We take it slow around the neighborhood, gliding through quiet streets and back alleys. Noah knows where to go to avoid the traffic, and soon I start to see Bernadette’s wisdom: This is much better practice for Italy than making circles in a parking lot.

I like looking at Noah on the bike. His olive skin glows against his white shirt. His hair is just long enough to peek below his helmet. As my eyes travel downward, I stop myself—

I’m still his editor, and we still need a book idea. So even if Noah looks distractingly good, and even if I am now single enough to notice, I need to try, for the sake of our careers, to rein it in.

The sky is gold with late-afternoon light by the time Bernadette gives us our tests.

“Remember,” she says over the rumble of the engines, “your eyes should always be where you want to be twenty seconds from now. Don’t look down at where you are, only out at where you’re going.”

“I think that’s a metaphor for something or other,” I say to Noah.

I keep my eyes ahead as I demonstrate how I’ve learned to turn, to weave, to smoothly shift gears, and to make a short stop. It’s glorious. It’s exhausting. It’s more fun and more challenging than anything I’ve done in a long time.

I roll to a stop before Bernadette. She jumps up and hugs me to let me know I passed. When she goes inside to print out the certificate I’ll take to the DMV, I stand before Noah, wondering, are we also going to hug . . . or?

“Nice weaves,” he says. “Very smooth.”

“Yours weren’t so bad, either.”

My eyes catch on his lips, and I notice that one of his bottom teeth is a little crooked. It’s charming. So charming I start to wonder things I shouldn’t wonder, like what it would be like to touch those lips, those teeth, with my own—

Bernadette comes out of the trailer, two certificates in her hands. “Who wants to get a celebratory beer at the Ice House—”

“I don’t know,” Noah says quickly, using the clipped tone I haven’t heard in weeks. “I’ve taken up enough of Lanie’s time.”

“Right,” I say—though if Noah hadn’t shut it down, I would have loved to grab a beer with Bernadette. She’s fun. And I enjoyed the insight into teenage Noah’s romantic lunges, maybe a little too much.

Did Noah see me staring at his lips a moment ago? Did I freak him out? Or maybe he has plans tonight?

“Yeah, I should get back,” I say.

“Next time then,” Bernadette says and hands me a card with her email address. “You’d better send me pictures from Italy.”

“I never said that!” I insist to Noah on the subway ride home.