Chapter 4

Eric

 

Getting out of bed at five thirty while I was on vacation seemed like a sin to end all sins. God himself was still asleep at six thirty when Andrew and I grumbled and shuffled our way out of the room. But we were on a mission today, and it was Italy, so I was pretty sure we’d be able to find some coffee before too long.

Fortunately, the hotel had serviceable coffee. We each got a cup to go, left our key at the front desk, and went looking for a taxi. Everything in the world seemed to be in that roundabout up the street, and sure enough, that included a taxi stand.

Minutes later, our cab pulled up in front of the Colosseum, and suddenly getting up early wasn’t such an imposition after all. As the sun rose, throwing deep shadows across the pavilion that had been packed with people yesterday, there wasn’t a soul in sight. There was no one standing inside the tape set up to arrange people into an orderly cattle line. No one taking pictures of the Colosseum, and no one was looking at the arch built nearby, which reminded me of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Andrew and I seized the opportunity to get some pictures of the arch before it had people swarming around it. Then we took our places at the front of the non-existent line. As a bonus, we were standing in the shade, and we could lean against cool stone once the heat of the day started creeping in. For now, it wasn’t all that warm, but I suspected that would change before too much longer.

The wait wasn’t terribly exciting, but it was really pretty to watch the rising sun cast long shadows across the plaza, bringing out the reddish stones of Palatine Hill and deepening the pale orange of the Colosseum to shades of pink and red. In the distance, the columns and remaining walls of the Forum peeked up over the grassy hill. Closer to us, a few gray and black crows—at least I thought they were crows—hopped along the cobblestones in search of munchies. The peaceful view alone was worth waking up early.

The place didn’t stay quiet for long. Within an hour, there were a good fifty people behind us. Half an hour after that, the line had snaked out of sight, and swarms of people were coming out of the train station across the street while huge tour buses poured even more onto the sidewalks.

Andrew stared wide-eyed at the swelling crowd. “I’m, uh, gonna say this was a really, really good idea.”

“I know, right?”

Moments later, the gate opened. We weren’t carrying much, so getting through security was easy, and as soon as we were past the metal detectors, Andrew and I broke into a run. The stairs were much too tall to take two at a time, but we got to the top as quickly as we could and hurried to the edge overlooking the entire arena.

And I… didn’t think anything had ever taken my breath away like this before.

The Colosseum.

The Colosseum.

The stands where spectators had once roared under canvas awnings? Empty. The labyrinth of corridors underneath where the arena floor had once been? Deserted. If only for a minute or two—I could hear people coming up behind us—we had this legendary place to ourselves.

“That has got to be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Andrew breathed, his voice full of reverence.

“No kidding.” I stepped closer to him and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Makes it worth getting out of bed at ass thirty in the morning, doesn’t it?”

“It really does.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “This place is all ours.”

“How cool is that?” He put his arm around my shoulders. We looked at each other and grinned.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling him a little closer, “how cool is that?”

Without a word, Andrew twisted toward me, cupped my neck, and kissed me, and I tensed. The gesture seemed out of place here. Right? But… then it was… anything but wrong. As the silence around us set in, emphasized by the distant roar of crowds gathering outside and slowly making their way up to our level, I returned his kiss. Hell, I fucking dove in and shamelessly indulged. It wasn’t a deep kiss, and we weren’t groping each other or doing anything inappropriate, but damn if there wasn’t something utterly wild about this. About standing alone in a place that had once been filled with thousands of spectators, sharing an intimate, affectionate moment that was both completely private and recklessly public.

Footsteps and chattering voices were suddenly closing in fast. Andrew broke away, glancing back in the direction we’d come in before meeting my eyes again. We shared a long look and knowing grins before we separated completely, my lips still tingling and my heart still thumping as tourists flooded into the place that had been—if only for a fleeting moment—ours and only ours. Maybe it was silly to get such a thrill out of that, but I wasn’t going to argue with it.

Would I have done this with Chris?

The thought jarred me. As exhilarating and romantic as this stolen little moment was with Andrew, I honestly couldn’t imagine sharing it with my ex. Not even during the best times in our relationship. No, this had been all Andrew and me. That stolen kiss in that moment of having the Colosseum all to ourselves was well and truly ours. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

We continued walking to stay ahead of the throngs of people making their way in. The tour route took us around the arena, which meant that since we were in front of everyone, everything ahead of us was empty. Behind us, people poured in, steadily filling in the stands like a multi-colored sunscreen-scented caterpillar.

“I am definitely glad we got here early,” Andrew muttered as we picked up the pace to stay ahead of the crowd.

“Me too. If we had to be in the middle of all that, I’d probably take someone’s selfie stick and beat them with it.”

He smirked. “So you’re the selfie-stick gladiator now?”

“Hey, that would be the perfect event for modern gladiator games. Selfie-stick duels. Hand-to-hand combat over the last T-shirt in a certain size.”

Andrew threw his head back and laughed. “Oh my God. I would pay good money to see that.”

“Right? Billion-dollar idea, right there.”

“Well, when the Kickstarter goes live, let me know.”

We ducked out of the main arena and into one of the corridors behind the stands, and once again, we were temporarily alone. I seized the opportunity to slip my hand into his, and we grinned at each other. We only had a minute or so before we were again surrounded by people, but that brief contact was enough to keep me going.

Since we weren’t taking the tour of the corridors underneath the arena, it only took us about an hour to get through the whole Colosseum. Admittedly, I kind of regretted not getting tickets for the underground tour. I overheard someone saying the tour included seeing how the arena floor could be flooded for naval battles and then quickly drained so they could have regular combat again, but the tickets for the day were sold out. Maybe we’d check online and see if we could snag tickets on another day. Wasn’t like we were leaving Rome for a while. I tucked that into the back of my mind and made a mental note to ask Andrew about it later.

By the time we emerged from the Colosseum, the crowd we’d gotten here early to avoid had arrived. The arch was surrounded on all sides by tour groups. Some were easy to pick out because they all wore matching hats or shirts. Others looked like random flocks of people trying to keep up with guides who held up selfie sticks or umbrellas—usually with a colored handkerchief or something tied to the end like a flag—to stand out from the crowd.

Andrew smirked. “I kind of want to come down here one day and walk around with an umbrella or a selfie stick with a rag on the end, just to see if a random tour group starts following me.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh my God, if you do that, I am so taking a video.”

“You think people would follow me?”

We both paused to watch a group trooping past on the heels of a woman holding an upraised selfie stick with a red bandana around the top.

“Yeah,” I said. “They probably would.”

We chuckled, musing about where we’d lead our hapless tour groups, or if it would be funnier just to walk around looking like we’d lost our group. By the time we escaped the giant crowd, we were almost past Palatine Hill, near the edge of Circus Maximus.

Andrew gestured at it. “Want to walk around here for a bit again? Before we go someplace crowded?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

We continued up the sidewalk and across the street.

I’d admittedly been kind of disappointed yesterday to realize how little remained of Circus Maximus. A red brick tower stood at one end, and there were some broken pillars here and there. The oval-shaped track was little more than a footpath now, which people jogged or wandered along with their dogs. There was no doubt a time when this place was packed with spectators, probably so loud the ground shook with both the roar of the crowd and the rumble of chariot wheels, but now it was quiet and peaceful.

Yesterday’s disappointment had faded, and I’d really enjoyed walking around the track with Andrew. Finding myself here with him again today? I couldn’t complain. The mid-morning sun felt nice, and after ten days on a cruise ship, I still hadn’t gotten over the novelty of fresh air that didn’t smell like the ocean. Not that I minded the smell of seawater, but there was something to be said for trees and fresh cut grass.

“Thanks again,” Andrew said out of the blue as we strolled along the ancient chariot track. “For letting me join you. This city is amazing.”

“Thanks for coming.” I let my elbow graze his just to make some contact. “Wouldn’t have been nearly as fun exploring everything by myself.”

We glanced at each other, both smiling.

It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun with anyone but you, and just thinking about that scares the hell out of me for some reason.

Right then, as if it knew I needed something to derail my thoughts, a yellow lab with muddy paws loped up the path with a dirty tennis ball in its mouth. It ran right up to us, dropped the ball at our feet, and jumped back, tongue hanging out and tail wagging furiously. Andrew crouched to pick up the soggy thing, then looked around. “Do you see his owner anywhere?”

“I don’t—oh look. I think that’s her.” I pointed at a black woman in running shorts who was waving her arms at us, a leash dangling from her hand.

Andrew gestured with the ball, then lobbed it in her direction. The dog took off running, spraying red dirt, gravel, and grass in his wake, and the lady waved at us again. As he wiped his hand on his shorts and we watched the dog happily chasing the bouncing tennis ball, Andrew said, “Man, I miss having a dog.”

“Don’t have one now?”

“Nah. I was working too many hours at my last job. I thought about getting one, but…” He shook his head. “Just didn’t seem right to leave him cooped up in the house all day, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that. Ever since my ex moved out I’ve thought about getting something furry for company. A dog would probably be miserable in my condo, though.”

“No yard?”

“Exactly. If I’m going to get a dog, I want him to have a place to run around.” I watched the lab chase the ball his owner had just thrown. “Still might get a cat. I just wanted to at least wait until I was back from this trip. You know—no point in getting a new pet and then leaving for a month.”

Andrew nodded. “Makes sense. Are you more of a cat or a dog person?”

“Either or. I just like animals.” And having some company around that empty condo.

He smiled. “Me too. Once I’m sure I don’t need to move back in with my folks, I’ll probably get a cat. As long as I don’t have crazy hours again, anyway.”

I glanced at him. “You really think you’ll end up back at your parents’ house?”

Blowing out a breath, he shrugged. “Don’t know. My apartment is pretty cheap and I can stay on top of my student loans for a little while. As long as it doesn’t take me six months to find a job, I should be okay.”

I watched him from the corner of my eye for a moment as we kept walking along the grassy red clay. The path was curving now, taking us into the shade of a few trees. “So how would that work out? I mean, you seem to get along with your family, but you were kind of stressed around them too.”

“Yeah, just a bit.” Andrew sighed. “I love my folks. I really do. And when my mom and I aren’t jetlagged and stressed, we get along most of the time.” He paused. “Most of the time.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“Eh. We’re a lot alike. Stubborn as fuck. Really opinionated about how things should be. So, we butt heads sometimes.” He laughed dryly. “I don’t know how either of us survived my teenage years, but things got a lot better after I left for college.”

“So, after you moved out.”

He nodded, humor evaporating. “Yeah.”

“And if you move back in…”

Andrew chewed his lip, then shrugged again. “Guess we’ll find out if it happens.”

Shit. Now I felt even guiltier for suggesting he come with me. Even if he was getting up at o’dark thirty to apply for jobs, he was still spending money that could keep him out on his own and spending time screwing off with me when he could be working on getting a job. While I was getting all fluttery over a stolen kiss at the Colosseum, was I messing up his chances at straightening out his life?

I moistened my lips and slid my hands into the pockets of my shorts. “This… trip. It’s not going to cause you more problems, is it?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Andrew stared straight ahead. “I’m still applying for jobs, and a lot of them seem to prefer phone or Skype interviews first anyway, so as long as you don’t mind monkeying with our schedule a little so I can—”

“No, of course not. God, no. I just, you know, don’t want this to be making your life harder.”

“It’s not.” He shook his head and glanced at me, a small smile playing at his lips. “Honestly, I think I needed this. The cruise, and now this trip—it’s been a chance to think about what I really want for the future.”

“Has it?”

“Yeah. I mean, my world has kind of been contained in Des Moines. I wasn’t looking outside my career field or the city. But… I don’t know. I guess the world seems a little bigger now. There’s more options. I’m not tethered to Des Moines, so why not look elsewhere?”

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “So, where else have you been looking?” In the beat of silence between my question and his answer, I had an internal debate about whether I wanted him to say Seattle was on the list. Part of me thought it would be awesome to have him come to Washington and be close by. Part of me thought our relationship was way too young to even be entertaining fantasies of relocating to be close to each other.

“Mostly the Midwest,” he said. “Chicago and Indiana have a few openings that could be good for me.” With a laugh that almost sounded self-conscious, he added, “Might even put feelers out to the coasts or something if I feel really adventurous.”

Okay, so “the coasts” vaguely encompassed the Pacific Northwest, which meant the nets he cast could theoretically land in Seattle. But he wasn’t specifically searching for Seattle. I wasn’t sure why that made a difference, but it did. Just the thought of him setting his sights on my city was enough to make me claustrophobic and trip all my we’re not ready for that yet sensors. If he just did a wide search, though, and the perfect dream job fell in his lap and happened to take him to Seattle, well… for whatever reason, I was okay with that. In fact, I liked the idea. A lot.

My mental gymnastics didn’t even make sense to me, which meant there was no way they’d make any to him, so I kept them to myself. With a non-committal shrug, I said, “Couldn’t hurt to look around. Maybe as long as you’re finding a new job, a change of scenery is what you need.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

We glanced at each other. We both smiled.

God knew what that look meant—his or mine—but neither of us tried to analyze it. Not out loud, anyway. We kept walking the well-worn track around Circus Maximus, watching people play with their dogs and jog under the mid-morning sun.

The entire time, I wondered if Andrew’s job hunt would land him in Seattle after all.

I just couldn’t decide which answer I hoped for.