. . . a new problem
I don’t know if it’s the new country, or the sunshine, or the events that transpired in the train cabin, but I seem to have arrived in Rome with a new lease of life. Everything is brighter, louder, colours more vivid, and Noah and I are better than ever.
We stayed up for the better part of the journey enjoying one dizzying, magical night together.
But as the sun rose and the train pulled up at the station, we slipped back into our regular rhythm.
Noah threw himself into work, hanging in cafés and hitting gyms, and I’ve managed to fit in a date every single day.
In fact, we’ve barely seen each other for the last four days, despite the fact we’re sharing a twin room.
I don’t think I’ve been avoiding him . .
. But the more I think about it I’m not sure.
‘So, how was last night, then? Giorgino, right?’ Noah asks casually as we walk along the shadeless, cobbled street.
This afternoon, he caught me as I was leaving the room and logged off early to join my evening of gelato and sightseeing.
I rushed to make up an excuse as to why he couldn’t, but then I stopped myself in my tracks.
He’s Noah. This is normal. I should spend time with him.
So we’ve been sweltering in the blistering summer heat ever since.
‘Giorgio was gorgeous,’ I say.
I pause to lick some stray gelato off my hand, but I’m acutely aware of the eyes that follow me. Noah’s stare lingers on my tongue as it pokes out from my lips. His pupils have dilated. I retract my tongue and look away.
‘Beautiful man. Stunning. But so deeply boring.’ I continue to plod along down the street.
He chuckles loudly and deeply, the sound escaping into the crowds around us, continuing on as if nothing just happened.
‘And . . . Arlo?’ he asks.
‘Aldo,’ I correct him. I swear he gets these names wrong on purpose.
‘He’s been the best of the four so far! Super funny, easy to talk to and even easier on the eye.
He took me pasta-making – I was absolutely awful, but he was super sweet about it.
He made this one joke actually, where he . . . what?’
I cut myself off at the sight of Noah’s newly knitted brows.
‘You really like him,’ he says pensively, his pace slowing down. ‘You can’t stop beaming when you talk about him.’
‘I totally can.’
He shakes his head. ‘Nah, your eyes are all bulgy. I haven’t seen them like that since . . . Well, since my tongue was on your . . .’
I squeal in shock and shove him with just a little too much strength. He trips over on his feet and narrowly misses a collision with a rotating magnet stand. I reach my hand out and pull him back in as he shakes his head before taking a hearty lick of his gelato cone.
‘Did I hit a nerve?’ he asks, smirking. ‘Because last time I hit a nerve, I was . . .’
‘Don’t make things weird!’ I chastise him, but he just rolls his eyes.
‘Sure, this conversation makes things weird . . . not the fact that I’ve now been inside you . . .’ he scoffs.
‘Noah!’ I gasp, shocked.
‘Relax, Am,’ he says, laughing. ‘We’ve got to be able to joke about it or we make things awkward. So, this Ando – is there a second date on the cards?’
‘Aldo. And I hope so. I’ve messaged him to ask, but I’ve not yet heard back.’
I nibble on my cone anxiously in an attempt to soothe my nerves. I’ve been trying so hard not to think about that message just sitting in his phone, all open and vulnerable.
‘I’m sure he’ll respond. Especially if he’s as great as you say he is,’ Noah says.
He stops in his tracks pretty abruptly, prompting me to do the same, and I follow his eyeline to view the reason we took this walk in the first place.
‘Here we are, the Trevi Fountain!’ he says proudly. ‘Is it everything you’d dreamed it would be?’
I stare dejectedly at the wrought iron gate in front of us. ‘What is this?’
‘The entry,’ he says. ‘It’s two euros.’
‘You have to pay?’
‘Yeah . . . It’s a new thing, I’m pretty sure. Tourist control.’ He pulls up an article on it, scrolling through to confirm.
‘But they didn’t have to pay in . . .’
He catches the way I trail off, eyebrows shooting up in intrigue. ‘In what?’
I stay silent, so he presses further.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve hopelessly romanticised it from one of the classics. What was it, Roman Holiday? La Dolce Vita?’
‘No, I’ve never even seen either of those movies,’ I say defensively.
He catches the way my eyes dart around, hiding my real shame. ‘But it is a movie . . . Go on, which one?’
There’s no going back now. He’s staring too intensely. I bring my cone to my mouth and mutter into it as softly as I can. ‘Lizzie McGuire,’ I say feebly.
His lip curls as he leans closer. ‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’
‘The Lizzie McGuire Movie.’ My eyes are locked on the floor.
He throws his head back and laughs. Cackles, even. It’s deep, shooting directly from his chest.
‘You laugh, but that movie shaped my childhood! Many childhoods, actually! It’s part of a pivotal time in Disney media.
Think: Lizzie McGuire, Cheetah Girls, High School Musical, Camp Rock .
. . The DCOMs of the noughties were vital to our early development.
’ I rush to defend my childhood favourites.
‘Uh-huh,’ he says, nodding in jest. ‘And exactly how much of your life do you live by Disney Channel Original Movies?’
‘Only about 40 per cent,’ I huff. ‘I’m a realist. But when the moment strikes so perfectly, it’s a must.’
‘So, when we get to Barcelona . . .’ he says.
‘I’m going to Parc Guell and strutting like I mean it, yes,’ I say firmly.
Creases form at the corners of his eyes as he launches himself into a second, even more raucous laugh. He shakes his head as he comes down from it, staring at me bemused.
‘Oh, how I would love to live life through your eyes,’ he says. ‘Does this make me your Gordo?’
An innocent question for sure if one didn’t know how Gordo and Lizzie end up, but I know that movie by heart. I lived for their whole ‘will they, won’t they’. I squint back at him perturbed.
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
I turn on my heel and start storming away from the fountain, not out of anger, but out of need for an escape from the crowd. He follows after me, calling my name with concern.
‘Wait, Amorie! I didn’t mean it! This is what dreams are made of!’
I turn my neck, my head responding to his voice on instinct before my body has a chance to catch up. Before I know it, I hit a wall. A wall of a person, that is. I gather my bearings.
‘I’m so sorry!’ I squeal.
‘It’s all righ . . . Amorie?’
My heart quickens at the utterance of my name. I quickly whizz through the plot of every internet stalker movie I’ve ever watched and try to remember how each victim escaped. But as I look up, I’m surprised by a face I haven’t seen since my first and only semester of uni.
‘Nigel!’ I say.
‘It is you!’ He smiles, coming in for a hug.
He wraps his arms around me and squeezes tight, his cologne wafting up my nose.
‘This is wild – running into you here. I mean, what are the odds? How are you? How’ve you been?’ He can’t stop smiling as he talks.
Nigel was, if I were to romanticise my life, the closest I ever got to having a ‘one that got away’.
We were flirty flatmates who’d stay up late and watch far too much Naked Attraction while the rest of our flat secretly cursed us for laughing too loudly.
I don’t know if I’d call what we had an obvious spark, but it was certain that there was something that pulled us together.
But then I met Tom in a seminar and I thought he was safer than dating someone I lived with, and then I dropped out.
The rest is plain old boring, predictable history.
‘I’ve been good! This is wild. What are you doing in Rome?’ I ask.
‘I’m on a business trip, actually. What about you?’ he asks, quickly gasping before I can reply. ‘Wait! You’re doing that column thing, aren’t you? I’ve seen your posts – you’re killing it. The New Traveller? That’s big. You used to subscribe to them even back when I knew you.’
I feel my cheeks pinch, trying to bite back a telling smile. ‘You remember that?’
He bows his head bashfully. ‘You’re hard to forget, Amorie.’
He can’t stop staring. Specifically into my eyes with a big goofy grin slapped across his face. It’s making me smile too. Brighter and wider. What are the odds we’d find each other on this day in this place?
‘God, you can walk fast when you want to, can’t you?’
Noah’s voice, shaky and breathless, snaps me from my trance. I turn to see him standing next to me, hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts as he pauses to pass confused looks between me and the man in front of me.
‘Am I interrupting?’ he asks, looking directly at me.
‘Oh! Noah, this is Nigel. Nigel, Noah.’ I prattle on, watching both boys tepidly shake hands. ‘Noah and I met on this trip and have been travelling together for safety. Nigel is a really good old friend from uni.’
‘I thought you dropped out?’ Noah asks, unamused.
Nigel stifles a laugh.
‘I did,’ I say saltily. ‘But we lived together before it got to that.’
‘And I missed you a lot when it did get to that.’ Nigel has a fond smile on his face. ‘Felt very lost without my nocturnal partner in crime.’
We lock eyes again, reflecting the same hopeful smile back at each other.
‘I’d love to catch up,’ Nigel says, before I have a chance to voice it myself. ‘Any chance you’re free tomorrow night?’
I scan through my diary in my mind and curse myself for being so proactive on the date front. I booked in a random Tinder guy for tomorrow and I still need to catch up on my backlog of date recaps for Analeise.
‘I’m not, I’m afraid,’ I sigh.
His forehead creases. ‘It’s just . . . Tomorrow is the last day that I’m here, so—’
‘I’ll be there,’ I say.
Noah snorts loudly next to me, prompting me to whip my head round to face him.
‘Don’t you have plans?’ he asks suggestively.
He raises one judging eyebrow. I blink back, begging him to hush.
‘I will make it work,’ I say through gritted teeth, before turning back to Nigel.
Nigel’s eyes flit between us, a tad confused, and I feel him pulling away before we’ve even had a chance to restart. I whack on a huge smile in an attempt to draw him back in.
‘You still have my number, right? Send me a time and place,’ I say.
It seems to work.
‘Great, see you tomorrow,’ he says.
‘See you then!’ I say.
I watch Nigel closely as he strolls peacefully into the distance, waiting until he’s completely out of eyesight and earshot before meeting Noah’s scathingly judgemental gaze.
‘Two dates in one day?’ he asks, seemingly perturbed.
‘Are you slut-shaming me?’ I ask, trying to judge this new energy.
He jolts back in shock. ‘Of course not, I would never! It’s just . . .’ He pauses. ‘So unlike you.’
He seems disappointed.
‘Well, Nigel seems special,’ I say.
I twist towards him, ready to argue my case wholeheartedly, but I pause at his expression. His features seem to have dipped. An unmistakable sadness quickly washing across his face. He catches me digesting it and brashly turns away, shaking it off before returning with a winning smile.
‘Almost sounds like something I’d do. Do you need any pointers?’ he asks.
‘I think I’ve got this one,’ I mumble back at him.
Honestly, I’d love his help; I don’t quite know what I’ve signed up for. But that brief flit of sadness on his face told me it’s nicer to keep him distanced from this.
‘Well, if you do need help, I have tips,’ he says.
He’s louder and chirpier than I’ve seen him. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was overcompensating.
‘Like, see if your first date is happy to move to breakfast,’ he continues. ‘That way, there’s definitely no overlap. You get up early, get a pastry and chat, come back, refresh, and still have time to write your article before dinner with Nigel.’
I pause for a moment. ‘Okay, yeah, you’re good,’ I say.
He smiles, relaxing slightly. ‘It’s why you keep me around.’
And I know that he’s not wrong. Part of why I’ve loved travelling with him is because he’s so good at always being there for me.
He’s been my rock with Johann, with Lina, with all dates.
I could not have gotten this far without him, and I like to think that it is the same for him.
In fact, I know it is. I saw the way he looked in my eyes every single time he went to kiss me during that night on the train.
I felt the way he held me, the way he stroked me, I know that he needs me too.
It’s why we can’t let the other night on the train ruin what we’ve worked so hard to build.
‘Okay, cool, let’s do this,’ I say.
I have to lock in to dating people that aren’t Noah Davidson. However, it takes one look at my lock screen for my blood to go cold and my shoulders to seize back into place. Noah clocks the change in my demeanour instantly, stopping his walk to properly take me in from head to toe.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
I gulp, shuddering. ‘Aldo’s finally replied. The only day he can do a second date is tomorrow.’