Ciao, Bella: A Novel About Searching for Beauty and Finding Love by Ryan Phillips

Author:Ryan Phillips [Phillips, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780768490084
Publisher: Destiny Image
Published: 2011-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Five

“This is for you,” Cooper said.

Smirking curiously, I studied the delicate swirls of ornate tissue paper fanning exquisitely from the large gift bag dangling between us. “What is it?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?”

“But I thought you said you were taking me to the surprise,” I said, drawing back one of the edges of the bag to get a peek inside.

Cooper shooed my hand away. “I am. That’s for when we get there,” he said, nodding down at the gift. “And this,” he said, pulling a blindfold from his back pocket, “is for now.”

I cast a dubious glance at the wrinkled handkerchief. “You can’t be serious.”

He responded with an amused shrug. “No blindfold, no surprise.”

“OK, we’ll play by your rules.” My smile was buoyantly stern. “This time.”

Cooper laughed. “You won’t regret it,” he said. “So are you ready to go?”

I had planned to tell him all about my unfortunate brush with the formidable Lee Dunham, but now, with one mysterious gift in hand and another just a blindfolded ride away, the need to relay the incident didn’t seem quite so urgent.

Nodding, I searched the store for Iona, who’d made herself scarce when Cooper had arrived. “I’m heading out now,” I called.

“Have a good time,” she called back from somewhere within the labyrinth of towering bookcases.

I followed Cooper outside, where he led me to a sleek, sporty two-seater parked alongside a meter. “What happened to the truck?” I asked, as he opened the passenger side door for me.

“Weather like this was meant to be experienced in a convertible,” he said, rounding the hood of the car in two easy bounds and sliding into the low, bucket seat beside me. I watched as he started the ignition and tinkered with the puzzle of buttons on the dash, causing the car’s bulbous hardtop to retract and neatly store itself in the trunk.

I squinted up at a drifting mass of cottony clouds where the metal roof used to be. “Now that was cool.”

“And we’re only just getting started,” he said, wagging the handkerchief inches from my nose.

Laughing, I shook my head. “But people will stare.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing you won’t be able to see them watching,” he said, tying the swath of fabric around my eyes before I could protest further.

My stomach lurched as we sped away from the curb with a loud screech. Hair whipping in the wind, I clutched the gift bag in my lap and tried to temper the dizzying sensation of blind motion by focusing on the direction of the turns we took. I was pretty sure I’d charted our course north toward the Lake, but then Cooper abruptly veered and I lost my bearings.

“Almost there,” he said, patting my hand reassuringly as he shifted gears.

The engine revved and my death grip on the center console tightened. After a few more harrowing minutes, our speed slowed and the sound of cars zooming past was replaced by the crunching of tires on gravel.

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