He gestures toward Tommaso like he defers the decision to him, but the man is so swamped with orders he can barely look up. James leans over the bar and says something to him, and Tommaso gives me a thumbs up and waves us away.
“You ready?” he yells. “Or do you want to do some more dancing?”
God help me, I do want to do some more dancing. That craving for freedom hits me again square in the center of my chest, but I can’t submit. I’m in charge of these younguns and there’s no faster way to blur the line of authority than the running man.
“Will Tommaso be okay?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I think he was better off with the guest bartenders,” James yells over his shoulder, pulling me toward the garage doors.
“Shouldn’t we offer to help?”
James lifts up the door as I scoot under.
“We just did,” he says as he straightens. “Well, I did.”
I roll my eyes.
“Jessica said he had five songs on loop from the—gasp—nineties!” I put one hand on my heart and one on my head like I might swoon.
He lets out a low chuckle and I straighten.
“Did you just laugh?” I ask, looking around to see if it could have come from anywhere else.
He sighs, then turns and heads back down the haunted alley without answering me.
“Back to the Batcave,” I tell his back. “Very unorthodox for a vigilante to take a shot before completing a mission.”
“The shot was part of the mission,” he grumbles. “I think it’s quiet time now, don’t you?” James asks, snapping a photo of the shadows spilling across the stones at his feet.
“Sure thing, boss.” I zip my lips and then study him as he retreats into his photography. I watch him drop to one knee and aim his camera up at the walls of Urbino, the moon hanging low just above their reach. I watch him point his lens out over the hillsides, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth as his finger presses down over and over again. He doesn’t make a sound.
It’s clear in the way he moves, the way his body relaxes with each shot, that this is what he loves. That photography to him is what painting was to my mother.
The silence lasts until we get to the first cypress tree that lines the driveway to the villa, and then, emboldened by the shadows, I ask, “Why haven’t you made photography into a career?”
He doesn’t answer, and I look up at him to find a sliver of moonlight cutting across his cheekbone as he stares out over the fields toward the distance.
I narrow my eyes at him and push. “It’s clear that you love it. And you are extremely tal—”
“Could we not do this?”
His eyes flash to mine and I can see I’ve struck a chord. Naturally, I want to strike it again. Several times.
“Ahh. I see,” I say. “You get to know all of my secrets, see me at my lowest, but I’m not good enough to hear yours?”
He stops at the side of the house and turns to me, eyes narrowed.
“You don’t see. There’s nothing to see,” he says. “Telling someone your life story because you believe a driver can’t be bilingual doesn’t make you not good enough. It just makes you—”
I put up my hand. “Don’t you dare. You don’t get to just hurl insults and deflect every time I ask a serious question that you’re too scared to answer.”
He steps forward, and I have to tilt my head back in order to keep eye contact, but there’s no way I’m looking away first.
“A serious question?” His voice is low, just loud enough to reach me above the cicadas. “What is it that you love, Ava? Law? Is that what sets you on fire? Or did you choose that career for some other reason? Maybe the same things you saw in Edward? Money? Prestige? Veneers?”
I open my mouth to speak and shut it again. His brows lift in a knowing smirk that I want to smack right off of his face. But before I even have a chance to defend myself, he mutters something in Italian and turns his back to me.
“It’s rude to talk about someone in a language they don’t understand,” I call after him, wincing. I sound pathetic—like a petulant teen.
