I looked up; Giovanni was eyeing me like a wolf.

He took a step forward.

“I always thought you were handsome, Amir,” Giovanni said. “From that very first party, when Jahan brought you here.”

He moved closer. His abs were at eye level. “Thanks” was all I could manage to get out.

Giovanni was suddenly towering over me, one bare leg jutted forward, and somehow my arm brushed against it like he was tracing a vocabulary word in my notebook, like he was my tutor, like he was Jackson—

And then there were mouths. There were hands. There were torsos. And there was motion, from the changing area to the old couch in the dining room. It all happened so fast, but I can say it happened under the Caravaggio.

• • •

My phone fell out of my pocket. It must have been while Giovanni was pulling my pants off. I found it under one of the old chairs. Thankfully, the screen wasn’t shattered, and I saw I had two missed calls from Jahan and a text from Valerio. My heart dropped.

I wasn’t beholden to Valerio, I reminded myself. I wasn’t beholden to anyone. Neither was Giovanni, who was in an open relationship. Still, I felt like I had just done something stupid, like driving with my eyes closed, even if I’d come out of it unscathed.

Giovanni finally put some clothes on, and we went out for pizza, hardly saying much to each other as we zigzagged the busy side streets. It was a Saturday night. Rome was filling up with more and more tourists.

We sat down a table at a restaurant just off Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. I could hear the faintest sound of the fountain splashing in the background, the sound of children laughing, just like Jahan had told me.

Giovanni glanced up from the menu. “It is interesting to me how you Americans always seem to inspect your menus very carefully,” he said, “as if they contain some kind of nuclear code.”

I straightened my back. “They have so many different pizzas here. I don’t know which one to pick.”

“Just pick the one you want,” Giovanni said.

He reached over and tapped my wrist. I gripped the edges of my menu. Earlier in the night, Giovanni’s touch was all I wanted. He was much older than Valerio and Jackson, wealthier, more spectacularly built . . . but now I was nervous to be seen with him. Now that we were out in public, his touch felt illicit.

Giovanni pulled his hand back. “I hear you have been seeing Valerio,” he said.

I frowned. “I’d appreciate if you could keep what just happened between us,” I said, lowering my voice.

“Of course. But it is not like you are married,” Giovanni said with a flick of his wrist.

“True.” I exhaled. “How does it work with you and Rocco?”

Giovanni cocked his head. “We are not married either . . .”

“I mean the open relationship.”