“Avery, you are avoiding the question, yes? Tell me.”

I sighed and leaned against a bus stop. “I’ve traveled. A lot. An incredible amount really. Let’s see . . . Hawaii, Grand Cayman, Maldives, Belize, the Seychelles.” I ticked the sandy-beach vacations off my fingers. Let’s not forget the dozens of golfing vacations or trips to Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles.

As I went on about the gorgeous blue waters and stunning resorts, the wind picked up. Unbidden, he slid an arm around my shoulder, tucking me into his side to shelter me from the suddenly strong breeze. Once I was done prattling on about the limbo contest I’d won in Grand Cayman, he looked down at me thoughtfully.

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course.” Church bells dinged in the distance. Eight o’clock. We’d been walking for hours.

“These trips. They do not sound like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“These are places that someone else chose, yes?”

“Yes,” I admitted, contemplating if I should explain Daniel and truly what was going on back home. I opened my mouth at least three times, trying to get the words out, but I just couldn’t figure out how to tell him. How to open that box again of what had happened, all those years ago, when I left him and went home.

He waited, patient and quiet to see if I’d elaborate, watching as I struggled and finally putting me out of my misery. “Avery, it is okay. You tell me what you can, when you can, yes?”

“Soon, we’ll talk about my life in Boston.”

Appeased, he kept us walking forward. “So you never went anywhere that you liked?”

“Once.” I took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. “Spain was somewhere that I liked. Spending hours on a sketch of Sagrada. Swimming in the same sea as Dalí had, all those years ago. Getting lost in the Gothic Quarters.” I dropped my gaze. “You.”

He lifted my chin. “That sounds like the Avery I remember.”

He hurried me along a pedestrian walkway, past the busy intersection filled with honks, screaming traffic, and a few near misses with Vespa drivers. We were walking and chasing the dying sunlight just over a giant dome in the distance. I began walking faster, eager to see whatever it was he was taking me to.

And I was speechless.

“Holy Christ—” I blurted, but Marcello wrapped one arm around my waist and slipped his other hand gently across my lips.

“Not that. Not here,” he whispered, leaving me to wonder what he was referring to, the kiss or the cursing.

“That is incredible,” I whispered, spinning three sixty to see light-colored stone wall that rose high above us.

He’d brought us to St. Peter’s Square.

I was never very religious. We went to church when I was a kid, because it’s what you did for the social aspect. Same reason I went with Daniel. You dressed in your best and brunched with the worst. Nothing about it had to do with the church.

Here you felt . . . I don’t know . . . I won’t pretend it was some sort of divine presence—or maybe it was. Whatever was happening made me feel something. It was the art in my bones, the history I’d studied for so long hunched over long wooden library desks in the fading light. Seeing it in person was something altogether different. Magnificent.

“Come.” He nudged me, holding out his arm for me to take. Such an old-fashioned gesture, but for him, it fit. He led us to a gap in the queue rope where a flood of people were streaming through and I stopped, mouth agape, with a nearly crippling need to sketch it.

I didn’t know where to look first. The tall, noble pillars that circled the wall above us. The huge majestic statues lining the top like sentries guarding their little city. We walked around the square, my phone filled with photo after photo. I spun, trying to memorize every inch of it, but there was too much. As if he knew what I was thinking, Marcello placed his hand on my back and guided me to one of the black folding chairs.

“You know the way here now, so you can come back. Bring your chalks or pencils, make it your own.”

He was beaming, handsome, and my heart flipped.

“I feel like I could sit here for weeks and not capture a fraction of the beauty of this place.”

“I hope to see them when you have finished. I’ve missed your work.”

We didn’t chat at all once we left St. Peter’s. By the time we reached home, night had swallowed up the city in a magnificent navy hue. I was lost in thought, contemplating all the things I’d seen on our walk, and all the places I’d still yet to visit. Walking with him tonight really drove home how compact this city was. You could see a dozen landmarks in just a few miles.

On our way home, Marcello seemed to be getting text after text on his phone. He apologized several times, and I tried not to think about who might be blowing up his phone. We’d yet to talk about Simone, the woman he’d been sitting with (and kissing) the night I’d arrived in Rome. Was she still in the picture? How serious were they? Should he be out on the town with me? With my heart full of joy and my head full of questions, we climbed the stairs to the apartment.

I turned, and Marcello was right behind me. Close enough that I could feel the fabric of his shirt on my bare arms. So many of our early dates in Spain had ended this way, him looking over my shoulder at my door, wondering whether he’d be invited in. I thought about Daisy’s note. He technically wasn’t a boy . . . would I ask him inside?

“Today, well today was perfect,” I said. “Thank you for showing me some of your Rome.”