Mayday is not the safe word . . .
I roll my eyes.
Me:UNGERMEYER
Noah:Dang ur serious, I’ll call you.
Me:not rn – wait til I’m out of the car.
Noah:There’s a car?!
Noah:Where are you?!
Noah:Ffs. Just checked your location.
‘We’re here!’ Aldo says, calmly lifting the handbrake.
I look up from my phone and gasp at the sight before me. There lies streets of vine-clad yellow buildings, cobbled streets and colourful flowers, all set to the backdrop of a sweeping blue lake. It’s like something out of a postcard stood in front of me, bright and vivid. My stomach swoops and then dips. We’re not in Rome any more.
‘This is Castel Gandolfo – my favourite place to come when the city gets too hot.’ He opens my car door. ‘It’s cooler and quieter and we can still get good lunch, but we can have it with a better view.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, trying to keep it together. ‘And how far is it from the city?’
He checks his watch. ‘Fifty minutes. Nice and easy. Now, come on, let’s go for lunch.’
I check the time on my phone before I join him. It’s almost 3 p.m., will take fifty minutes to get back, and we’re not even at our lunch location yet.
The second we arrive at the spot – a cute little taverna overlooking the riverside – I make an excuse and run to the toilet.
‘What the fuck’s happened?’ Noah says the second he picks up the phone.
I panic. ‘I don’t know! He told me to get in the car, so I did, and now I’m somewhere fifty minutes out of Rome, apparently.’
I hear him sigh deeply on the other end of the line.
‘You have terrible self-preservation instincts. No one taught you about stranger danger? You’ve only met him once,’ he says.
‘Remind me how we met again?’ I retort.
‘Oh, come on, he and I are immeasurably different,’ he says, not taking me on for even a minute. ‘I saved your life and went for drinks becauseyouaskedmeout. This guy’s a rando that took you to a different city when you’ve got another date in three and a half hours.’
My body runs cold at the reduced timeframe as I start running through calculations in my head. Even if I were to oh-so-suspiciously rush through this meal, it’s still going to take an hour to get back into Rome and then Istillhave to find my way to my and Nigel’s location.
I slump against the wall in defeat.
‘I am so screwed,’ I sigh. ‘And the sad part is, Nigel’s the only date I cared about today.’
The other end of the line goes silent; for a minute I think the call has dropped, but then I hear the soft exhales of Noah’s breath.
‘You still there?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ he says, more strained than before. ‘You really care about Nigel?’
My heart stills as I’m instantly hit with the truth. I do care about Nigel; we go so far back and have a history I can’t wait to explore some more. But as excited as I am, I just don’t care about him the way I care about the man chatting to me on the phone.
‘Yes, I do,’ I reply, sweeping the rest of my damning realisation aside.
The line goes silent again. I count twenty seconds in my head.
