I had helmet hair, my cheeks were flushed, and I clung on to Marcello far too long; he literally had to peel my hands off his waist. As he helped me from the back of the Vespa my legs felt like jelly, the vibrations still running through my body. The last thing I felt I needed now was to lie down and sleep; I felt alive and Marcello knew it, smirking as he took my helmet from me.

‘What?’ I tried to look serious but was never any good at having a poker face.

‘See? That wasn’t so bad.’

I shrugged. ‘I could just as easily have waited for the bus.’

And there it was, Marcello’s broad, brilliant smile as he locked the helmet into the back storage compartment, an action that made me kind of sad because it meant that our joyride was over.

Like everything with us, the moment of lightheartedness was fleeting and an awkward silence fell when he turned to me, looking at me as if waiting for direction. The idea that I was the one who should know what to say or do was utterly ridiculous; I struggled to ‘adult’ at the best of times, let alone in matters of the heart. There were a thousand questions brewing inside my head, most of which began with ‘So, about last night …’

Did he regret it? Was it just one of those things fuelled by music, alcohol, hormones and a near-death experience? Or should we blame it on Rome? I imagined his potential responses: he was bored, he always hooked up with Maria’s tour groups, he was trying to make Maria jealous …

Maria. My mind wandered into the myriad of questions about what exactly was going on between the two of them.

‘I told you I would think about it,’ she had said, and he’d been angry about it. Maria had said it was complicated, but what kind of complicated, and why did the very thought of it make my insides twist? Was this why he didn’t want anyone to see us together last night? I wanted to ask all these questions, even though I was afraid of the answers. I needed to know if Marcello was the bad guy—or, even worse, was I? Was I unwittingly involved in some kind of Roman love triangle? Oh, wouldn’t Jodie just love that, the dull, mousey girl of the group who can’t hold her liquor embroiled in some tawdry love affair.

I looked at him closely; while obviously telepathy wasn’t our thing, there was something in his expression that said, ‘Ask me, go on.’ But then I caught myself. It wasn’t the first time I had imagined something; why should this be any different? I wondered if he could read the multitude of conflicting emotions in my face. Would he see, ‘Who are you, and what’s your story?’, ‘How dare you pash and dash last night!’ or ‘I really want to kiss you again—want to come up?’ I cleared my throat and looked away, hoping he wasn’t that perceptive.

‘Anyway, thanks for the ride,’ I said, stepping away from the Vespa and dodging the pedestrians in our narrow street.

‘How are you feeling now?’ he asked, genuinely concerned.

Confused.

‘Yeah, much better. I think if I have a lie-down I’ll be right.’

A flash of Marcello on top of me, naked and between my thighs, smiling down at me in a twist of sheets and a creaking bunk bed, caused me to blink rapidly in an effort to clear the image away.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ he asked, not entirely convinced.

Please, God, don’t let him be able to read minds.

I swallowed. ‘Of course.’

We stood there a moment longer. Was this it? Was this to be how my last day in Rome ended? Would this be the last time I saw Marcello? Why, WHY didn’t I throw that bloody coin into the fountain? I had a vision of Jodie doing that very thing, and if that idiot secured herself a ticket back here then the world really was an unjust place.

I breathed out a laugh.

‘What?’

I shook my head. ‘I am officially the worst tourist.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You have seen some things … done some things,’ he said, a little curve to his mouth.

Was he flirting with me?

‘I have,’ I admitted.

Marcello’s lip tucked in under his teeth; he chewed thoughtfully as he seemed to weigh up the next question. He looked down, then asked, ‘Any regrets?’

Whoa, there was a loaded question.

I stared at him for a long time, so long that he eventually lifted his eyes to meet mine. Of course I had regrets: the coin tossing, the binge drinking, the stopping at a kiss and not giving myself something more to remember from that heated night. But I couldn’t voice any of that, and a simple ‘yes’ would leave him guessing in far too cruel a way, though a part of me wished I could. I imagined walking away with a hair flick, without a backwards glance. That’s what Jodie would have done, but I wasn’t that cool—or that mean—and I was okay with that.

‘Well, in the immortal words of my travel agent …’ I held out my hand to shake, unsure what else to do. Ugh, what are you doing?

Marcello’s brow curved slowly, taking my hand into his with interest. ‘Yes?’

I shook his hand as if finalising a business deal, and it felt all kinds of wrong. ‘No regrets,’ I said, then dropped his hand, deciding this would be my grand exit. It wasn’t exactly the microphone drop I had wanted; it wasn’t a departure any red-blooded male would remember a woman for. If anything, turning away and heading through the doorway of the hotel, I could just imagine the look of utter confusion spread across Marcello’s face. With every step up to my thankfully vacant dorm room, I cursed Jan Buzzo for sending me on this trip, and myself for being so goddamn awkward.