Page 13 of The Roman Holiday Rule

That will wake a body up.

Mark spins, eyebrows sky high, his jaw slack, and stares at me. “You speak...”

I nod, but he’s not done. “Not only Italian . . . Romanesco.” He runs a hand down his jawline. Ten bucks he’s having trouble connecting the useless, clueless tourist he thought I was to this version of me, one with a few slang phrases in her arsenal. “So—why did I fill out your form at luggage claims?” The way he says it makes it sound like I forced him to do it, arm twisted behind his back, instead of him taking over on his own.

I put my hands on my hips, angling my head with a silentreally?The fact that his help was an act of (annoyed) compassion will not be discussed.

“Maybe less assumptions about me next time?” My Ford Fiesta pulls up to the curb with the perfect timing of a movie scene (except it’s a bit paint-chipped and ratty). I drop my carry-on in the trunk and slam it shut. “See you in a week to collect my spoils from winning the bet.”

He’s still staring when I hop in and shut the door. The driver is blocked in for the moment. No one can inch forward since a family is rushing across the street, and they plow straight into Mark, hugging and shouting just outside my window.

The cars begin to move, and I twist in my seat. Mark lifts a little boy to his shoulders, both of them giggling. The smile on Mark’s face isn’t the cautious but interested half-smile he gave me when we first met, or the teasing, goading grin from Frankfurt. This is wide and open, and I feel instinctively it’s reserved for the special few, the kind of delight one works ages to receive.

My driver pulls away, but not before I’m blinded.

I stare out the back-seat window during the hour-long ride to my hotel. Ancient walls, gorgeous bridges, and sunshine bathing every stone until it glows, and all I see is Mark’s breathtaking smile.

If he ruins Italy for me, I’ll never forgive him.

Eight

Mark

Holding onto my cousin’slittle legs so he doesn’t fall from my shoulders, I hug and double-cheek kiss my aunt and uncle. My extended family’s exuberant love makes the jet lag and Boston goodbyes less painful. They are ... loud. And every time I come back to Rome, it’s next level, like they were worried I wouldn’t return.

I can’t blame them for thinking that. It’s what Dad did. But I would never walk out like that.

I set Danilo down and hug our other cousin, Mariella. She and her twin brother Luca are closer to my age. Since he’s not only my cousin but my best friend in Rome, Luca offers a handshake, which is the equivalent of a bear hug and six-course homemade meal from anyone else.

Speaking of bears, his beard and hair are longer than when I left. But he can pull off anything with his roll-with-the-punches attitude and wry charm.

“Good to see you, man. Welcome back. You cut it a little close for tonight’s thing, huh?”

“I wasn’t planning on a twenty-hour layover from a canceledflight. But yeah, I figured if I had jet lag, no one would expect me to stay late.”

I would skip tonight’s fancy reception, but it was some bozo’s idea to make it mandatory for all participating festival artists. Mingle all evening with strangers? The thought gives me hives.

Luca smirks. “No luggage?”

I pat my messenger bag. “This is all. They lost my suitcase.”

He nods. Unlike the rest of them, Luca never says much. He’s also the only one not in the family construction and restoration business. There are a lot of things that solidified our friendship from the beginning, but I wonder if his outsider status, though unintended, is the secret sauce that makes our bond unbreakable. I have a lot of catching up to do in Italy after an American upbringing, and it might never be possible to assimilate.

I follow them to the multilevel parking lot. Mariella, Luca, and I squeeze into the back seat of my orange Fiat Panda that my uncle’s been borrowing, and my aunt plops Danilo onto my lap.

Uncle Beppe slides behind the wheel and we take off, windows down, out of the parking garage into the full heat of an Italian afternoon. “I meant to get the air conditioning fixed for you, but the mechanic went to the sea. You know how it is in the summer. Nothing gets done.”

My phone dings with the fourth text from a family member as we speed up on the highway. When I wrote Uncle Beppe from Frankfurt about the canceled flight, I mentioned that the heritage society is considering investing in the palace restoration. My uncle must have called everyone with the good news.

A tinted-windowed white van starts to merge into our lane. Uncle Beppe slams on the brakes, and my aunt thrusts the Mom Seat-belt Arm into the gap.

“Ao’! Attento!” my aunt shouts.

Exactly how Lexington said it ten minutes ago. Speaking an Italian dialect is kilometers away from cursory tours and cheesy souvenirs. Whoisthat girl?

It doesn’t matter, I remind myself for the twentieth time. We’re worlds apart. Being back in Italy will screw my head on straight. The sealed bid envelopes are due a week from Monday. I won’t have a spare second to puzzle over a stranger from the airport.

Nor will I have a moment of silence. On the drive into the city, the family catches me up on news, talking over one another, interrupting, and arguing in jest.