“Outside or inside?”
Raminknewthat. But he couldn’t translate that fast in his brain. “Oh. Outside?”
The twink led Ramin to a small table up against the rail that separated the patio from the sidewalk. Ramin ordered a sparkling water (acqua frizzante, as the locals called it) and settled in to study his menu. Sure enough, it was entirely in Italian.
A good sign.
At least until Ramin actually tried to read the menu and realized he couldn’t. His Italian wasn’t up to snuff yet. He pulled out his phone to start translating.
Before he could, though, he heard a voice call his name.
An impossible voice.
Noah’s voice.
“Ramin?”
six
Noah
Noah hadn’t been on many vacations in his life.
Growing up, “vacation” had just been visiting his grandparents down in the Ozarks or seeing Silver Dollar City in Branson. His parents had been weirdly obsessed with Yakov Smirnoff.
And once he graduated and moved out, there’d been no time for vacation. He’d had bills to pay.
His first true vacation had been his honeymoon with Angela. She’d always wanted to see New York City, and Noah had never been, so they’d spent a week there. Noah had expected fancy restaurants and Broadway shows, making love in a fancy hotel bed, and maybe seeing the Statue of Liberty.
What had followed instead was his first experience with the Death March of Fun.
Angela liked to schedule her vacations to within an inch of their lives, and woe to any human, animal, inanimate object, or act of God that got in her way.
Noah thought Angela might lay off in Italy. She was moving here,after all, so she’d have time to see the sights. Besides, they were all jet-lagged. It was hot out. Jake was getting cranky. But no.
Angela had dragged them out of the gelateria before Noah could even say a proper goodbye and set a rapid pace down the streets of Milan toward the garden in Porta Venezia that had been “highly recommended” by whatever travel blog she’d been following.
From the gardens, it was a long walk down Via Alessandro Manzoni to visit the Starbucks Reserve in Milan, which was—apparently—a big deal. Itwasfancy inside: a huge open-floor plan, almost like a train station, but for coffee. From there, she led them down a side street to see a famous statue of a middle finger.
“You sure this is okay for Jake to see?” Noah muttered.
“It’s art.” She bit her lip and turned to Jake, who was practically hanging off Noah’s leg. “Remember, it’s not a very nice thing to do to people, all right? And never in school.”
“Okay.” Jake nodded and yawned.
“I think we’d better get him back,” Noah said, smoothing Jake’s hair off his forehead.
Angela looked at her phone, where she probably had another twelve spots pinned to visit, then deflated. “I guess you’re right.”
Jake was getting a bit too big to realistically carry around on his back. Not weight-wise—between carrying stuff at work and lifting heavy things at CrossFit, Noah was pretty strong—but simply size-wise. Jake was getting taller, his legs were getting gangly, and when they swung they bumped into things. Or other people.
Plus, when Jake fell asleep against Noah’s back, he went limp, so it was like trying to stop wet pasta from spilling out of a backpack.
Jake had gone completely dead to the world by the time they made it back to their hotel. Angela wasn’t looking much livelier herself. In the elevator he was pretty sure she fell asleep standing, her eyes closingand her chin resting against her chest, until the elevator dinged and she straightened up with a start.
Angela had booked them two connected rooms, so they could both have some privacy and let Jake run back and forth depending on who he wanted to bunk with for the night.
“How are you still awake?” Angela asked through a yawn.
