“Your shirt is outside inside,” he said when I stepped onto the porch, the door closing behind me with a quiet click.
I looked down. Sure enough, it was not just inside out, but backward, too. What was it Daisy said? Dio mio.
“Turn around.”
“Che?”
“Turn around so I can fix my shirt,” I said seriously, starting to pull my arms through.
He chuckled softly, disbelieving, but turned. “You know I have seen you. All of you. Many times.”
Oh my.
“That was college-age Avery. Before things started shifting and sinking like your Colosseum,” I explained, tucking the shirt back into the front of my yellow capris. “Okay, I’m decent.”
Marcello began descending the steps before he turned, smiling up at me.
“You look . . .” he began.
The scarf had come loose. One end was caught in my hair but the rest was flying behind me in the breeze. Along with my hair.
“That bad, huh?” I asked, self-consciously rubbing a hand over the wayward curls.
“No, now you look how I remember.”
All I could do was grin. Silly, toothy, hopeless.
Until I got downstairs and until he swung his leg over a— “Scooter? You expect me to ride around town on that?”
He blinked back at me, confused. “Yes?”
“Have you seen how crazy people are on these, these, tootabouts?”
“What is tootabout?”
“You know: toot toot! And then you all drive into traffic like a bat out of hell, all over town! I’m not getting on that thing.” I crossed my arms. I’d been involved in several near misses by some nutty Roman on a Vespa, and I didn’t wish to experience the madness from behind easy-to-crumple handlebars.
Marcello got up, closing the distance between us once more. “What city are you in?”
I rolled my eyes. “Rome.”
“Exactly. And what is that phrase? When in Rome . . .”
“Marcello, that’s not the point. The point is dead—which is what I will be if I climb on that thing.”
I stood with my weight on one hip, tapping one foot, frowning with arms crossed. Wild hair blowing in the breeze. He just started to laugh.
“What?”
“Mannaggia,” he sighed.
“What?”
“I say nothing changes,” he repeated, but this time with a mischievous smile.
“I don’t get it.”
“How puffed up you get when you’re afraid of something. You are like that little fish who blows up when it feels threatened. You did the same thing when we went on that tour boat.”
“And I was right about that! We ended up half drowned!”
He shook his head, his eyes warming to the memory. “Half drowned is not drowned, is it? We got back in the boat and continued with our trip, yes?”
“Yes,” I said. “Soaking wet, though.”
He took another step. “My favorite part,” he murmured, his mouth close to my ear. “I could see right through your blouse.”
“Pervert.” I smiled in spite of myself.
“Do you trust me?”
“Completely,” I said without hesitation.
He looked over my shoulder at the Vespa. “I won’t let you get hurt.”
“You promise you won’t go too fast?”
His eyes danced. “I promise.”
For the record, never trust an Italian’s version of what constitutes as too fast.
We zipped through Trastevere, around the Vatican—not a short distance by the way, in less than fifteen minutes. In traffic. Right before I had climbed on and wrapped my arms tightly around Marcello’s body—which is an entirely different story and one I’d likely come back to when I was slipping off to dreamland later—I’d mentally calmed down by reminding myself that scooters weren’t cars and therefore not capable of going very fast. More of a putt-putt than a vroom-vroom.
Couldn’t be further from the effing truth. We vroomed our way around town, zipping in and out of traffic, taking off like a shot several times fast enough that I was sure my hair was going to blow off. The horn on a Vespa shouldn’t be so weenie. It should be a giant foghorn, something more representative of its ferocity.
All I could do was bury my face against Marcello’s back, my lips pressed tightly together to squelch the tirade of swearing, and hang on.
Oh, to hang on. My hands, which had been wrapped around his waist from the second we took off, were clenched against him. Twice, when stopped at a light, he reached down and slid his hand across mine, soothing . . . or just touching?
My face was buried against his back, and sweet merciful lord did he smell good. Sense memory, what a tricky thing. He no longer wore the cologne I’d been used to when we were together before, but he still had the same scent, that clean soapy smell that some men have. Earthy and pleasant and all Marcello.
These little things I picked up and noticed only in the nanoseconds between stops and starts. The rest of the time I squeezed my eyes tightly shut and prayed to whatever holy spirit seemed to be hanging over this city at all times to let me off this thing.
“Oh you sorry, sorry, son of a bitch,” I wheezed, climbing down from behind him when we finally stopped and I stood up on wobbly legs. “That was too fast.”
“How can it be too fast? We were the same speed as everyone else—”
“Shush.” Acting on instinct alone, I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed one finger to his lips, my hair flying wild all around me. “Give me pizza and I’ll forgive you.”