rome

Luckily, Signora Lucia knows how to drive a stick shift.

We're on the motorway somewhere between Chianti and Rome, three across on the bench seat of the truck Lucia usually takes to pick up cases of wine from neighboring wineries.

Everything that could go wrong on our bike ride, did. Theo got lost, my bike blew a tire, a goat chased us off the road. For the first hour it was a charming pastoral misadventure, until our play fighting became actual fighting, and when Theo mentioned the bus leaving at nine, I stopped and stared and told them the schedule said eight. We were late for a bus that had already left, and nobody had looked for us because Theo had helpfully checked our names off when they loaded our bags.

By the time we could communicate what happened and get a concierge to call the tour company—Theo never got around to saving Fabrizio's number—the bus was an hour out. If they turned back, the entire group would miss the Vespa tour of Roman monuments scheduled for this afternoon. That was when Signora Lucia marched in, took up the receiver, and told Fabrizio she would handle it.

And now here we are, halfway to Rome in a half-rusted farm truck with the Italian ghost of my dead mother, who seems to only know two words of English, hello and cow.

Theo and I sit with our arms crossed, tense and separate. Under the engine and a cassette of Patty Pravo's greatest hits, I can almost hear Theo grinding their teeth. I fix my gaze on the miniature portraits of Mary and Jesus hanging from the rearview mirror and try to recall how nice it felt to wake up this morning.

"Cow," Signora Lucia says boredly, pointing through the dusty windshield at some cattle grazing in a field. She has pointed out every cow pasture we've passed in what seems to be a perfunctory agricultural sightseeing tour. Theo and I both make appreciative hmm sounds.

We pass two more pastures before Theo finally unsticks their jaw and says, facing straight ahead, "Why don't you just say whatever you're thinking so we can get it over with."

Here we go.

"There's nothing to say," I tell them. "I should have checked the time before we left. I should have made sure you told someone where we were going."

"In other words, you should have known I would fuck up."

"I wouldn't have gotten us into this situation, no."

They nod hard and fast. "Right, and you never make mistakes."

"I knew the right time."

"Sure," they say. "Fuck me, I guess."

"Why are you mad at me?"

"Because I can hear the superiority in your fucking tone, Kit," Theo says, finally facing me. "Like you think I'm an idiot child."

I don't think that, but we've had this conversation a thousand times before, and it won't make a difference if I say so. Last night should be enough proof, but maybe that's the problem. Maybe they didn't really believe what I said then either. Maybe I just put a crust on top of everything, and this has broken it.

"There is one thing I'd like to say, actually," I attempt. "I don't think this is about the bus. I think you're feeling a bit raw from yesterday."

"Oh, cool, you're here to save me from myself and tell me how I feel," Theo says, cheeks flaring red. "Really taking me back to the good ol' days. It's a miracle I survived all this time without you, huh?"

"Don't put words in my mouth," I say, keeping my voice even. "That's not what I think."

"Pretty close to what you said back then."

"Cow," says Signora Lucia, pointing, and we both go hmm.

"Then?" I ask Theo. "Then, when?"

They don't say anything, and it hits me like I'm rolling down the motorway myself. Head over ass, scraped across the pavement, fifteen different French swears colliding in my head.

"You mean on the plane," I say. "You want to talk about that now?"

"No, I'm just saying," Theo says tightly. When they swat a piece of hair from their eyes, their hand shakes. "It's not like I'm making things up."

"I don't remember saying anything like that," I say, throat tight.

What I do remember is: my ears ringing as Theo shook me awake. The envelope in their hand—they'd gone looking through my bag for a snack and found it. The dull roar of the engines as we sailed over the ocean, the sour taste of sleep in my mouth. I remember Theo holding the pages out and asking what the hell they were, how I'd carefully folded them in thirds. My acceptance letter and the papers for our apartment.

We'd talked about Paris so many times. I'd been telling them stories about the pied-à-terre in Saint-Germain-des-Prés our whole lives. This was Theo's first time crossing the Atlantic, but when we were up late watching No Reservations or picking up Camembert from the cheese shop next to Ralph's, we swore that Theo would come with me one visit, and I'd show them everywhere Thierry and Maman took me when I was little, and we'd eat and kiss and drink kir with a splash of Lillet Blanc. And wouldn't it be funny, we said, if we never left? If we stayed forever, started a whole new life, opened up Fairflower on some flowering corner?

Theo knew I'd applied to culinary schools all over, including Paris. And so, when I'd gotten into école Desjardins a few months after we booked the tour, I'd had an idea: I would have Thierry sign the pied-à-terre over to me when he moved out. On our tour, Theo would see Paris for the first time, I'd introduce them to all the things they'd fall in love with, and then I'd surprise them. I had secretly rerouted our tickets home from Palermo with a two-day layover in Paris, and I was going to bring them to the pied-à-terre and give them our dream in an envelope. A blooming home in Paris, a new life, everything already prepared. They didn't have to worry about anything, didn't have to manage any of the difficult, tedious details. All they had to do was come.

I laughed and shrugged, So much for the big romantic surprise, and the color drained from Theo's face, and they said, I thought you applied in Paris as a joke. That was when it all fell to pieces.

The first questions were all how questions, ones I didn't expect because I thought we both knew the answers. How would I pay to study pastry in Paris? I'd borrow money from my dad. How would we move all our things across the ocean? The pied-à-terre was already furnished. How was Theo supposed to spend their time while I was at school? They could immerse themself in the French wine they'd gotten into lately, learn everything we needed to keep it flowing at Fairflower one day. How were they going to do that when they didn't even speak French? I'd teach them. How could it even work, legally? That one was easiest. I said, I have dual citizenship, we'll just get married.

And Theo said, Do not fucking tell me this is how you're proposing.

"What were you thinking?" Theo asks. "How could you design a whole life for me without even asking if I wanted it?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to trap all the frustration and grief there. They asked me the same question four years ago, and my answer ruined everything. But it hasn't changed.

"You weren't happy, Theo," I say. "And I was afraid that if you kept doing the same things, you never would be."

What gives you the fucking right, Theo said back then, to decide that for me?

I genuinely thought Theo would love the idea of no more rent to pay, no more double shifts or getting cursed out in the kitchen, no more rotating through the only five restaurants we actually liked, no ex-hookups to avoid, no credit scores to repair or worry about where they'd get insurance when they turned twenty-six. A limitless life in the most beautiful city in the world, where nobody had to know their family name. And us, together. We could do anything together.

They weren't happy. They hadn't been since they'd lost swim and dropped out. Timo worked them hard and nasty, made them earn every inch from busser to barback to bartender to bar manager with sweat and blisters and long nights that only made their shoulder worse. They were tired all the time. They picked up new passions and burnt them out in a week. And sometimes, there was a strange, brittle disconnect behind their eyes, like something was living inside them without being tended, something so essential it might permanently empty them if it died of neglect.

And the thing was, they never said I was wrong about that. But they were possessed of a fierce, stubborn conviction that it was their right to be miserable.

I told them, I can't keep watching you give up on yourself. I said, I can help you. I said, I worry that sometimes you get in your own way. And Theo said, Do you hear how you keep talking about my life in the first person?

"It wasn't a life I liked," Theo says now, "but it was mine."

Then, Theo had more questions: How long had I been planning this? At any point did I wonder if telling them to abandon their life, move to a different continent where they didn't know the language, and live in my family's pied-à-terre was actually romantic or just controlling? Did I care that Theo hates surprises? And I thought, Did I know Theo hates surprises?

I reminded them of Fairflower, all the menus we'd thought of, all our dreams, and Theo said that's all it ever was to them: a dream. Something nice to think about, nothing more. I hadn't known, and Theo wasn't surprised. They told me that I always think I know better and never leave them room to correct their own mistakes, that I live in fantasies and hear whatever I want to hear. I hadn't known that either.

We went round and round for hours in those cramped airplane seats, through dinner service and tepid plastic trays of lasagna, letting loose everything we'd ever held back. We'd fought once or twice as kids, but we'd never figured out how to fight as adults in a relationship. We didn't know when to stop. I told them how many times I'd bitten my tongue and let them make the worst choices, and they told me they'd be embarrassed to let their parents pay for their life the way I let mine. They said I only cared about my own ideas of meaning and success, and I said at least I wasn't afraid to try for them. I was so sure I could see their exact, direct path to being happier, and they refused to take it.

Sometimes I wonder if that fight would have ended us if we'd had it at home. If we could have aired everything, taken a night to settle, and met in the kitchen the next morning, maybe we would have stayed together. But we had it on a plane to London with nothing to do but implode. The last two hours to Heathrow were silent, and I couldn't think of anything honest that would convince Theo not to leave me. I wasn't surprised when it seemed like they did.

"You didn't know what you wanted to do," I say now. "And I thought that I could help you figure it out, and I was afraid of what would happen if I didn't."

"You wanted to go to Paris," Theo counters. "You wanted the life you wanted—the life you have now, actually, which seems like proof I never even needed to be there. I was a plus-one."

I feel like putting my head in my hands.

"Theo," I say, sounding tired even to myself, "I don't know how else to say it. You were my life. You were always the whole point of it."

"Well, I shouldn't have been," Theo snaps. "Nobody should be that to anyone, Kit, that's how a person becomes a thing. That's how you forgot to ask if Paris was what I wanted."

And I take a breath and say, "I know."

The Patty Pravo cassette runs out, fading into thin white noise over the truck radio. Signora Lucia switches the dial off.

It's quiet inside the truck when Theo says, "What?"

"I know. You're right. So, please, do we—do we have to keep reciting the whole fight? It was painful enough before I knew I was wrong, so I really can't stomach it now."

"You . . . you think I'm right?"

It's strange to realize I haven't told them. It's such big piece of cargo, I forget not everyone can tell I'm carrying it.

"Theo," I say, "the Paris thing is the greatest regret of my life."

Theo looks at me, their eyes so intent on searching mine that I can't read anything else in them. Then they say, "Say more," which is such a Theo answer to a moment of quiet vulnerability that I have to try not to smile.

"You were right," I say. "I have a dream, and get so obsessively swept up in it that I can't see anything else. I didn't see you. I was treating your life as a problem to be solved, planning for the version of you in my head who wanted what I thought was best, and I was so sure I was right, I forgot I'd never even met that person. That's the fucked-up part. I never loved the Theo who would have gone along for the ride. I've only ever loved you."

I've done it again, forgotten to use the past tense when I say I love them. I wonder if Theo will notice this time.

"Yeah, that . . ." Theo says, their gaze far away. For a moment, I think I've been caught out, but then they say through a small, sad laugh, "That is fucked up."

I laugh too, can't help it. It comes out a sigh.

"If I haven't said it," I say, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done anything without you."

Theo doesn't say anything, but it's a soft silence. They nod and turn their eyes back to the windshield, which gradually reveals the distant outskirts of Rome. Squat roadside bars, stucco apartments, pointy cypress trees. I watch them roll by, a strange feeling within my chest like the moment a bubbling pan of sugar resolves into caramel. Like relief, like a turning.

After half an hour, Theo lays their hand on mine. Half an hour after that, when we've made it to the city, they finally speak.

"I should have checked the bus schedule again this morning," they say. "My bad."

The bus is so far from my mind, this surprises a full-throated laugh out of me.

"I could have checked too," I say.

Theo squeezes my hand.

"And to be fair," they say as the truck trundles between Flaminio's leafy pink and yellow houses, "there were days I wished I could just magically disappear all my problems and restart."

"I think everyone probably wants that sometimes."

"Now and then I still do," they say. "But if I start life over, I want it to be mine."

I nod. "I know."

Signora Lucia brings us to a bus stop on the edge of a piazza, across from the market where the tour group should be having lunch. We tell her "Grazie mille, grazie mille" over and over until she waves us off, and then we're running.

When we were young, Theo would get so angry when we raced each other. We're both fast, and Theo has always had power and defiance on their side, but I have longer strides and better reflexes. They were always one step behind.

Now, as we run across the piazza, I fall back. Theo advances at a thunderous clip, as if they could be unsheathing a sword instead of pulling their phone from their hip pack, hot Roman sun flashing off their hair like laurels on a gladiator. They're so gorgeous from this new angle.

They glance over their shoulder to find me one step behind them, and something blooms on their face. They turn away before I can name it.

Fabrizio scoops us up in breathless relief outside Antico Forno Roscioli as the group finishes lunch. The blessed Calums have saved us a few squares of crusty pizza topped with dollops of pesto and half of a sour cherry crostata, which we eat in big, messy bites washed down with the dregs of Stig's lukewarm Peroni. It was close, but we made it.

Six at a time, we're divided into groups, passed off to a grinning driver with a shiny helmet dangling from their fingers, and led away from the market to join our Vespa fleets. Theo and I are among the last to be assigned, but no driver appears. Instead, Fabrizio gives us a vigorous smile and says, "Amici, you come with me!"

Around the corner, we're awaited by a group of drivers and a line of vintage Vespas in a rainbow of pastels like a box of assorted Parisian macarons. A handsome middle-aged man wearing fingerless riding gloves shouts a joyous greeting to Fabrizio and kisses him hard on the side of his golden face. I'm beginning to suspect there's someone in love with Fabrizio in every city on this tour.

"This is Angelo!" Fabrizio tells us. "When I first come to Roma, he gave me my first job driving on this Vespa tour when I was only eighteen. I learn everything I know from him." He turns to Angelo. "And I was your favorite driver, no?"

"Sì," Angelo says. "All the girls want to take the tour when they see you. Very good for business."

"And now," Fabrizio says, "when my tours visit Roma, I bring them to you. And as a special treat, you let me drive like the old days, sì?"

Each rider pairs with a driver—two honeymooners with two sturdy older men almost identical to Lars, Stig with a tiny woman who wears a lot of nose rings and has to stand on her seat to jam the helmet onto his head, Dakota with Angelo. I count the scooters and come up one short. All that remains for Theo and me is a single canary-yellow Vespa with a matching sidecar.

"Fabrizio, no," Theo says as they realize what's about to happen.

"Fabrizio, sì!" Fabrizio replies, holding out a helmet for each of us. "One of you will ride in the sidecar, and one of you will sit behind me. Like this!"

He points to Dakota straddling the Vespa seat behind Angelo, her thighs pressed against his and her arms around his middle. One of us will be doing that with Fabrizio while the other squats in the sidecar like a picture-book dog with goggles on.

Theo plonks their helmet onto their head and turns to me. "Should we flip a coin?"

"We could take turns? Swap at the stops?" I suggest. I sweep my hair back and put my helmet on, and Theo instantly starts laughing. I frown. "What?"

"Look at you!" They pull out their phone to take a picture and show me the screen, my frowning confusion and the tufts of hair that stick out from the bottom of my helmet. "God, it's perfect."

"I look chic," I say. "I look like I ride motorcycles on the Amalfi Coast."

"You look like they shoot you out of a cannon at a circus for gay people."

"Even better."

"I know," Theo says, like they're surprised by how much they mean it.

I wink and tighten my chin strap, gesturing toward Fabrizio already seated behind the handlebars. "You go first. Keep him warm for me."

And, with a two-finger salute, Theo kicks a leg over.

The sidecar isn't as cramped as it looks, and once I get my legs situated it's almost comfortable. Theo, who continues to think this is the funniest thing that's ever happened, snaps a dozen more photos, and then Fabrizio cranks up the throttle and pushes off.

The other drivers fall into formation as we turn onto one of the wide main roads of Rome, Corso Vittorio according to a glimpse of a sign. Buildings rise up around us in stately blocks of ivory and cream, distinguished and lined with stone balustrades, propped up by Ionic columns with curling scrolls at their tops. The sky is a blistering blue, and the road bends west, toward the green rush of the Tiber. The engine purrs, and Fabrizio sings into the wind as he weaves through Roman traffic, and from my sidecar, I look at Theo.

They're a desert baby, brought back to life by sun and heat. Their grin grows wider and wider, the morning disappearing into Fabrizio's rearview. They lace their fingers together around Fabrizio's waist and put their face into the wind, gazing at Rome with honest wonder.

I think after everything, now that we've said what we needed to say, we might come out okay.

We cruise over an arched bridge to the round drum of Castel Sant'Angelo, atop which legend says the Archangel Michael sheathed his sword to signal the end of Rome's great plague. Honking cars race us to the travertine facade of the Palace of Justice and back over the Tiber and into winding nests of narrow cobbly streets, toward the Pantheon.

As we reach the temple, Fabrizio turns back to Theo and shouts over the engine.

"When we finish, come back here, down this street, and then the first left, and the first right after this into the alley, and you will find the hostel between the osterias at the end. Orla leaves your bags in your rooms at the top of the stairs."

"Uh-huh," Theo says. They're gazing in awe at the Pantheon's ancient columns, not hearing any of this.

"Grazie!" I shout, happy to leave Theo's moment uninterrupted. I'll remember for us.

We pull into an alley with an ancient faucet spouting crisp, clear water. I've read about these—nasoni, public faucets fed in part by the original Roman aqueducts—but I almost couldn't believe it until now. We catch water in our cupped hands, take turns pressing our fingers to the spouts to make them spray upward like a drinking fountain. Fabrizio tips his whole head sideways and puts his mouth under the stream, and I catch Theo looking when I follow his example, taking cool water into my open mouth until it spills down my chin.

After, it's my turn to ride with Fabrizio. I wrap my arms around his firm waist, press my thighs against his, our shorts riding up high enough for our sweat to mingle. He compliments the softness of my skin as he cranks the engine, and I thank him with my most flirtatious smile. Theo watches with open, curious hunger from the sidecar below. Two things that endure the passage of time: Roman antiquities, and the thrill Theo gets from seeing me with a man between my legs.

The tour goes on through a blur of stone and ivy, the ruins of the square where Julius Caesar was murdered, the grassy stretch of Circus Maximus once pounded by racing hooves and chariot wheels, temples to Hercules and Portunus so well-preserved a Roman farmer might amble through with a cow to sell at the Forum Boarium. We finish at the Arch of Constantine, barely changed from how it looked when victorious emperors paraded through seventeen hundred years ago, still proud and imposing on the backdrop of the looming Colosseum.

We tour the Colosseum on foot, our shoes on the same stones as thousands of ancient sandals. Fabrizio's voice is hoarse from use as he recites story after story, reenacts battle after battle. Then we go back out through the archways, past the ruins of the fountain where gladiators washed their wounds, to the top of the Palatine Hill and its wide overhead view of the Roman Forum.

On a long tour, days have a way of stretching impossibly beyond their edges. So many things spread out over such short hours, one after another, until it seems unimaginable that the day could have begun in a different place at all. Like there has only ever been here, and then here, this fountain and that drink and this sparkling pane of glass, each trapped in an instant happening in the memory forever, each instantly replaced with the thing after that. Perpetual fleeting everything, worn-out body and blissed-out brain. That's how this day goes on.

Fabrizio cuts us loose to explore the Roman Forum. Theo and I wander down the same main street where senators schemed and merchants traded goods and women practiced the oldest profession, everyone working or praying or gambling or spreading rumors, and past what still stands of the triumphal arches.

I imagine Theo and me in their world. I'd be the baker, baking loaves of sourdough under smoldering ash, olive leaves in my hair and flour on my tunic. Theo would be the roguish young charioteer who buys bread from me every morning and flusters the vestal virgins. We'd steal glances but never touch until we were alone, pressing each other into secret corners of temples, and when they bound their chest with leather to race, my name would be carved inside the straps.

"So crazy how two thousand years ago, they were feeling all the same things we feel," Theo muses. "They wanted to be loved, and eat good food, and make art, and fuck."

"The human condition," I agree.

We pause at the most impressive temple, one with ten thick columns still holding up the frieze over its portico. A sign says this was originally built as a temple to Faustina the Elder, the empress. Her husband, Antoninus, was so heartbroken when she died that he had her deified and her likeness cast into gold statues, pressed into coins, and enshrined in this temple. He wanted the whole empire to worship her the way he did, and the cult of Faustina spread.

"Kind of romantic to love your wife so much you start a cult," I say.

"I don't know," Theo says, an ironic lilt to their lips. "Did anyone ever ask Faustina if she wanted to be a god?"

I laugh, perfectly willing to take a nudge to the ribs if it means we can joke about this now.

"You're right," I say. "Very presumptuous of Antoninus."

On our way out of the forum, we realize neither of us ate enough lunch, and we still have four hours until group dinner. Hungry and overheated, we choose the first pizzeria we see, partially because the waiter is attractive and partially for the sheer volume of mist piping into the outdoor seating area. Everything from the chairs to the silverware is slightly damp, sparkling with tiny, cooling water droplets. When the hot waiter takes our menus away, there are two dry rectangles left in their place on the brown paper tablecloth.

"Is this too much mist?" Theo asks. "I feel like I'm at a Rainforest Cafe."

"No, it's nice," I say, watching a drop of water roll down the side of their neck. "Like being a cucumber in a grocery store."

I drink a limoncello spritz, Theo has a glass of chilled Orvieto, and we split a pizza. When we're done, we walk uphill to the Trevi Fountain, which is absolutely awash with tourists dripping gelato and sharing crispy fried supplì stuffed with cheese and tomato. We find a spot near the fountain's edge and sit together.

"And there waits our lover, Sexy Neptune," I say, admiring the fountain. "He always comes back to us."

"I think that might be less about us and more about him being a popular subject for fountain sculptures."

"No, we have a thing going on."

"Hmm. Hold on." Theo studies the fountain more closely. "I know this place. It's in the seminal rom-com—"

"Roman Holiday," I say at the same time Theo finishes, "The Lizzie McGuire Movie," and we laugh.

I look at them, freckles out, hair whipped wild by the helmet and frizzed from mist, beside me in Rome after all. My charioteer. They made their own life, and it brought them here, and I'm lucky enough to see it.

I think of Faustina in the Forum, Theo on the plane. I want to do better this time. I want to know what they want. And whatever they want, I want to give it to them.

So, this time, I ask.

"Theo," I say. "What do you want?"

It's an open question. It can mean whatever they want it to mean.

They consider their answer for a long time, watching water crash into the bowl of the fountain.

"I'm working on it," they say. "Ask me again tomorrow."

That night, we have dinner at the kind of family-owned side-street osteria a person would only find if they knew where to look. It's nothing special to see—flat and brown among all the ivy-draped alleys and heroic statues—but it feels special. The walls are covered in a riot of black-and-white portraits of great-grandparents, hand-painted pizza posters, grainy shots of sauce-smeared grandchildren, and signed headshots of Italian singers. Red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloths drape each table, and mismatched plates overflow with pasta in a dozen shapes and colors.

After, Theo and I finally make it to our rooms. For our two nights in Rome, we're booked into an old apartment building turned hotel, our rooms at the top of five flights of marble stairs so steep we take the last one gasping on hands and knees. On a dusty, open-air landing lit by string lights, Theo unlocks their door and finds our bags dumped inside.

I reach for mine, but they take my key and say, "You should stay."

In Theo's room, we take turns rinsing dried sweat off with cold showers. Even then, it's too hot to consider clothing, and since yesterday at the villa—God, how can that be only yesterday?—there's no reason for modesty. We leave our damp towels in the bathroom and lie naked on our backs atop the duvet, careful not to share body heat by touching. Our heads soak wet halos into the pillowcases.

I'm not looking at Theo with any real intent. But there is the plain, extraordinary fact of their body beside me: the taper of their forearms from elbow to wrist, the ridges of their shins and the sturdy knot of bone at their ankles, the gingersnap hair that dusts each leg and thickens between them. Their chest is almost as smooth as mine when they lie like this, subtle swells a shade pinker at each peak. It's not only the beauty of their body but the casual presence of it, the way I'm allowed to lie beside it in a quiet room, that gets to me.

"Kit," Theo says.

"Theo," I say.

"You're hard."

I close my eyes. "I know."

Theo spreads their feet apart, indenting the bedspread in two soft points under their heels. One of their hands—those strong, lovely hands—skims down their stomach and between their legs. They lift it to the lamplight and show me the wetness glistening on their fingertips.

It's an admission and a question. I answer both by reaching down and pushing into my own palm.

And so we lie there on a bed in Rome, twelve hours after settling our scores, touching ourselves together.

There was one other time like this, when we were nineteen and high and eaten up with longing. A late night in my room, an endless conversation that had drifted to the people we were fucking instead of each other. For years we pretended not to remember lying beneath the same blanket with our hands under our own waistbands, the rustle of cotton and whisper of skin, but I couldn't forget how it felt to learn the sound of Theo getting off.

It can't be possible for our history to repeat so exactly, for us to be lying here loving each other and not saying it again, but I wonder. I watch Theo's hand move, and I groan at my own touch, and I wonder.

"Kit," Theo says, and for one thick moment I think they're actually sighing my name in pleasure, until they repeat, "Kit."

"Yeah?"

"I wanna change the rules again."

"Yeah," I say readily, "yeah, okay."

"No kissing, no penetration," they say, "but anything else goes."

My hand stills.

"Anything?"

"Anything."

"Are you sure?"

They lean in and drag their mouth across the corner of mine. It's not a kiss, but it's enough like one to make me shiver.

"Please," Theo says. I've never said no to anything Theo asks for nicely.

In the space of a second, I jackknife off the mattress and twist around, using the momentum to flip Theo on their back and pin myself between their thighs. Theo lets out a scream that's mostly a laugh, legs already lifting.

"Fuck, could you always do that?"

I shift forward, bracing my shoulders under the firm curve of their ass.

"I have some new techniques."

Theo grins luxuriantly. "My little pastry school valedictorian."

"Yours," I echo, heart aching.

I put my mouth to them until they're gasping, until their hips buck off the bed, until their hands are buried in my hair, gripping and tugging and crushing my face into them so hard my vision blacks out blissfully at the edges.

They finish loud, and as soon as they've caught their breath, they wrench me up by the root of my hair and throw me backward, crowding me until I'm sitting with my back to the headboard. Lube appears from somewhere—the nightstand, maybe, I don't honestly care—and they're pumping it into their open palm, and then—and then—

Theo wraps their hand around me.

The texture of their hand is different than I remember—more calloused, more scarred—but the shape of it, the pressure of each finger and the cant of their wrist, the way their palm accommodates me, it's all so devastatingly familiar I almost come at the first touch. Tears instantly prick at the corners of my eyes, and I can't find it in myself to be ashamed. Through the blur, I see Theo's face, their fierce determination as they spread lube over me with one hand and on the insides of their thighs with the other.

Then they're climbing over me and aligning their hips above mine, and for one delirious second I think they're going to abandon the rules and fuck me the old-fashioned way, and I'm more than ready to let them.

Instead, they twist their body to the side and sink down onto my lap. They close their strong legs around me, trapping my full length between their thighs, slick on slick, soft encompassing hard.

A stream of swears slips from my mouth so fast, even I don't know what language I'm speaking. Tongues, maybe. Ancient Latin. I'm so completely, suddenly surrounded that I can barely think, barely control the way my hands grasp Theo to keep them where they are, seated sideways with their shoulder to my chest and their thighs clenched tight. They shift their hips in a demonstrative tease, and I swear again as I understand what they're offering.

"You like that?" Theo says, staring into my face, seeing God knows what there.

"Love it," I breathe out. Love you.

They brace their hands on the bed behind them to lift a fraction of their weight off my lap, giving me room to move.

"Show me how much."

Everything—the room, the heat, the day, the ache in my heart—everything falls away when I push up into the slicked clinch of their thighs.

In the absence of thought, my body supplies, glissando. A half-remembered term from classical compositions. The smooth, continuous slide from one pitch to another, low to high, down and then up. An evocation of magic or emotion or grace, written into odes to the sea in summer. That is what's happening between our bodies.

It's so good I can't imagine ever needing more, until Theo shifts and I feel a new, wet heat against me, the familiar shape of their sex still messy from my mouth. They snap their hips, finding the friction they need, dangerously close to letting me slip inside. As they finish again, their gaze lands on my face like a comfort, like a command, and I'm done. I'm beyond recovery.

I'm so ruined that I don't realize until later, in a half-awake moment in the middle of the night, that we nearly broke the only two rules we have left.

The next morning, Theo's head is on my pillow and three new texts from Maxine are on my phone.

saw guillaume looking despondent at the cafe this morning. i think he misses you. at least parts of you.

And, you owe me updates on the theo situation. what happened after monaco?? if you've gotten your heart broken again i'll kill all three of us.

And, dinner on monday night?

I switch off my alarm before it wakes up Theo and reread Maxine's texts while I brush my teeth, puzzling out which Monday she could mean. Then I realize: She's talking about next Monday. As in, less than seven days away. As in, the tour is almost over.

For two and a half weeks, I've lived in this bubble outside of reality, where I spend every day eating and drinking and touching and looking at art, dazed from too many languages and not enough sleep. Where Theo is beside me, and we're friends again, and we share a pillow and wake up with the taste of each other on our tongues. I almost forgot that my life in Paris has been going on without me, and now it's so close that dinner with Maxine at our usual bistro is something I could be doing in a matter of days.

I spit and rinse, but the fizz of slight panic stays in my mouth. I count the time left. One more day and night in Rome, Naples tomorrow, and then the two-day finish in Palermo. Four days and four nights until I fly home to France, and Theo gets on a plane to California. There's nothing to stop them from blocking my number again if they want to. I feel certain that won't happen, not after all this . . . but what if it does?

Where have I been hoping this would lead in the end?

From the bed comes the rustle of sheets and a low, stretching grumble.

"Kit?" says Theo's voice, hoarse with sleep. "You here?"

"In the bathroom."

Another grumble and the creak of bedsprings, and Theo is shuffling into the tiny bathroom, pulling a T-shirt on backward. Their hair is wild, their eyes half closed, a streak of dried drool on their chin. I don't know how I could survive losing them again.

"Thought you left like yesterday."

"At the villa? Did it bother you that I got up early?"

They nod, fumbling for their toiletry kit. I place their hand on the zipper before they knock their deodorant into the sink.

"Wanted to wake up together," Theo says, which strikes me momentarily speechless. They rest their forehead against my shoulder, letting me prop up their weight.

I try to tell my heart to settle, that they're being tender because they're half asleep, but it clenches anyway.

Our packs are against the wall by the bed, mine repacked and zipped up neatly, Theo's tipped over and spilling half-folded clothes onto the carpet. I huff a laugh and begin arranging Theo's shirts into a more orderly pile, when my hand brushes something solid inside a ball of socks.

Part of a label pokes out, one I'd recognize anywhere. The little bottle of whiskey I gave Theo for our first anniversary, distilled the year we met. The one we were supposed to drink at the end of our tour four years ago.

They kept it. I thought they would have drunk it by now, or thrown it away, but all this time, they kept it. And when they were choosing which things to fit into their pack, they made room. They made the choice to bring it here, not even knowing they would see me.

"Where are we going this morning again?" Theo asks from the bathroom.

I cover the socks back up and move away from Theo's bag before they poke their head into the room.

My voice is admirably normal when I answer, "Galleria Borghese."

An hour and a half later, Orla drops us off at the Spanish Steps. Fabrizio takes us up into the huge green sprawl of the Villa Borghese Gardens, once a vineyard until Cardinal Scipione Borghese turned it into his personal party destination in the 1600s, as is an evil gay cardinal's right. His collection of art—some obtained by abusing the pope's funds, others by abusing the pope's influence—still fills the villa at the center of the gardens. Now, it's a public museum.

Fabrizio walks us through an introductory tour of the most famous pieces, then lets us explore on our own. When I ask Theo where to start, they say, "Show me your favorite Bernini." So I lead them to Apollo and Daphne, and when I ask what they want to see next, they tell me to go on without them.

It's easy to imagine this place as Rome's hottest destination for fruity seventeenth-century art parties. Inside, it is the highest of high camp, from the trompe-l'?il fresco covering the ceiling of the salon to the thousands of gilded flourishes in the Room of Emperors.

I open my sketchbook and scavenge for details to bring home: the silly little face of the unicorn in the arms of Raphael's Young Woman, the eyes of the bejeweled woman in Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, the affectionate strokes Caravaggio used for the face of his lover Mario as the Boy with a Basket of Fruit. But every time I pass the room with Apollo and Daphne, Theo remains, fixed to the same spot.

I drift to the entrance hall, to the glossy marble sculpture of a topless woman reclining in a bed of flowing linens, apple in hand. I remember studying this one. Venus Victrix, the scandalous likeness of Pauline Bonaparte sculpted when her brother Napoleon married her off to a Borghese. She's an interesting woman—one of the great luminaries of being slutty and French, and for that I admire her—but I'm still thinking of Theo. Of last night.

In my head, I retrace our steps since we first touched in Cinque Terre. The edge in Theo's voice in Pisa when they agreed to keep hooking up, like they were throwing themself off some perilous ledge. The unknown emotion they fought in the grotto in Florence and their grip on my hair in the alley. The morning after in Chianti, that brash, invulnerable grin and their naked body in daylight, how they tried to protect themself with sex and jokes and then collapsed into me when they couldn't anymore. The way they pulled me into their room and their bed last night. The bottle in their bag.

The truth is, I haven't wanted to seriously consider what it all could mean. I've been so willing to believe that Theo would never want me back, because as long as I have nothing to hope for, I have nothing to lose. They can't leave me again if I don't expect them to stay.

But I'm beginning to think it could be possible. That there's a chance Theo could still love me.

Theo might love me. Theo might love me.

The tour is almost over, and if there's a chance Theo feels like I do, I can't let them go home not knowing.

If Theo loves me, then—then that's it for me. I want it all. I want to be with them for the rest of our lives, whatever that looks like, however they ask. I'd get it right this time, plan it out so they don't have to give anything up to fit our lives together. I'll never ask them to follow me anywhere again. I don't expect them to leave California, and I definitely wouldn't expect them to move to Paris. How could I, after everything? When it hasn't even made me happy?

When it—

I stare at Pauline and repeat the thought, testing its weight.

It hasn't made me happy.

I wish I could ask Pauline's opinion. Does Paris make me happy? Did coming to Rome make her happy?

Of course it didn't. She was happy in France, rouging her nipples and making love to men who weren't her well-bred husbands, getting caught with her skirts up behind screens. She posed nude for this, the statue commissioned to announce her as a wife to Roman society, simply for the delicious thrill, and her husband hid it away in a crate in the attic.

I don't think my life in Paris took my wonder from me, but I do sometimes feel like it's stored in a crate in the attic. I could take it down. I could ship it somewhere else—somewhere Theo would like to be. They could help me pry off the lid. They're so much better with tools.

Tonight, I tell myself, taking a deep breath. Tonight, after dinner, I'll take Theo out for a drink, and I'll tell them how I feel. I'll ask them if they feel the same. And if they do, I'll tell them I'll go wherever they want.

"Theo," I say, "I have a very important question for you."

It's night, and we're in Trastevere with our bellies full of pasta, at a tiny café table in a pocket-sized alley, perusing the wine list under a curtain of ivy. Mostly, Theo's perusing the wine list, and I'm reading the names of unfamiliar Italian appellations out loud just to hear Theo correct my pronunciation.

Theo lifts their stare from the menu, brows frozen in a studious furrow.

"Okay."

"If you were a wine grape," I say, "which grape would you be?"

They relax with a laugh. "Really? That's your question."

"You keep saying that every grape has its own characteristics and personality," I say, "so, which one is most like you?"

They think about it. "I feel like I have to be a California white."

"Well, you are a California white."

"Very original joke from the southern French white."

"Merci beaucoup."

"And le fuck you too," Theo says cheerfully. "I might be a Viognier."

"I have to tell you, that sounds French."

"It is, originally, but it's grown in California too. Full-bodied, rich texture. It might sound weird, but it makes a kind of oily wine? And I think that suits me. Something with weight, that likes to sit there and hang out for a long time."

"I can see that. What does it taste like?"

"Peach, mostly, but I also get tangerine and honeysuckle with it, and a lot of other florals. Which feels like me, I guess."

I ponder this. "You know, I think I assumed you would be a red, but that's perfect for you."

"Oh, Kit. You are a red."

"I'm a red? Why?"

"Come on. Deep, indulgent, immortalized in a million Renaissance paintings, made to be poured between ass cheeks at a bacchanal. You're a red."

"That does sound like me," I say, nodding thoughtfully. "But a light-bodied red."

"I'd say medium-bodied but light on its feet. Fruity."

"Naturally."

"French. Rh?ne-adjacent. If you're a grape, you've got to be Gamay."

"I've heard of that one. What's it like?"

"Well, versatile, first of all."

"Famously."

"Notes of pomegranate and raspberry. Soil. A lot of flowers too. Peony, iris." With a significant look, they add, "Violets, actually."

"You're very good at this. You do know that, don't you?"

"It's weird. I think I might almost be . . . afraid to be good at it?"

"What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking about something," they tell me. "Today, at the Borghese, I was like, what if I pick one thing in this gallery and spend the whole time with it? Instead of speeding through the entire museum for a hundred five-second hits of dopamine, what if I stand here and let this be the only thing I experience?"

"And how did that feel?"

"It felt . . . uncomfortable. Boring. And then I started to see things I hadn't noticed, like the details of the leaves, and the straps of the sandals. And I thought about how long it must have taken to sculpt, and to build up the skill to sculpt something like it, so I looked up Bernini."

"You looked up Bernini," I repeat, disbelieving. "After you made me have a Bernini jar."

"I know! But I looked him up, and he started sculpting when he was eight. Eight! He drew a little and did some architecture, but it was sculpting that he devoted his entire life to, until he was eighty-one years old. And then I thought about Gaudí with Sagrada Familia. And I started thinking about having a thing that you throw your entire self behind, and about my sisters, and my parents, and how they've always had that, and they've never questioned it and always succeeded at it. And I was like, what's my thing?"

A waiter drops off our wine, a red Theo chose. They present the bottle to Theo and let them taste. Theo approves, so they pour.

"You were saying," I prompt when the waiter is gone. "Your thing."

"Right, so, first it was being the oldest child, and I mean, obviously I spectacularly failed at that."

I raise my eyebrows. "Did you?"

"Come on," Theo says with a roll of their eyes. "Sloane is everything the oldest should be. Brave, dependable—"

"Protector, leader, setter of examples?" I suggest. "I distinctly remember you being all of those things for at least one person. Me."

"Maybe so," Theo says, coloring faintly. "Or—yeah, I guess I was. But still. It was— I failed at being the firstborn Flowerday. I wasn't needed. I didn't have the family gifts. That's what I mean."

"Okay," I say, still unhappy with this characterization but curious to see where Theo is going. "I understand what you're saying."

"And so for a while my thing was house parties, and we all know how that went, and then it was swimming, and that was supposed to be the big one, so I went too hard and fucked my body up and lost that too. And after that, I think I got scared, and so I started putting a little bit of myself into a lot of things instead of all of myself into one thing. Like if I'm always just starting something, I can always be in that beginning stage when it's shiny and new and full of possibility, and if I never try to finish, I never get to the part where I fuck it up."

In all the years I wished for Theo to commit to being happy, I never thought to consider it this way, but it makes sense.

"So," I say, "where does this leave you?"

They sip, and they consider.

"Ask me a different question," they say. "Ask me what you asked me yesterday."

I lean back in my chair.

"Theo," I say. "What do you want?"

"I think what I want most of all," Theo says, "is . . . peace."

"Peace," I repeat slowly.

"I don't know if I've ever let myself have peace. I thought staying in one place my whole life would do it, but maybe I won't know peace until I choose one thing I want to do and put everything I have behind it and see it through. Even if I fuck it up beyond repair, even if I embarrass myself and my family and have to go live off the grid on Calum's shark-research boat. At least I'll finally know how it goes."

I want to take Theo's hand and tell them how long I've waited for them to decide this for themself. To believe in it. Instead, I satisfy myself with imagining leaving my life in Paris, chasing whatever dream Theo chooses. I picture myself balancing the budget for Theo's bus bar, or kissing Theo's hair while they make study cards for the master sommelier exam, or replacing the new pastry chef at Timo that Theo doesn't like. I could be happy there, as long as Theo wanted me with them.

I ask, "Do you want to know what I think?"

"Yes."

"I think you deserve peace. And you can do whatever it is you decide." I take a sip and add, "And you should have let me talk about Bernini more."

Theo laughs. "I guess so."

"And for what it's worth," I go on, "whatever you choose, you don't have to do it alone."

Theo absorbs this, then leans closer.

"I've been meaning to ask you something," they say. "I thought you went to pastry school so you could open your own place. You were going for the diploma in culinary management too, right? Why are you working in someone else's kitchen?"

The question catches me by surprise; I have to take a beat to think of an answer.

"I changed my mind," I say.

"Why?"

"I met other patissiers in Paris," I explain as simply as I can. "I saw what it was like, trying to start something from nothing in a city like that, and I realized you were right. Fairflower was a fantasy."

Theo's expression softens, something strangely sad playing around their eyes.

"A nice one, though, wasn't it?" they say. "Do you still think about it?"

"Of course."

"I do too," they say. "Sometimes, I wonder if—"

They break off, their gaze flicking past me.

"Oh, whoa."

"What?"

"That guy over there," they say. "For a second I thought that was your dad."

I look over my shoulder, scanning the tables outside the next bar until I see the man Theo must be talking about: sixty-something with a scruffy beard and a vague resemblance to Victor Garber, writing in a notebook with an expensive-looking fountain pen.

"Oh, huh. He does look like him, doesn't he?"

"It would be so typical Craig to just happen to be on summer sabbatical in Rome and not tell anyone."

"Oh, sure. He'll be the writer in residence at St. Peter's, and we'll find out when he shows up in a photo with the pope."

Theo laughs, and as they lift their glass back to their lips, a terrible thing occurs to me.

My dad's pattern. Deciding what he wants on some romantic whim, fixating on the fantasy, pursuing it without regard for how it will affect the people he loves or if they even want the same thing. That's what I did to Theo with Paris.

Am I about to do it again?

I said I'd do better this time, but here I am, about to present another dream of my own design, telling myself it's a better plan if I leave my life for theirs than the other way around. As if romance should mean giving up everything and disappearing into someone else. Theo has never asked for that, not then, not now.

"Kit?" Theo says. "Did you hear what I said?"

I blink myself back to the present.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said, should I pick out another bottle, or do you want to head back to the room?"

I see the promise in their eyes, and there's nothing I'd love more than to learn what they've dreamed up to top last night, but I can't. I've accidentally told them I love them twice now, nearly said yesterday it in bed. I'm one glass from saying it right here at this table. If I touch them tonight, I won't be able to stop myself.

There are only a few days left on this tour, but those are still days. If I offer them something they don't want, they'll be stuck with me thousands of miles from home with an American passport. What gives me the right? Because I still think I know best? Because I've grown bored of Paris, just like my father said I would, and I want a new dream to save me from boredom? Because of my ridiculous, incurable obsession with love?

I say the only thing I can think of to deflect.

"Do you remember what our score was?"

For a moment, Theo doesn't have any idea what I mean. Then it connects, and they set down the wine list.

"Five to three," they say. "Why?"

"Just—just wondering if we were still counting."

"Were you planning to catch up while we're out?"

"No," I say, "I'm too tired. I need to get some actual sleep tonight."

Theo nods, and mercifully, they don't bring up the room again.

I need to step back. I need to lock myself in my own room for the night and hope I've gotten ahold of myself by the time we get to Naples.