Page 19 of Bad Men's Good Girl

I pat the leather seat and toss her a spare helmet. "It’s a classic. Like a fine wine, or me. Come on, Leigh. The hills are calling, and they have better pasta than anything you’ll find near the Duomo."

She straps the helmet on, her brow furrowed in that way that makes me want to poke it until she smiles. "Do you have a map? A destination? Does anyone know we’re leaving the city limits?"

"I have a general sense of north and a very specific craving for wild boar ragu," I say, swinging a leg over the bike. "Plans arejust spoilers for real life. Give me your phone. Put it in your bag. If we get lost, we just find a different adventure."

She hesitates, her indecision an almost physical presence, before she finally sighs and climbs on behind me. "If we end up stranded in a ditch, I am never letting you live this down."

"I’ll take those odds."

I kick the engine to life. It coughs, rattles, then finds a steady, throaty purr. As we weave through the narrow, stone-walled exits of the city, Baleigh’s grip on my waist is a vice. She’s stiff as a board, her knuckles probably turning white inside my peripheral.

Then, we hit the open road.

The tall, dark cypress trees stand like sentinels along the gravel paths. We dip into a valley where the sunflowers are so bright they look painted, thousands of yellow faces turned toward the same sun that’s currently warming my back. The air changes—gone is the smell of exhaust and ancient dust, replaced by the scent of wild rosemary and warm earth.

I feel it the moment she lets go. Not her grip—thankfully, she stays tucked against me—but her tension. She leans into the curves. Her head peeks over my shoulder, and then I hear it: a genuine, breathless laugh that the wind whips right past my ear.

"It’s beautiful!" she shouts over the engine.

I catch her reflection in the side mirror; the way the sunlight catches the gold in her hair, her eyes wide and hungry for every inch of the horizon. I’ve seen these hills a thousand times, but watching them through her eyes makes the colors sharper. I’m supposed to be the guide, the one who knows the way, but I don't care if we ever actually find that village. I just want to keep driving until the gas runs out.

The map in my head has a few blurry edges, but I don’t let on. I bank the Vespa hard left onto a dirt track that looks like a tactical shortcut. Dust kicks up in a tawny cloud, and theroad narrows until the olive branches on either side scrape my elbows.

"Amos," Baleigh shouts, her voice vibrating against my shoulder blade. "This is a goat path. Please tell me you see a sign that isn’t written in lichen."

"It’s a scenic bypass," I yell back. "Trust the process!"

The process fails us ten minutes later when the path terminates in a stone wall and a very confused donkey. I kill the engine. The silence of the Tuscan countryside is absolute, save for the rhythmic clink of the cooling metal. I look at my hand-drawn mental map and realize I’ve effectively navigated us into a black hole.

"We are hopelessly lost, aren't we?" Baleigh asks, hopping off. She pulls her helmet off, hair spilling out in a chaotic, golden halo.

"In the technical sense? Yes. In the cosmic sense? We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be." I gesture to the valley below us. From this height, the vineyards look like corduroy fabric stretched over the earth, and the late afternoon sun turns the entire world into an amber photograph.

Baleigh starts to laugh—a low, melodic sound that brushes away my guilt. "You’re a terrible navigator, Southerland. Truly abysmal."

"I prefer the term 'spontaneous explorer.'"

We coast back down the hill, following the faint sound of an accordion. We round a bend and hit a village so small it doesn't even have a post office, but the main square is vibrating. Accordion music bounces off the limestone walls. Strings of lights criss-cross the plaza, and the air has the aroma of roasted pig and woodsmoke.

"What is this?" Baleigh’s eyes go wide as she jumps off the bike.

A grandmother in a flour-dusted apron grabs Baleigh’s hand, thrusting a plate ofpanigacciat her before I can even park. We aren’t tourists here; we’re just two more mouths to feed. We spend the next three hours squeezed onto a wooden bench between a local carpenter and a priest, passing jugs of ruby-red wine. Baleigh tries to ask about the cheese in broken Italian, and the locals respond with a five-minute opera of hand gestures. She’s glowing, the "safe path" she used to walk now buried under miles of Tuscan dust. For a guy who's always moving, I find myself wanting to nail my feet to the floor right here next to her.

I kick the starter pedal for the fourteenth time. The Vespa gives a pathetic, metallic wheeze—the mechanical equivalent of an old man coughing into a handkerchief—and goes silent. The smell of flooded gasoline hangs heavy in the cooling night air. I stand back, hands on my hips, looking at the hunk of vintage scrap metal. Usually, this is where the "client" starts checking their watch and asking about the nearest taxi service.

"Well," I say, wiping grease onto my thighs. "The good news is the donkey from earlier is probably still available for rent."

I brace for the groan. I expect her to look at the darkening sky and worry about the drive back to Florence. Instead, a snort breaks the silence. Baleigh is leaning against the stone wall, her head tilted back, laughing so hard she has to press a hand to her stomach.

"It’s not funny, Leigh. We’re five miles from a paved road and I’m pretty sure I heard a wolf."

"It is perfectly on brand, Amos," she says, gasping for air. She points a finger at the dead scooter. "If we had just driven back like normal people, it wouldn't be our story. The 'spontaneous explorer' strikes again."

Her lack of frustration is disarming. It’s a relief—one I wasn’t prepared for. Most people want the polish; she’s embracing the cracks. We push the bike under the silver-leafed canopy of anold olive tree and settle onto the dry grass to wait for the local mechanic I managed to bribe over the phone.

The valley below is bathing in deep violets and indigo. The fireflies are starting their shift. For a long time, we just sit there, the silence comfortable rather than heavy.

"Do you ever get tired of it?" Baleigh asks softly.