“What are you thinking about?” he asked, twisting his hands through a lock of hair that blew through the breeze as we walked through the station. So different from the last time I took the train, the first day I’d arrived in Rome.

“I’m thinking about you,” I said, and he smiled, “but I’m also thinking about work.” He actually smiled bigger when I completed my sentence.

“This makes me very happy,” he said, his hip bumping into mine as he maneuvered us through the crowded station to the Metro line.

“It makes you happy that I’m thinking about work?” I asked, dodging a woman with a cart with a twisted wheel.

“And me, don’t forget the first thing you said was you were thinking about me.”

“I know, I know.” I laughed, leaning up on tiptoes to kiss him, right in the hollow of his throat.

“I’m glad you’re thinking about work. When you love what you do, it’s hard to turn it off, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed, watching him move with such grace, such ease. To my surprise, I noticed that I was moving right along with him, following the ebb and flow of the throngs of people all around us. I was getting to know this town, know how it thought and how it moved. “I do love what I’m doing right now,” I admitted, feeling my cheeks crease a little as the realization dawned. There wasn’t much about my life in Rome that I didn’t love.

We reached the turnoff point for the Metro line that would take us to Daisy’s apartment, where we’d been spending every night and were sure to spend this night as well. Just before heading down to the platform, he pulled me off to the side and answered his phone, motioning for me to hang on a minute. I watched the crowd as he talked, playing a game where I tried to listen in on conversations and pick up as many Italian phrases as I could understand. Phrase books and language classes had nothing on simply standing in a crowd of people speaking a foreign tongue and letting it wash over you.

That man over there was telling the woman he was walking with that if she didn’t hurry up they’d miss their train to Tiburtina.

And that group of girls, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old, were talking about some kid named Mario who had apparently brought a . . . giraffe to a party? Eh, full immersion didn’t always work out.

I was in the middle of deciphering a conversation between two older men about a football game when Marcello hung up the phone. “Avery, I’ve got to head home for a bit.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, just something I must do. I will be done in a few hours, I will call you then, yes?”

“Oh, okay. That’s fine.”

He started to steer me back toward a row of waiting taxis. “Let me just get a car to take you home.”

I stopped him. “Chivalrous but unnecessary. I’m fine taking the Metro.”

“Are you sure?”

I looked at the map on the wall, then back at him. “I’ve got this.”

He studied me a moment, then grinned. “You got this,” he agreed, and leaned in for a slow kiss. “I will call you when I am on my way.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Be naked as well as there,” he called out after me as he backed away into the crowd. I blushed when I saw several people look my way.

Forty minutes later I was off the Metro, a block away from the apartment, and damn proud of myself. I’d known exactly where my stop was, I’d spoken Italian to the ticket taker, and I barely had to look at the map on the train, trusting the loud squawky intercom to announce each stop.

A group of American tourists—as recognized by their sneakers, huge maps, and even huger cameras—were at the bus stop pointing at the signage, trying to figure out where they should get off to get to the Colosseum. And they asked me in Italian! Sort of.

With a finger on the Fodor’s he asked, “Scusame.”

“No, Dad, it’s mi scusi, gosh,” a young boy chimed in, tapping away on his phone.

“Shh, I’m concentrating.” I should have stopped him there but this was adorably fun. “Non parlo Italeeanno. Dove aye Colosseum?”

“Parla Ingleeese?” the mom chimed in when she had enough.

“Yes, I speak English.”

“Oh thank God,” the dad shouted, and for a second I thought the mother might hug me.

They all ended up hugging me after I sent them on their way, with a restaurant recommendation thrown in for good measure.

On very light feet I turned into Daisy’s courtyard and inhaled the scent of jasmine blooming from the pots on the balconies overhead. My heels (low, but still heels) expertly picked their way across like a champ. And I felt really at home in this city for the first time.

My hair had come loose from its headband, and I paused to push it back. And once I could see clearly again, I saw my soon-to-be-ex-husband, Daniel, standing on the building’s front steps.

STUNNED, I STOPPED DEAD IN my tracks. As people pushed past me left and right, I stared at Daniel.

He’d always been a beautiful man. The first day I’d laid eyes on him was eerily similar to today. I’d been walking home to my dorm, distracted while thinking about a lecture I’d just attended on Pissaro, and almost didn’t notice the impromptu soccer match on the lawn in front of my building. Almost to my door, I paused when I heard shouting and looked back at the group of guys playing. But what made me stare was the player off to the left, talking to a group of girls and charming the pants off anyone within a square mile.

He was literally a golden boy. Tall, with the most gorgeous honey blond hair curling slightly along his shirt collar. Dimples, twinkling blue eyes, and even though it was mid-October, enough of a tan that you just knew this kid spent his summers on a boat somewhere.