“He was scrappy!” I narrow my eyes and stand up straight. “You were worried about me.”
She scoffs.
I step toward her, my smile growing. “You actually came after me.” I put a hand to my chest. “I’m touched, Mia.”
“I followed because I didn’t want to be left alone with no phone in a strange city.”
“You could’ve gone to dinner. You knew where it was. But you didn’t. You came after me instead.”
She folds her arms, making her bracelets clink as she searches my face like I’m a modern marvel. “What’s it like?”
“What, having you so worried about my safety you run a half-marathon across Venice? Feels pretty good.”
“Going through life assuming everyone’s obsessed with you?”
“Probably more fun than going through life assuming the worst of people.”
“I don’t assume the worst of people,” she says, but the tiniest wrinkle on her brow tells me I may have hit close to home.
“I didn’t say you did. It was a casual comparison.”
“Right.” She looks around us at the tall buildings, laundry lines draping across a couple stories above. “Where are we?”
“No idea.” I take my phone from my pocket and pull up the map, typing in Piazzo San Marco. “We’re a twenty-minute walk away from the group. Not too bad.”
“We better get moving, then. I’m hungry.” She starts walking, and I skip to catch up with her just as she touches a hand to her furrowed brow and looks up. “Was that a raindrop?”
I glance at the pavement and see a few dark spots. Leading Mia to a random part of the city and having it rain on our way back is not on my bucket list. Well, I don’t mind the rain or being with Mia, but I get the senseshe’llmind it a lot. “What? No. Probably just some of that laundry dripping.”
“Ew.”
The drops come more frequently as we follow my map, and Mia shoots an unamused glance at me like I’m the one in control of the weather.
“Lots of wet laundry in Venice,” I say, dodging her attempt to hit me. “Come on! Walk faster. You’re holding us back, and I’m hungry.”
If looks could kill… I died the first time I met Mia.
After a few minutes and a few hundred raindrops, the crowds start to thicken again. A lot. Every few seconds, I look over my shoulder to make sure Mia’s still there, right behind me.
Until suddenly… she’s not.
I stop, shoulders bumping mine as I search the crowd. In the more logical part of my brain, I realize Mia’s somewhere amongst these people, probably just a few heads away. But the other part of my brain is engaging Liam Neeson Mode and making my heart go a million beats per minute.
A hand grabs mine, and my gaze finally finds Mia.
“Miss me?” she says like she can see the relief on my face.
“Yes, actually.”
She doesn’t let go of my hand as we keep trekking against the tide.
“We’ve just got to cross that bridge up there,” I say over my shoulder, pretending it’s no biggie I’m holding Mia’s hand in one of the most romantic cities on the planet. Not just that I’m holding her hand.Sheinitiated it and hasn’t jerked away in disgust.
“Huh,” I say, coming to a stop behind a long line of people blocking our way. They’re all stopped and facing… something. I go up on my tiptoes to see over the crowd, which isn’t easy, given how many of them have popped up umbrellas.
“What is it?” Mia asks.
I clench my teeth. “You don’t want to know.”
