18. Amos
AMOS
The train station in Rome is a meat grinder.
The air inside Termini smells like ozone, burnt coffee, and the sweat of five thousand people all trying to be somewhere else.
I’m in the eye of the hurricane, spinning on my heels with a clipboard gripped in one hand and a rogue student’s oversized duffel bag in the other.
"Stay behind the yellow line! If you lose your group, head toward the fountain!"
I shout over a screeching PA system and the thunder of the high-speed rails.
Rome doesn't have the soft, Renaissance embrace of Florence. It’s a brawling, beautiful beast of a city—louder, hotter, and ready to trip you if you aren't looking.
Sirens wail from the Via Giolitti, and the tolling of a dozen hidden church bells vibrates in my teeth.
I glance back at the pack of students. They look dazed, their eyes wide as they take in the crumbling majesty and the aggressive swarm of Vespas.
Then I see Baleigh. She’s staring up at the vaulted ceiling, a strand of hair stuck to her lip, looking like she’s trying to swallow the whole city in one breath.
Every time I see her in a new light, the transient, lonely ache in my chest eases just a fraction.
This is why I keep moving—to see the world wake up in someone else’s eyes.
But as we load into the shuttle vans parked near the ruins of the Servian Wall, the rhythm of the trip hits a snag.
I’m tossing bags into the rear of a Fiat when I catch it.
Max is standing by the sliding door, holding it open for Baleigh.
It’s a standard Max move—polite, academic, controlled.
But the way she stares at him as she climbs inside isn't standard.
She doesn't just thank him; she exhales.
Her hand brushes his forearm, a ghost of a touch that stays there a second too long.
Max, usually a statue of stoic professionalism, doesn't pull away. He leans in, his shoulders dropping two inches, and says something low that makes her bite her lip to hide a smile.
I freeze with a suitcase halfway up the ramp.
I’ve spent a great deal of time reading people in transit; I know the difference between "we’re working together" and "you’re my world.
" A new gravity has pulled them into the same orbit.
The air between them feels heavy, charged with a secret I wasn't invited to keep.
I slam the van door shut, the metal bang echoing off the ancient stones, and wonder if I’m the only one who just felt the ground shift.
The cobblestones of Rome catch the midday sun, shimmering with a heat that makes the air wobble.
I watch from the curb as Baleigh catches Max’s eye across the roof of the van.
He laughs—a rare, deep sound that vibrates through the noise of the traffic—and she beams back, her face losing that sharp edge of uncertainty she carried in Florence.
I expected a sting. I expected the sour taste of bile blooming in my gut, the familiar territorial flare that comes with being the guy who usually wins.
But the jealousy doesn't come. Instead, there’s a terrifying clarity.
Seeing her look at him makes me realize I’m not just hunting for a summer distraction to fill the silence of my hotel rooms. My chest feels tight, not with anger, but with the sudden weight of permanence.
I’ve spent years refining the art of the exit, but looking at the way she leans into his space, I realize I’ve finally found someone I want to stay for.
The casual affection I’ve been masking with jokes has solidified into something heavy and undeniable.
I’m not just losing a flirtation; I’m watching the possibility of a home drift toward someone else.
Later that night, the city cools into a muted purple.
The Pantheon looms at the end of the street, a massive, ancient shadow framed by the gold-washed cafes of the Piazza della Rotunda.
Max and I walk in a silence that isn't uncomfortable, just thick with the Day’s logistics.
Our shadows stretch long against the stone, overlapping and then pulling apart.
"You're quiet tonight, Amos," Max says, his hands shoved into his pockets. He looks at the dome of the temple, his expression as unreadable as the Latin inscriptions above us. "Usually, you're halfway through a story about a missed flight or a lost passport by now."
I stop at the very edge of the fountain. The water splashes against the marble, drowning out the distant roar of the city. I could pivot. I could make a crack about the wine at dinner or the heat. But the honesty of the ruins around us feels like a dare.
"I’m just observing," I say, meeting his gaze. The streetlamps catch the silver in his hair, highlighting the rigid set of his jaw. "You and Baleigh. It's different now, isn't it?"
Max doesn't flinch. He doesn't look away. The silence is heavy with the weight of everything we haven't been saying since we left Florence.
Max lets a slow breath escape his teeth. He doesn't look offended; he looks tired, like a man who has finally set down a heavy trunk after a long march. He turns toward the Pantheon, the massive Corinthian columns standing like sentinels in the dark.
"It’s different," he says. The admission is quiet, lacking his usual lecture-hall authority. "I didn't intend for it to happen, Amos. I’ve lived my life by a very specific set of rules. Responsibility. Distance. Logic."
"I know the feeling," I say, leaning back against the cool stone of the fountain.
"Different rules, same result. I kept moving so I wouldn't have to notice how quiet it gets when the program ends.
Until she showed up. She doesn't just fill the silence, Max.
She makes me want to stop the car and actually unpack for once. "
Max finally looks at me, his eyes searchingly sharp behind his glasses. There’s no glare of a rival there. Instead, I see a mirror. He’s spent twenty years being the reliable pillar while I’ve been the restless wind. Baleigh is the first thing that’s made either of us reconsider our nature.
"She asks questions I haven't dared ask myself in a decade," Max says, voice thickening. "She looks at these ruins and sees the life that lived within them, not just the dates and the architecture. She makes the future look... less like a series of sacrifices and more like an invitation."
"She’s grounded," I add, kicking at a stray pebble. "Coming from that small town, she has this gravity. Every time I’m around her, I feel like I’m actually standing on the earth instead of just floating over it. It’s terrifying."
We stand there in the shadow of the temple, two men who have seen the world but are only now seeing themselves. The competition I expected—the sharp elbows and the posturing—doesn't materialize. It’s hard to be a rival when you’re both staring at the same miracle from different angles.
"I’m not looking for a conquest," I say steadily.
"Neither am I," Max replies. "That’s the complication, isn't it? If this were a flirtation, we could walk away. But neither of us wants to walk away. So what do we do?"
The fountain pulses behind us, a steady, rhythmic heart in a city that has seen every kind of love and loss for two millennia.
We don't have a solution, but the tension in my shoulders has shifted from a knots of combat into something far more dangerous: a shared understanding of just how much we both have to lose.
The walk back to my room takes me through a labyrinth of narrow alleys where the smell of blooming jasmine fights with the damp scent of ancient stone.
My footsteps echo, a hollow rhythm against the shuttered storefronts.
Max’s words linger in the air like dust motes in a shaft of light—honest, heavy, and undeniably real.
He wants her. I want her. In any other story, this is where I’m supposed to sharpen my knives and plan my next move.
I should be figuring out how to outshine his stability with my spontaneity, how to prove that a life with me would be a vivid dream while a life with him would be a dusty library.
But the old competitive fire feels cold.
Watching him admit his vulnerability didn’t make me see a rival; it made me see a middle ground.
I stop at a bridge over the Tiber, leaning my elbows on the weathered travertine.
The water below is black and slick, reflecting the golden glow of the streetlamps.
My life has been a series of binary choices: go or stay, yes or no, here or there.
I’ve always operated on the logic that to have one thing, you have to forfeit another.
You choose the career, you lose the home.
You choose the adventure, you lose the partner.
But Baleigh isn't a prize to be won or a destination to be reached. She’s the catalyst.
She hasn't just awakened feelings for me; she’s cracked open a door to a version of life I never dared to draft.
Max provides the anchor she’s lacked, the intellectual challenge that keeps her sharp.
I provide the wind in her sails, the reminder that the world is wide and meant to be tasted.
Why does it feel like she needs both to truly fly?
Why does it feel like I need him to keep me honest, and he needs me to keep him alive?
The air in Rome is thick with the impossible. This city was built on layers—pagan temples beneath Christian churches, ruins repurposed into palaces. It’s a place where contradictions coexist because they have to.
I push off the bridge, a strange, electric hum vibrating under my skin.
The future doesn't have to look like a picket fence in North Carolina or a lonely hotel room in Paris.
Maybe the stability I crave isn't a house, but a set of people who truly see me.
I want her, and I respect him, and I wonder if the "correct" choice is actually the smallest one available.
I’m tired of choosing. Maybe it’s time to start building something entirely new.