Marco laughs at me, and I meet his gaze before gesturing down at the pizza. “It’s enormous,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says, a twinkle in his green eyes still visible even in the dim, candle-accented lighting. “Bigger than both of us, I think.”
I shrug, snapping a quick picture of it with my phone. “Is that a challenge?”
Marco’s face lights up with what I’m sure is excitement. “It could be,” he agrees. “You know, I always love a woman who knows how to eat.”
I feel a flush lighting my face again and am thankful that at least it’s dim in here. He called me a woman. Not a girl. And more than that, he said the word love in the same sentence. Could this mean that he’s beginning to see me as more than just a kid?
We eat our way through the pizza, laughing and joking, talking as we go. The conversation makes the meal longer, and I think this is what makes the huge amount of food more manageable. Surprisingly, even though Marco is in good shape and I’m not, he keeps up with me, slice for slice. We chuckle at the floppy slices that want to deposit their toppings back down on the oversized slate, groan at the thud of green peppers that do slide free, and even compete to draw out the longest string of mozzarella from our mouths to the pizza.
Finally, we rest – and look down in despair at the four slices of the pizza left on the slate.
“I don’t think I can do it,” I sigh. “At least, not before this place closes.”
“We need a break,” Marco agrees, in what I’m beginning to recognize is his habitual no-nonsense manner. Within moments he’s summoned the waiter and asked the man to box up our remaining slices for us, and even settled the bill.
“What now?” I ask. I check my watch and then wish I hadn’t. The evening is already growing old.
“Let’s decide that in a moment,” Marco says. He nods towards the back of the room, where a sign indicates the direction of the restrooms. “I will be back shortly.”
I watch him go, then settle back down into my seat, looking at my hands. I don’t want the night to be over, but I know it probably will be. When he comes back, he’ll take me back to my hotel – and leave me there alone, again.
At least I might have a few more slices of pizza to keep me company.
“Ciao, ciao, ciao bella!”
I look around in surprise, with the instinct that tells you when you are being spoken to, even if you don’t know the language. At the next table over are three Italian boys, around my age if not a couple of years older, all with curly, dark hair cut in fashionable styles. They also all wear grins, which for a moment remind me of jackals.
One of them, the one who addressed me, says something in Italian. I shake my head in confusion, trying to show them that I have no idea what they are saying. He gets up, then, and moves closer to me, standing over me.
“What you doing with that old man, huh?” he asks me, his English heavily accented. “You looking miserable. You should get a good time, huh?”
“A… good time?” I repeat, looking up at him uncertainly. His two friends get up, and they stand around me, uncomfortably close to my chair. I don’t think I can get up without walking right into one or the other of them.
“Yes, come with us,” the ringleader says. “We show you good time. Good Rome time, huh? You want to have fun? We know a place.”
Something touches my shoulder, and I whirl to see it’s one of the friends, right behind me, his hand landing there. “Come with us,” he also urges. “Good time with us.”
“N-no, I…” I stammer, trying and failing to brush his hand away. “Please, don’t touch me.”
“Come on, bella,” the ringleader says, catching a strand of my hair in his fingers. “We just want to show you some fun. Come with us.”
I don’t know what to do. I look around, trying to see past them, but the other people in the restaurant seem to be ignoring us – and I can’t find Marco at all.
There’s no way out – they’re pressed close by me now, so close I can’t move without touching one of them. I don’t want to encourage them by doing that – so how am I going to get out of here and away from them?
CHAPTER NINE
Marco
I come out of the bathroom casually enough, not expecting anything to be wrong. But when I look up at our table, I can’t see Hannah at all – but I can see a group of three men, boys really, clustered around the seat where she was sitting. Which seems suspicious in itself.
I should probably hold back and assess the situation first before reacting, but I can’t help myself. If those little scumbags have done something to Hannah, they will regret it. And if it turns out to be all innocent, then they will regret having dared to sit close to her.
“Hey!” I shout, my voice carrying across the restaurant as I stride over. The three guys look over at me, and as their bodies turn, I glimpse Hannah between them. She looks scared, stressed. I see red.
“Calm down, just talking,” one of them tries to say, giving me a dismissive wave. None of them move. I can see that they don’t realize who I am – what I could do to them.
“Get away from her,” I say, through gritted teeth. There must be something in my voice which at least tips off the two other boys, because they flinch a little and even take half-steps back, giving Hannah some room. The first, though – I see angrily has a piece of Hannah’s hair in his fingers – only doubles down, slipping
