“Then how do you propose we go about things?” Luke asked.
“Well, since you seem to be a man of means, which makes no never mind to me, by the way,” I added.
He bumped me with his hip. “And I love you for that.”
“Then maybe you could have some pieces sent up to your room so I could try them on in private?” I suggested. “And we can try to squeeze in a few more places now?”
He stopped our progress back on Via Dei Condotti and kissed me for all to see. A few shrill whistles echoed in the air and two young men clapped for us.
We made our way back to the Vespa, and I hopped on like a pro. Weaving through the traffic, Luke got me to the next destination fast.
I stared up through the hole at the top of the Pantheon and listened in on a nearby guide explaining the history in English to a small group. Yellow and maroon squares and circles lay amongst the veined white marble of the floor.
“This has been standing here for almost two thousand years,” Luke whispered to me, leading me away from the group. He gave me a rundown of its vast history, and I nodded as I tried to soak in the years. Although I still battled with the overwhelming feeling of how young and inexperienced I was, especially compared to my fiancé, I no longer feared our differences. If it got to be too much for me to handle, I would uphold my part of the promise and tell him.
We took a break in the square outside the Pantheon, eating gelato from the store across from the historic site. Sitting on the steps of the monument in the middle of the square, I took in the bustling of people around us while indulging in the tasty treat.
“I can’t believe how many flavors they had. And they let me try them all,” I marveled, licking some of the strawberry that mixed with the lemon dribbling down the cone. “Little Ruby Mae would be jealous of me now. I always wanted multiple scoops when I was a kid.”
“Gelato is good for you. Plus, you chose two of the healthiest flavors,” he said, watching me with intense scrutiny as my tongue sought out more yumminess. “If you like limone, I should take you down to the Amalfi coast where they make the aperitivo limoncello. We’ll try some after dinner maybe.”
“What flavors did you get?” I asked, eyeing his choices.
“Chocolate and Fig. You should try some.” Luke held out the cone to me, and I leaned over and bit right down the middle.
“Mm, I wouldn’t have known it would be such a tasty combo just by looking at it.” I wiped my mouth with one of the many napkins we’d grabbed.
After our sweet treat, we roamed the ruins of the Forum, and my imagination ran rampant with images of people in togas trying to conduct business. I stood in line and waited for Luke to take a picture of me standing in the place where Caesar had supposedly been stabbed to death by all his betrayers. At least it was another tourist, and not me, who yelled out the famous line, “Et tu, Brute,” with dramatic license.
The air chilled a bit on the ride to the Colosseum. By the time we parked the scooter and walked to the famous building, the setting sun cast orange light against the monument. The last straggling tourists paid to take pictures with locals dressed up as Romans and gladiators, but Luke steered me away from them.
When we got to the main entrance, I pouted. “Oh no. It’s already closed for the day.”
My fiancé smirked. “Haven’t you been paying attention? It’s my turn to impress you with my special skills.” He wiggled his fingers in front of him in a bad imitation of me wielding my magic.
Luke circled to a different entrance where a shorter, squat man with a bald head and a mustache waited against the fencing that protected the outer walls.
“Buona sera, Professore,” Luke called out, garnering the attention of the stranger. They continued their pleasantries until it came time for introductions. “Ruby, this is my friend Vito Lanciani. He is a professor of antiquities, and tonight, he will give us a private tour.”
My insecurities from earlier forgotten, I blessed my man with means enough to get me into a historical site I’d only seen in my sad, beat-up textbook in Mr. Hathaway’s history class in high school.
The outside of the structure was impressive enough, but the city had spent a lot of money constructing platforms that allowed the visitor to see just how immense the entire operation had been. I could almost hear the roar of the crowd from the circular theater when I stood on the wooden surface raised in the middle of the arena.
Underneath my feet existed several different floors, and I couldn’t believe that they used to bring in animals and other spectacles to watch. The professor gave each piece of information in such a way that I could picture it all. The excitement and the violence. The bloodshed and the deaths. No matter how much history existed on my family’s land, it couldn’t touch where my feet stood at that moment.
We had to leave once the evening got too dark for it to be safe for us to be inside the structure. The professor escorted us out, and when we exited, I thanked him profusely, pumping his hand up and down.
“It has been my pleasure, Miss Ruby,” he said, his cheeks reddening under my enthusiasm. “Please, if you ever return a Roma, you call me and let me teach you more about my fair
