Page 4 of Bad Men's Good Girl

She does.

"Amos?" Her voice cuts through the chatter during a break. She’s standing near a potted lemon tree, away from the swarm of students wrestling with their international SIM cards. "Is it true the city smells like jasmine in the evenings, or did I read a very misleading guidebook?"

"Only if you’re near the Boboli Gardens," I say, shifting my weight to face her. The air feels cooler, a momentary reprieve from the frantic energy of the courtyard. "Everywhere else, it's leather, diesel, and the desperate sweat of tourists looking for a bathroom."

She lets out a short, startled laugh that echoes against the stone. "Well. At least the diesel is European."

"You’re doing great, Baleigh. Most people would have had a meltdown by now."

"I'm keeping it for the hotel room later," she says, her eyes softening. "I’ve never actually crossed an ocean before. My family thinks I’ve lost my mind. Everything is so... loud. And old."

"Florence will break your heart three times before dinner," I lean in, my voice dropping. "It’ll humble you with a sidewalkthat’s two thousand years old, ruin your standards for bread, and then win you over with a sunset that makes you want to stay forever. It's a trap."

"I think I'm already falling for it."

She looks at me then, her gaze steady and oddly piercing, and I don't feel like I'm reading from a script. I'm about to ask her which parts of North Carolina I should avoid when a group of students swarms us, demanding to know where to find cheap pizza.

She slips away toward the registration desk, but the sound of her laughter stays tucked in the back of my mind. I reach for the next orientation packet, but my thumb pauses on the paper. I'm already calculating how long until the next break.

The shadows of the Palazzo Vecchio stretch across the square like long, ink-stained fingers. The courtyard is finally quiet, save for the rhythmic swish of a broom as the porter clears away discarded pamphlets and crushed cigarette butts. My lungs feel heavy with the day’s dust, but the frantic humming in my head has settled into a low, strange vibration.

I lean against a stone pillar, the heat of the afternoon still radiating from the masonry into my spine. Across the street, the bells of San Lorenzo toll, a deep, bronze sound that usually signals the end of my shift and the beginning of my nightly hunt for a solitary meal and a quiet bar. Usually, I’m already halfway to a bottle of Prosecco, ready to scrub the faces and names of forty new strangers from my memory.

But I’m still standing here, staring at the empty space by the lemon tree where Baleigh spent the last hour.

I’ve seen her type a thousand times—the deer in the headlights, the girl who packed too many shoes and not enough courage. They usually last three days before they start crying for a Starbucks. Yet, Baleigh didn't look like she was looking for a way out. She looked like she was looking for a wayin.

I pull my phone from my pocket and scroll through the staff roster until I hit her photo. It’s a professional headshot, her hair perfectly smooth, a stiff, polite smile that screams "small-town expectations." It doesn't look like the woman I met today. The woman today had flyaway strands stuck to her lip and eyes that flared with a sharp, unexpected wit when I poked at her nerves.

I gaze up at the terracotta rooftops, now glowing a deep, gorgeous purple against the fading sky. Florence is a hard city. It’s a city of sharp edges, hidden courtyards, and history that demands you pay attention. It swallows the soft.

I think I’m already falling for it,she’d said.

I wonder which part she’s falling for. Is it the romanticized version she read about in those guidebooks, or is it the chaos? I imagine her out there right now, navigating the narrow, winding alleys of the Oltrarno, clutching her map like a holy relic. I hope she finds the view from the bridge before the light dies. I hope she forgets to be afraid of the wrong line and starts leaning into the noise.

Finally, I don't feel like a man resetting a clock. I’m a man waiting for the next tick. I shove the phone away and push off the pillar, a stray, unbidden smile flirting at the corner of my mouth.

I’ll see her tomorrow at eight. I wonder if she’ll still be wearing that brave, terrified smile, or if the city will have started its work on her already. Either way, for once, I’m not in a hurry to leave the office.

3

BALEIGH

The stone floors of the Palazzo weigh on my heels, cold and uncompromising as the morning sun cuts sharp, geometric shapes through the high narrow windows. Every footstep echoes, a hollow reminder that I’m vibrating with a nervous energy that doesn’t quite fit these ancient walls.

The lecture hall is already thick with the smell of old paper and expensive espresso. Students—younger, sleeker, and seemingly much more traveled—cluster in the aisles.

"I spent my gap year in Lyon," a girl with a silk scarf tied to her bag says, her voice carrying over the hum. "Florence is just so... visceral, compared to the French aesthetic."

I tighten my grip on my notebook, the spiral wire digging into my palm. I don't have a gap year. I have a decade of North Carolina humidity and a desk job that felt like a velvet-lined coffin. My stomach does a slow, sickening roll, but I force my legs toward the front. I don't sit in the back. I don’t hide. I snag a seat in the second row, smoothing my sundress and wishing my brain would stop cataloging all the ways I am underqualified for this.

The room settles into a sudden, expectant silence.

A man walks to the front. He doesn’t announce himself or wait for the stragglers to find their seats. He simply exists in the room, a tall figure in a crisp linen shirt with sleeves rolled back to reveal forearms mapped with lived experience. He rests a hand on the lectern, his salt-and-pepper hair catching the morning light.

This must be Professor Max Brown.

He doesn't look like the dusty academics I remember from college. He looks like a part of the architecture—permanent and steady. When he speaks, his voice is a deep, rich baritone that carries to the back of the hall without effort.