Page 51 of Bad Men's Good Girl

The San Miniato al Monte terrace smells of crushed rosemary and the dying heat of ancient stone. Below, Florence is a sprawling tapestry of burnt orange and violet, the Arno a jagged vein of mercury cutting through the center. I lean against the balustrade, the fellowship papers crinkling beneath my palms. The ink is dark and decisive. It promises a world of quiet libraries and the respectful nodding of peers—a life lived in the margins of history books.

I should feel the weight of it as a triumph. Instead, the paper feels like a summons to a prison I’ve spent twenty years decorating.

A group of tourists nearby erupts in laughter, and my head snaps toward the sound, searching for a flash of golden-blonde hair or the specific tilt of a chin. It isn't her. It’s never her. Theache starts in my chest, a dull, thumping pressure that has little to do with academic stress.

I look at the Palazzo Pitti, then further toward the red dome of the Duomo. I’ve spent my life quantifying the value of these stones, dating the frescoes, and analyzing the shifts in power that built them. I was a master of the past because the past is safe; it is finished. It cannot change its mind or leave for North Carolina on a Tuesday morning.

The wind kicks up, smelling of rain and woodsmoke. I read over the fellowship one last time. In London, I would be Maxwell Brown, the distinguished fellow. I would dine at high tables and write the definitive text on the Medici. And every night, I would return to an apartment that didn't hold the scent of her perfume or the echo of her questions that always managed to strip away my intellectual pretenses.

I am forty years old, and I am terrified. Not of failure, and not of the grueling research schedule ahead. I am terrified of the silence. I am terrified of a future where Baleigh Butler is just a name in an old journal, a "summer in Italy" anecdote I tell to hide the fact that I let the only thing that made me feel alive walk out of the frame.

The fellowship isn't the crossroads. She is. I realize, with a jagged finality, that I would trade every archive in Europe for one more hour of her looking at me like I’m more than just a curator of dead things. I fold the papers, not with care, but with a sharp, impatient snap, and shove them into my pocket.

The city is darkening, the streetlights flickering to life like a thousand tiny hopes. I don’t walk back toward my office. I start down the hill, my pace quickening, driven by the sudden, desperate need to find her before the sun disappears entirely.

33

ATTICUS

The coastal road to Lerici twists like a frayed ribbon, the Fiat groaning as I downshift for a hairpin turn. To my right, the Tyrrhenian Sea is a sheet of crushed sapphires, blindingly bright. Inside the car, the air is thick with the scent of salty heat and the lingering smell of the paninis we demolished two towns back.

"Tell me again about the time Amos lost his passport in the grotto," Baleigh says from the passenger seat. She’s leaning her head back, hair whipping in the wind, a smile playing on her lips.

Amos leans forward from the backseat, his hand resting on the shoulder of my seat. "Listen, the water was freezing and the currents were?—"

"Non-existent," Max interrupts, his voice dry and steady. He’s squeezed into the back next to Amos, looking like a giant in a toy car, yet he hasn't complained once. "You simply dropped it while trying to flirt with the girl on the boat."

We laugh, the sound echoing within the cramped metal frame. For a moment, it’s easy. The weight of the fellowship in Max’s pocket, the promotion waiting for Baleigh in North Carolina, and my own messy internal monologue fade into thebackground. We are just four people chasing the horizon. We aren't travelers today; we’re just us.

When I pull into the narrow, cobblestone alleyway of my village, the mood shifts. The engine dies, leaving only the sound of waves hitting the breakwater and the distant chime of the church bell.

I lead them toward the house, my keys heavy in my hand.

"Ciao, Atticus! Bentornato!"

I turn to see Signora Bianchi leaning over her wrought-iron balcony three doors down, shaking a rug. I wave back, shouting a greeting in Italian about the heat.

"You're late for your espresso, Atticus," the owner of the Bar del Porto calls out as we pass his patio. He already has a tiny white cup steaming on the counter. "I saw your shutter was closed this morning."

Baleigh stops, her hazel eyes darting from the shopkeeper to the vine-covered doorstep of my home. "Everyone knows you here."

"I’ve lived here three years, Leigh," I say, though saying it out loud feels different today.

I push open the heavy oak door. The house smells of lemon wood polish and old paper. As I watch Baleigh run her hand over the stone countertop and Max examine the shelves of books I’ve meticulously organized, the lie I’ve told myself for a decade finally shatters. I’m not a nomad. I’m not a ghost passing through. I have plants on the terrace that need watering and a neighbor who worries when I don't show up for coffee. I haven't been running away; I’ve been planting roots in the only soil that ever felt right.

The market stalls are humming with the late-afternoon rush. I watch Baleigh haggle over a bunch of basil, her Italian a messy, charming blur of hand gestures and Southern vowels. Max stands beside her, his large frame shielding her from a passingVespa, while Amos balances a crate of blood oranges against his hip like he’s done it a thousand times.

Back at the house, the kitchen becomes a choreographed chaos. Max handles the pasta water with academic precision, measuring salt as if it’s a chemical reagent. Amos is the whirlwind, chopping tomatoes and humming a radio hit while bumping hips with Baleigh to reach the olive oil. I step back, focusing my lens on them—the way the golden light catches the curve of Baleigh’s neck, the shared laugh between Max and Amos over a spilled glass of Vermentino. It’s a domesticity so sharp it aches. This house has always been a sanctuary of solitude, but as we carry the plates to the terrace, the silence I used to prize feels like a hollow shell.

We eat as the Mediterranean fades from sapphire to a deep navy. The air cools, smelling of pine and charred garlic. For an hour, we are suspended in the amber of a perfect evening, but as the wine jars empty, the gravity of the calendar begins to pull.

"I have to sign the contract by Friday," Baleigh says. The words are quiet, dropping into the center of the table like a stone. She doesn't look at the ocean. She looks at her hands. "The director called again. They want me back in Raleigh for the fall semester."

Max sets his fork down with a deliberate click. "The fellowship in London is finalized. I received another confirmation this morning. Supposedly it's all over the university there."

"And I’ve got the Tokyo assignment," Amos adds, though the usual spark in his eyes is extinguished. He leans back, staring at the rafters. "Departure is in ten days. My bags are already half-packed."

The logistics lay there, cold and jagged. I look at the three of them—the people who turned my carefully curated hideout into a home—and the map of the world seems to stretch and tear. The'until' has finally arrived. We aren't just talking about a summer anymore; we're talking about the end of us.