Page 72 of The Roman Holiday Rule

On the narrow cobblestone street, he stretches and pulls out his big, fancy camera.

I watch him screw the lens on and mess with the settings like he’s done this a million times. There’s something so attractive about easy competence. “So what’s the game?”

He lifts his camera. “We wander Rome, doesn’t matter where. When I call Bet Shot, you have to guess what I’ll be taking a picture of. It’ll train you to look for heart and not just the Italian aesthetic. What did you have on your schedule this afternoon?”

“My schedule?” I cleared it for the afternoon because he mentioned us hanging out while we wait for the bet results. Yup. I deleted a whole afternoon of exploring parts of Italy I’ve been dying to see at the merest suggestion of Mark Time.

I’m not going to tell him that. His eyes will get mischievous and he’ll totally take advantage of all that power. “Catacombs.”

“Ugh. Pick something else.”

We stroll up the street, pausing several times for him to take a picture.

“Vatican City tour.” Before the Great Erasure, that had been on today’s plan from the last schedule rearrangement I made.

“I’ve done that too many times already. What else?”

We wander into an antique store across the street and poke around, showing each other various items of interest. I have to pry his fingers off a freaky mask he insists would be perfect for scaring Luca, but our taste in artwork is identical.

I can’t wait to show him the painting before the festival, and I’m glad he doesn’t know Reena Brooke is my mom. I trust him now to judge me for myself, but I also want him to judge Mom’s final painting for itself too when he sees it. I want his unfiltered reaction, not what he might think I want to hear. I’ll tell him after the vernissage.

The whole time we’re in the store, I’m providing suggestions of things to do and he keeps turning them down.

Back out on the street, I fold my arms. “Okay, Rome-Snob-Russo, what doyouwant to do?”

He shrugs. “We’re already doing what I want to do.”

I look up and down the cobblestone alley. Pale, faded shutters are flung open at all the second-story windows, and vines climb the buildings along the street. There’s graffiti on a closed shop front, an old bicycle propped against a pockmarked plaster wall, and a brick-arched window display at a used bookstore. “This street is lovely, but what are we doing? What are we seeing?”

He lifts his camera and aims it in my direction. “We’re hanging out. I’m seeing everything I want to see.” Click. Click.

Well that’s going in my journalverbatim.

“Mark.” His name slips from my mouth.

He lowers the camera, but I don’t actually have anything to say. At least not anything I want to say out loud to him right now.

He lets the moment pass and then says, “Bet Shot. The game is live.”

We’ve barely moved from our start position. I stand straight and scan the area for anything that’s changed. A waiter is setting down two glasses at a tiny table squeezed against a restaurant wall, a woman adjusts her sun hat, and a bird flies out of some concealed nest on a building. I point to the high sun hitting a blue shutter on the second story of a window. Mark is good with light, so maybe that’s it.

“Nope. Point for me.”

I look around again. “What is it?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I’m not telling.”

“How is that going to help me?”

He beckons for me to follow him. “Like I said, I’m not giving you the answer—this is still an ongoing bet for a coveted reward. I’m just ... telling you when you’re wrong.”

I roll my eyes and follow him toward Piazza Navona. He’s calledBet Shot twice by the time we arrive at the busy, ancient square. My guess was wrong and—surprise, surprise—wrong again.

I sit on the stone guardrail in front of Bernini’s Four Rivers fountain and cross my legs. “Come on, I need a hint. A thousand noes won’t guide me at all.”

He gazes down at me, mouth shut tight, and I give him my most dejected expression.

He sighs, as dramatic as if I’d asked him to scrub the entire piazza with a toothbrush, and pulls me up to standing. “You are scarily impossible to refuse.” He bends close to my ear, like he’s divulging a secret. “Look for people in the middle of their stories.”