Page 13 of Bad Men's Good Girl

"I didn't even know this street existed," she says, smoothing her jacket. "I think I took three wrong turns, but I found a tiny garden with a stone lion on the way."

"The lion of Via dell’Orto," I say, handing her a shot of espresso in a thick ceramic cup. "Most people walk right past it."

We move through the narrow capillaries of the city. I’m supposed to be the guide, the one with the eye, but I find myself lowering my Leica to watch her instead.

"Atticus, look," she whispers, pulling me toward a heavy oak door.

Above the lintel, a fresco has faded into ghostly outlines of blue and gold, nearly swallowed by vines. I’ve walked this passage fifty times and always looked at my watch or my light meter.

"The way that the light hits that blue," she says, voice thick with genuine reverence. "It looks like a secret somebody forgot to keep."

She wanders toward a bakery where the scent of rosemary and sea salt spills into the alley, stopping to read a handwritten note taped to a window.

"Someone is looking for a lost cat named Dante," she says, smiling. "They describe him as 'arrogant but soft.' That’s so... Florence, isn't it?"

I lift my camera, but I don't point it at the architecture. I capture her profile as she leans in to study the texture of the stone. For years, I’ve hunted for the "authentic" city, but looking through her eyes, I realize I’ve been staring at the bones while she’s finding the soul.

We drift deeper into the Oltrarno, far from the rhythmic clacks of selfie sticks on cobblestone. I lead her through a door so low I have to duck, into a workshop smelling of cedar and ancient tannins. Enzo, a third-generation leather binder, doesn't look up from his workbench until I greet him in rapid-fire Italian.

Baleigh hovers by the shelf of hand-marbled papers. Her fingers hover over the swirls of crimson and gold, never quite touching, as if the ink is still wet after fifty years.

"The patterns," she whispers, turning to me. "They look like storm clouds over a sunset."

Enzo barks a laugh and hands her a scrap of scrap leather, his weathered face cracking into a map of wrinkles. She thanks him with a "Grazie mille" so earnest the old man actually blushes.

We leave with a small almond pastry from a shop with no sign, sharing the warm, flaky crust as we climb a set of stone stairs tucked behind a crumbling convent. At the summit, a hidden terrace opens up, a private island above a sea of terracotta tiles and laundry lines.

"I’ve spent so much time chasing 'the shot,'" I say, watching her lean over the iron railing. "Sometimes I forget to just be in the city."

"Is that why you stay?" she asks. "Because you're still looking for something?"

I adjust the focus ring on my lens, but the view of the Duomo in the distance is blurred. Only she is sharp. "I stayed because here, you can be whoever you want. Back home, peopleremember you by your mistakes or your father’s last name. Here? You’re just the man with the camera."

"I get that," she says, voice dropping an octave. "In North Carolina, I’m 'the one who stayed.' My life is a predictable loop of Sunday dinners and people asking when I’m getting married. Being here... it feels like I’ve finally stepped out of a black-and-white movie into color."

The light shifts, catching the gold in her hair. I should be documenting the way the sun hits the Arno, but my shutter clicks on the curve of her smile instead. The air feels heavy, charged with a quiet gravity I wasn't prepared for.

"Wait, look at that gargoyle," Baleigh says, pointing toward a rain spout carved into a screaming griffin. "He looks like he’s judging everyone who walks by without an umbrella."

She doesn't wait for an answer. She steps off the narrow sidewalk, framing the shot with her phone. She’s focused on the grit of the stone, oblivious to the high-pitched whine of a combustion engine echoing off the plaster walls.

A Vespa screams around the blind corner, tires chirping against the slick cobblestones. The driver leans hard into the turn, a blur of red metal and ego heading straight for her.

I don’t think. I drop my camera against my chest and lunge. My hand clamps around her upper arm, and I yank her back toward the doorway just as the scooter whistles past. The wind of its wake lifts the hem of her dress.

"Easy," I say, voice sounding rougher than I care to admit.

I don't let go immediately. Her heart thumps against the side of my arm, rapid and wild. For a second, the heat of her skin under my palm is the only thing I can feel. The thought of her hitting that stone—of that light in her eyes going out because of a bored teenager on a moped—makes my stomach do a slow, sickening roll.

"Narrow streets, fast wheels," I mutter, finally releasing her. I check my camera lens, a reflex to hide the way my fingers are trembling. "You have to watch the corners. Florence doesn't pause for art."

"Thank you," she breathes, rubbing the spot where I grabbed her. She isn't annoyed; she’s looking at me with a soft, searching expression that makes me want to start walking again. Fast.

We keep to the shadows as the sun climbs. She’s quiet for a street or two before she asks, "Do you ever miss it? The States? Your family must have been devastated when you just... stayed."

"I send postcards," I say, keeping my pace steady. "And the coffee is better here. It's hard to go back to diner swill once you’ve had a proper macchiato."

"Coffee is a reason for a vacation, Atticus. It’s not why you build a life five thousand miles away." She tilts her head, caught in that infuriatingly observant way of hers. "What was her name?"