Nayara
Everyone is staring at me. Literally everyone.
I’m standing in the middle of the foyer of Brindisi’s city hall, and it feels like every single person here has collectively decided to undress me with their eyes, put me back together again, and then judge me mentally. And not in a good way. More along the lines of: What the hell is this beach creature doing in our venerable administrative building.
I lift my chin as if that could possibly save anything, and pretend that it’s completely normal to show up here looking like I spontaneously decided to attend a beach party and then accidentally wandered into the local authority. I mean, honestly. I found the damn job posting on the beach. On the beach. Between seashells, washed-up seaweed, and a shredded tourist flyer lay a clean, perfect sheet of paper that felt like a divine sign. Or like a shady call-center ad. But I chose to believe that, for once, the universe was being nice to me. Maybe that was my first mistake today.
The ad looked so innocent that my brain completely forgot to be suspicious. Flexible working hours, a relaxed office routine, easy tasks, and above all the final, absolutely crucial detail: the internship I desperately need to finish my degree. It felt like heaven itself had personally handed me a gift.
I’m still standing in the entrance, feeling the chill of the air conditioning hit my still slightly salty skin while sunscreen slowly slides down my shoulder. I look like someone scooped straight out of the Adriatic. I love my beach look, and it usually never bothers me. But right now, I wish I were invisible. Or at least dressed like a normal person.
I’m wearing short black fabric shorts that are clearly better suited for cocktails with a sea view than for any room full of office employees. On top of that, I’m still wearing my bikini top, which is heroically trying to look professional but is very obviously failing. I clutch my beach bag tightly against me, as if it were a fabric shield that could protect me from the pure embarrassment currently crashing over me.
There had been no indication of a day or a time on that piece of paper. Not even a name, no contact person, no room number, absolutely nothing that even remotely looked professional. The only thing written on it was the note that no application was required and that one should simply appear in person. So I appeared. In person. Way too personally, actually.
My heart is beating faster than it should, my hands are sweaty from stress and not from the sea, and my nerves have decided to abandon me today. Fantastic timing. Truly great.
I should have come another time. A time when I didn’t look like the human embodiment of a beach bar. A time when I wasn’t being stared at by fifty pairs of eyes at once, as if I’d forgotten that clothing outside the beach is, in fact, a concept.
Damn it.
And as I stand here, in the middle of a room full of people who clearly all received the memo about appropriate clothing, I wonder what I was even expecting. A smile. A friendly welcome. A sign with my name on it. A reception that told me I was already expected.
Well. Instead, all I’ve gained is the realization that I am the worst-dressed intern who has ever set foot in this building.
“Uhm… can I help you?”
I suddenly hear a voice, so sharp and stern that it yanks me out of my thoughts like a bucket of cold water straight to the face.
I turn around and stare at an employee who looks at me as if I were an escaped beach creature that accidentally wandered into the sacred halls of bureaucracy. I force a smile onto my lips that probably looks like that of a mermaid experiencing human contact for the first time and not knowing whether to wave or flee.
“Hello. My name is Nayara Di Luna, and I found a job posting for a student internship from you.”
I clear my throat, pull my shoulders back, and desperately try to look serious, even though I’m standing here like I just escaped from an Aperol Spritz commercial.
“Unfortunately, the note didn’t say when the interview would take place. And it also didn’t say that I needed to apply, only that I should appear in person.”
I try to keep my voice steady while internally praying that my bikini top doesn’t suddenly decide to find a new position, because the woman in front of me is blatantly staring first at my breasts, then at my beach look, and then back at me, as if I’ve just committed a dress-code murder.
She raises an eyebrow. One.
And that single eyebrow holds more judgment than an entire court.
She looks like a particularly strict librarian who would absolutely believe I’m capable of shelving a book incorrectly.
“You have to apply for all job postings. And you thought you’d come… like this?”
She points with a stiff finger directly at my bikini, as if I were a crime scene and she the investigator trying to figure out how this fashion offense could have happened.
I take a breath and put on my very best I am a sweet little angel smile.
“Wellll yes,” I say, drawing it out while trying to scrape together my dignity.
“I was surprised myself by how uncomplicated it all sounded. And since I didn’t have any further information, I thought I’d just stop by and ask.”
I flutter my lashes in a desperate attempt to maybe loosen the stick she’s clearly carrying around in her spinal cord.
She blinks slowly, so slowly that for a brief moment I’m afraid she’s fallen into an internal bureaucratic twilight sleep. Then her gaze sweeps over my outfit again, and her expression twists into something I can only describe as holy horror.
“Isn’t it a bit cold for a beach visit? It’s November,” she finally asks, and this time I’m the one blinking, as if someone just wrote a mathematical equation across my face.
“It was seventeen degrees and sunny. And there were a lot of people at the beach,” I mumble, staring at her as if she were crazy for not knowing that. Seventeen degrees is absolutely beach weather. At least for me. And for the fifty people lying next to me pretending it was July.
The woman presses her lips into a line so thin it could probably pass as a ruler.
“I’m sorry, signorina, but I don’t think city hall is the right place for you,” she says sternly, turns around, and simply marches off, as if she’s just filed me away like an unwanted advertising leaflet.
I stand there, utterly outraged, my eyes growing as wide as two run-over seashells.
“Eyyyyy! Come back!” I grumble irritably, my voice echoing through the hall and causing at least five more heads to turn toward me. Fantastic. Just great. I ignore it. This time. Maybe.
I stomp after her, my beach bag slapping against my hip like it’s trying to demonstrate how angry I am.
“How do you know that office life isn’t for me?” I grumble after her, with no regard for the fact that I’m currently behaving like a loudly protesting chihuahua with sunscreen in its fur.
She ignores me. Completely.
Like someone who’s been trained to hate emotions.
So I push it further.
“Just because I went to the beach and dropped everything to come here and ask doesn’t mean this isn’t for me!” I shout, much louder than necessary.
I dramatically throw my hand into the air as if I were in a play trying to save the world.
“I’d even say that I’m quite committed and very goal-oriented,” I add as I catch up to her and position myself beside her like an especially persistent parrot.
She stops abruptly.
I almost crash into her but halt at the last second like a car with screeching brakes.
Slowly, she turns around.
Her gaze once again travels over my bikini top, which is innocently sparkling but in her eyes probably serves as proof that I am absolutely unfit for any kind of work.
I raise my own eyebrows so high that I’m surprised they don’t just fly away. My hands automatically move to my hips, an unconscious reflex, as if I’m fighting for my damn survival here. And I’m standing here half-naked, with the emotional stability of an overcrowded beach lounger.
But then something happens.
Something that makes my skin prickle.
Something that doesn’t feel human.
I feel a presence behind me.
A pull, a crackle, a shiver along my spine.
I turn around, scan the crowd with my eyes, but there are many people in the foyer, and for a moment I’m completely overwhelmed trying to figure out who or what is radiating this strange energy.
And then I see him.
I stop.
I freeze.
I almost choke on my own breathing.
I get caught on a pair of eyes so dark they look almost black in the foyer’s light. Eyes that are looking straight at me, without blinking, without hesitation, as if he’s been expecting me.
I can’t let go of him. And he can’t let go of me.
That is not a man.
Well, technically maybe, but this is no ordinary specimen of the species Homo sapiens. I see black hair that falls perfectly, untouched by any breeze. His face is sharply cut, sinfully beautiful, and makes my knees go weak for a moment. And his build. God in heaven. This guy is huge. A giant. And I’m in Italy. Men here are usually… how do I put this nicely… better equipped horizontally than vertically.
But this man shatters every scale.
He’s wearing a suit so expensive and so perfectly tailored that I could swear it was woven from shadows and sinful darkness directly onto his body. If I had to assign darkness itself to someone, it would be him. This man absolutely does not fit the atmosphere of city hall. But then again, neither do I. We’re two beings who are completely out of place here.
“Haaalllooo,” I suddenly hear the annoyed voice of the woman beside me, and I flinch before turning back to her.
She looks at me as if I just announced a striptease in the waiting area.
“Sorry, but Mr. Sexy and Dark back there threw me a little off balance,” I say completely seriously, as if that were the most logical explanation in the world.
The woman stares at me as if I’ve reached an advanced stage of insanity. And honestly, I can’t even blame her. I feel a little crazy myself.
She turns around, scans the hall with her eyes, lets her gaze circle everywhere, and then looks back at me.
“Are you seeing ghosts now?” she asks irritably, her brow furrowing deeply as if I’d just claimed I could communicate with dolphins.
I turn around again and see him still standing there.
Shamelessly attractive.
Shamelessly calm.
Shamelessly dressed in black.
And still those dark eyes fixed firmly on me.
I turn back to the woman and raise my hands as if this were a very serious medical issue.
“Do you maybe need glasses? How can you miss that man?” I ask, waving in his direction like the health department is about to come collect him.
The woman narrows her eyes into dangerous slits, as if she’s debating whether to throw me out or book herself an appointment with an eye doctor.
And then I remember again:
I’m direct.
I have no patience.
And I was about three seconds away from causing a scene that would probably go viral.
“Did you just insult me?” she asks, aghast, her eyes wide, her hands pressed to her chest as if I were a natural disaster one doesn’t quickly forget.
I groan loudly and completely unimpressed, as if I have to force myself to even respond to her.
“Yes,” I say with the same energy as someone who’s had far too little sleep for days. “You need glasses and a crash course in social skills and tact. Best book yourself a vacation somewhere where sexy men knead you properly, so you can finally pull that stick out of your ass.”
I say it out loud.
Very loud.
So loud that three people at the reception lift their heads at the same time, and an older gentleman suddenly looks very interested in casually passing by, even though he has very clearly stopped to listen.
The woman’s jaw drops, slowly, very slowly, like in slow motion, until it lands somewhere around chest level. I’m not sure whether she’s having trouble breathing or simply dying. Mentally, at least.
I turn away before she can decide whether to yell at me or have me expelled, and stomp toward the door as if the floor itself personally offended me.
“If only I’d stayed at the beach,” I grumble loudly, very loudly, deliberately loudly, so everyone who’s bored today or loves gossip can hear me. And honestly, I am now officially the highlight of this day at city hall.
My patience is completely used up, utterly evaporated, turned to dust. There isn’t a single grain of patience left. Nothing. Nada.
I stomp out of city hall, my beach bag hitting my hip, my bikini sparkling in the sunlight, and I probably look like an angry mermaid who’s decided to hate the land world. And yes, I’m desperately trying not to look back.
Not at Mr. Dark.
Not at that shamelessly attractive giant of a man who looked at me so intensely I almost touched myself. If I look at him one more time now, I’ll actually jump him. Literally.
I step outside, take a deep breath, feel the warm breeze, and seriously ask myself how in the world a perfectly normal day at the beach turned into… this.
