“She’s beautiful,” I say.

“And all yours for the next three days,” he says, handing me the keys. “Do you need directions? Where are you staying?”

“Il Bacio in Positano,” I say and flash the portable GPS Meg slipped into my carry-on as a going-away present.

“Ah.” Piero grins. “My girlfriend says that is the most beautiful hotel in all of Italy. A place for lovers.”

“And self-lovers!” I clarify, mostly for myself. When he smirks at me, I add, “I didn’t mean it like that. Not entirely, anyway.”

Piero gives me a sidelong glance. He looks at my duffel bag and reaches into the pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a bungee cord. “Take this—”

“That’s okay,” I say. “I brought one.”

“You need two,” he says.

It takes me fifteen minutes after Piero leaves to attach the GPS to the windshield, ten more to secure my duffel bag to the luggage rack with the bungee cords, and another ten to capture a cute selfie to send BD and Meg and Rufus when I feel like coming back on the grid.

After that, it takes me ten more minutes of sitting astride the Ducati to work up the nerve to start the engine.

I tell myself that once I get on the road, I’ll be fine. But when I look past the parking lot, to the sunny street leading out of the airport, I see all of Naples zipping along at a pace that puts my heart in my throat. Bernadette said never to cry on a motorcycle, but anxious tears prick my eyes.

When I said yes to Italy, I thought that by now all my problems would be solved. The manuscript is in, minus one forthcoming chapter. My promotion is official. Why do I still feel like something’s missing?

I think of what Noah told me in his office the night we found the idea for Two Thousand Picnics. He’d said that coming here might change my life. He’d been teasing—I think—and I’d dismissed him, but don’t I want it to be true? Isn’t that why I’m here?

I want to touch my mother’s origins. I want to feel the roots of my grandparents’ love. And now I’ve traveled all this way, and I’m scared I won’t find what I’m looking for. I’m scared I’ll go home knowing nothing more about my mother or myself.

In Noa Callaway books, heroes always find their stories’ meanings. But how do they actually do it? What would a Noa Callaway heroine do in my motorcycle boots today?

What would Noah Ross do?

I wish I could talk to him. I wish he hadn’t been so inscrutable at his apartment the other night.

I wish that he were here.