28. Max
MAX
The air in this enoteca smells of damp stone and ancient corks.
It is the kind of place that doesn't exist on a map, tucked so deep into a Trastevere alleyway that the Roman sun never quite reaches the floorboards.
Amber lamps cast long, sickly shadows across the walls, illuminating grainy photographs of men who died before I was born.
Amos pushes a heavy glass of Sangiovese toward me.
He doesn't lead with a joke tonight. He doesn't lean back with his usual practiced ease.
He looks tired, the kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from travel, but from the weight of a monumental decision.
Beside him, Atticus traces the rim of his glass, his eyes fixed on the label as if it holds a secret code.
We are a strange triptych. A professor, a coordinator, and a drifter.
"I didn't ask you guys here to talk about the program budget," Amos says, his voice low, sliding under the muffled sound of a distant Vespa.
"Clearly," I say. I adjust my glasses, the bridge of my nose slick with the humidity. "The atmosphere suggests something a bit more... seismic."
I take a sip of the wine. It’s sharp and unapologetic.
Without Baleigh sitting between us, acting as the sun we all orbit, the gravity in the room feels dangerously high.
The silence is punctuated only by the hum of an old refrigerator in the corner.
We aren't just colleagues anymore. We are stakeholders in the same impossible heart.
"I’ve spent twenty years studying the way civilizations crumble," I say, setting my glass down with a precise click. "They usually fail because of things left unsaid. Small grievances that turn into rot."
I look at them both, forcing myself not to blink.
"I’m jealous," I say. The word feels jagged in my throat, a confession that strips away my academic mask. "When she’s with you, Amos—when she’s laughing at something I couldn't possibly have said—I feel a cold, sharp pull in my chest. I want to be the one making her light up like that. And with you, Atticus... I see the way she looks at your photos, how she sees a world through your eyes that I can’t show her.
It makes me feel old. It makes me feel replaceable. "
Saying it doesn't make the jealousy vanish, but it stops it from being a ghost. It is a fact now, sitting on the scarred wood between us.
Amos doesn't laugh. He doesn't deflect. He rolls his sleeves further up his forearms, exposing the tan lines of someone who never stays still. "You think you're the only one? Max, I’m the guy people call when the toilet overflows or the bus breaks down. I’m the 'fun' one. The utility player. Every time I see her listening to you talk about the Medici like you're reciting poetry, I’m terrified I’m just the summer entertainment. I’m scared that when the leaves change and she wants someone to build a life with, she’ll realize a coordinator is just a guy who knows how to pack a suitcase. "
He stares into his wine, his optimism finally cracking. "I want to be her home, not just a vacation."
Atticus looks up then. The green of his eyes is muted in the dim light.
He looks like he’s bracing for an impact.
"I don’t know how to stay," he says, voice a ghost of a whisper. "I’ve spent so long convincing myself that independence is a virtue, but it’s just a cage.
I watch her with both of you—the way you, Max, give her a foundation she’s never had, and the way Amos gives her the courage to breathe.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m waiting for the moment I wake up and realize I’ve ruined it by not knowing how to be still. "
The confession hangs in the air, thick as the Italian humidity. We are three men admitting we are incomplete.
"The thing is," I say, leaning forward, my elbows heavy on the table. "I’ve watched her change. She isn't the same woman who stepped off that plane. She’s bolder. But I see why. It’s not just me. She’s learned how to dream because of you, Atticus.
You showed her the world isn't just a map of obligations. "
Atticus nods slowly, his gaze shifting to Amos. "And she’s learned how to trust the chaos because of you, Amos. You’re the one who taught her that a disaster is just an unscheduled adventure."
"She loves your mind, Max," Amos adds, his voice regaining some of its strength. "She loves the way you make her feel like she’s worth the effort of a deep conversation."
We sit in the silence of that realization. The rivalry that should have been tearing us apart has become a mirror. We aren't competing for parts of her; we are each holding a different piece of the light she reflects. I realize that none of us wants to see that light go dim.
The waiter returns with a fresh bottle, his movements fluid and indifferent to the weight of our conversation. He clears the empty glasses, leaving us with a clean slate of dark wood. As I watch the wine settle into the vessels, a strange clarity washes over me, cooling the remnants of my jealousy.
I’ve lived my life grading on a curve, looking for the singular right answer in a sea of variables.
But looking at Amos and Atticus, I know I’ve been misinterpreting the exam.
If I were to "win," if she were to choose me and sever the vibrant, reckless threads that connect her to them, she wouldn't be the Baleigh I love.
She would be a diminished version of herself, a bird with clipped wings sitting in my quiet study.
"Neither of you is trying to talk her out of the others," I say, the words tasting better than the Sangiovese. "We’re sitting here confessing our flaws because we’re more afraid of her losing something vital than we are of losing our own pride."
Amos exhales, a long, shaky breath that ruffles his hair. "I don’t want her to have to choose between a map and a home. Why should she?"
"She shouldn't," Atticus says firmly. He glances at me, then Amos, his guardedness finally dissolving. "If this ends with her crying in an airport because she’s leaving two-thirds of her heart behind, we’ve all failed."
The shift in the room is palpable. The air loses its static. We stop being three men guarding our territories and become architects looking at a blueprint.
"The logistics are a nightmare," I say, my mind instinctively cataloguing the hurdles. "My tenure, your travel schedule, Atticus’s base here in Italy. It’s a mess of visas and time zones."
"I thrive in nightmares, Max," Amos says, a spark of his old mischief returning to his eyes. "I coordinate moving parts for a living. Distance is just a logistical hurdle, not a dead end."
"And I have a house in a town that needs more life in it," Atticus adds, his voice gaining a resonance I haven’t heard before. "A place where a coordinator could work, a historian could write, and a photographer could finally put down roots."
We aren't talking about a summer fling anymore. We are discussing a foundation. It’s unconventional, perhaps even scandalous by the standards of Baleigh’s North Carolina upbringing, but as I see these two men, I see a future that isn't a compromise. It’s an expansion.
"We stay honest," I say, holding my glass up. "No secrets, no hidden resentments. If we can do that, the rest is just paperwork."
They raise their glasses, the crystalline chime echoing against the stone walls.
The Roman air is thick, a heavy velvet that clings to my skin as we emerge from the cellar. Trastevere has woken up in our absence. The narrow cobblestone veins of the district pulse with the shouts of teenagers on scooters and the rhythmic clink of silverware against porcelain.
I stop under the yellow spill of a streetlamp, the wrought iron bracket casting a shadow like a skeletal hand against the stone.
Amos and Atticus stop with me. We don’t form a circle; we stand in a loose line, looking out at the Tiber.
The river is a ribbon of black ink, reflecting the distorted glimmers of the city.
"My knees feel like they're made of glass," Amos says, stretching his arms toward the dark sky. He doesn’t sound distressed. If anything, the tension that usually bunches his shoulders has dissolved. "You’re a terrifying man to drink with, Max. You make everything sound so... inevitable."
"Logic has that effect," I reply, though I feel anything but clinical. My pulse thrums in my fingertips.
Atticus leans against a crumbling brick wall, his camera bag swinging idly at his side. He looks at the two of us, his gaze lingering on the way the light hits the silver in my hair, then shifting to the casual, rugged stance Amos projects.
"I spent years thinking that if I let anyone in, I’d lose the horizon," Atticus says.
He reaches out, clapping Amos on the shoulder before turning that same, steady hand toward me.
He shakes my hand—a firm, sudden grip that seals the air.
"But the horizon looks better when there’s someone to point at it. "
The jealousy hasn't evaporated—I suspect it will always be a low-thrumming frequency we have to tune out—but the jagged edges have been sanded down. I don’t see rivals. I see the pillars of a bridge we are building in the dark.
"We should get back," I say, adjusting my glasses. "She’ll be wondering why we’ve all disappeared at the same time."
As we walk, our footsteps fall into a loose, unhurried rhythm.
We move through the shadows of history, three men who should be at odds, yet I find myself checking to ensure they are still beside me.
We are no longer just Baleigh’s lovers. We are the keepers of a shared secret, a tripod designed to hold the weight of her heart without breaking.
In the silence of the walk, the pact is signed not in ink, but in the stride we keep together.