my way of saying I’ve never wanted someone’s company like I want yours. And I’m still not sure if that’s terrifying or… overdue.”
Cam’s throat went tight.
She nodded.
Marina’s was closed when she arrived just past seven.
The chalkboard sign outside read:
PRIVATE DINNER. BLAME THE GIRL WITH THE CAMERA.
Cam smiled.
Inside, the café was dimly lit — only the golden overhead bulbs and a few small candles flickered on the counter and the table he’d set in the back. The scent of roasted garlic and slow-simmered tomatoes floated in the air, warm and promising.
Matteo emerged from the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, eyes steady.
“You came.”
“You asked,” she said simply, setting her camera bag down on the bench beside her.
He poured her a glass of something dry and white. They sipped in silence for a moment, the kind of silence that wasn’t awkward, but rich. Cam liked the way he moved — quietly confident, like someone who didn't perform, just was.
Dinner was simple and perfect: pappardelle with a sauce that tasted like summer had fallen in love with itself, a crisp salad dressed in lemon and olive oil that made her close her eyes after the first bite.
She moaned softly. “Okay, this is seduction food.”
“I’m not above using carbs as strategy.”
“That should be on your tombstone.”
They laughed.
Somewhere between the second glass of wine and the ricotta tart he brought out for dessert, Cam kicked her sandals off and curled one leg under her. She felt settled. Unusually so. As if this night wasn’t exceptional — just right. Like it had always waited for them.
“I feel like I’ve known you longer than I have,” she said, voice quiet.
“Time lies when it wants to,” Matteo replied.
“And what does it want now?”
He leaned in slightly. “For you to tell me what happened in Rome.”
Cam’s breath hitched.
She looked away, then back. His face wasn’t demanding. Just open. Waiting.
“I was on assignment,” she said finally. “Shooting a photo series for a travel journal. Street life. Architecture. The quiet beauty in overlooked spaces.”
She paused, fingers curling around the stem of her glass.
“I was in the market square one morning, near Campo de’ Fiori. I saw a couple arguing — not loudly, not dramatically. Just… broken. She was crying, and he was trying to reach her, and I don’t know what made me do it, but I raised my camera.”
She swallowed.
“And I caught the exact moment she stepped back — like she was making a choice to never come closer again.”
Matteo stayed silent.
“I didn’t ask permission. I just took the shot. And it was beautiful. The pain. The surrender. The finality.”
She shook her head. “That photo ended up on the cover of the journal. It went viral. Everyone called it ‘artful heartbreak.’ But the woman in it… she found me.”
Cam’s voice thinned. “She was furious. Said I’d made her grief into a story she didn’t authorize. That I’d stolen something sacred. And she was right.”
Matteo didn’t move. Just listened.
“I deleted the whole series. Couldn’t touch the camera for two months.”
“And now?”
Cam met his eyes. “Now I try to remember that not everything beautiful belongs to me.”
Matteo reached across the table, not grabbing her hand, just resting his fingers close enough for her to take.
She did.
And for a moment, Camilla thought that maybe — just maybe — she’d been given a second chance.
They didn’t sleep together that night.
Not because the tension wasn’t there — it was, humming and alive between them, tangled in every look and every brush of skin. But when he walked her home, and she turned to him at her door, they both paused.
It wasn’t hesitation. It was care.
Some things deserved a slower burn.
He kissed her on the cheek — soft, lingering, almost reverent — and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Cam fell asleep with a strange ache in her chest.
Not longing.
Hope.
The message came the next morning.
She was brushing her teeth, still in a tank top and underwear, sun warming the tile floor. Her phone buzzed across the table like a bug trapped under glass.
When she saw the name, her stomach dropped.
Theo.
She stared.
Heart thudding, she tapped the notification.
THEO: Hey.
I heard you were in Italy.
Can we talk?
Cam sat down hard.
She hadn’t spoken to Theo in eight months. Not since she left their apartment in London with a duffel bag and a broken ring box. She hadn’t thought about him — not deeply — since arriving in Vernazza.
But now, his message felt like a hook dragging her back through cold water.
She didn’t reply.
Not right away.
Instead, she opened her camera app. Flipped to the last photo she’d taken — Matteo’s face in golden morning light. The way his gaze met hers like a question he’d never had to ask out loud.
She exhaled.
Then tapped archive on Theo’s message.
Not delete.
But not answer, either.
Not yet.
That afternoon, she showed up at Marina’s without calling.
The café was quiet. Matteo was restocking flour bags near the back. He looked up and smiled the second he saw her.
“You came back.”
Cam stepped inside, leaned against the counter. “I wasn’t sure I would.”
“What changed?”
“I remembered how you look at me.”
He paused. “How do I look at you?”
“Like I’m whole. Even when I don’t feel it.”
Matteo walked over slowly.
“Camilla.”
She swallowed. “I don’t want to be careful with this anymore. I don’t want to wait for the other shoe to drop.”
He reached for her hand.
“No shoes. Just steps,” he said. “One at a time. With you.”
She let herself believe it.
And when he kissed her, it was soft — not tentative, not possessive, but real. Like something beginning, not peaking.
Like a promise, not a performance.
- Writer
