Moonlight glints off the moped’s yellow paint. It looked bigger a second ago, when I was seeing it from the garden. Up close it’s toy-like. A strong wind could knock it over.
I swallow. “You actually ride around on that thing?”
Giovanni comes up behind me and loops an arm around my shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
I love the way he speaks, his voice a rough tangle.
“No,” I lie, snuggling in beneath his arm. “I just thought it would be . . . bigger.”
Giovanni laughs. It’s a deep, sexy rumble that makes all the tiny little hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. “Bella, are you afraid of my moped?” He kisses my neck, just once, right below my hairline. “You really are an American girl.”
“I’m not afraid,” I say, which is bullshit. I’m really, really afraid. I picture the toy bike peeling out from beneath my legs, the dirt road spinning toward my face, rocks ripping the skin from my cheeks.
And this isn’t even a motorcycle. It’s a motorcycle’s baby brother.
But I climb onto the moped behind Giovanni anyway, doing my best to look like I’m absolutely thrilled to ride through the Italian countryside on his little death trap.
Think of Audrey Hepburn, I tell myself, picturing Audrey’s pixie cut and flapping skirt as she zipped around Rome on the back of a scooter very much like this one. The image makes me a little less nervous as I wrap my arms around Giovanni’s waist.
“Where are the helmets?” I ask.
Giovanni twists the grip of the moped, and it makes a sound like a kitten purring. “What for?” he asks.
Oh God. I close my eyes, digging my fingers into the cotton of his T-shirt.
He’s laughing as we peel away from the curb.
The moped goes slowly at first, vibrating as it rolls over all the tiny rocks and pebbles on Professor Coletti’s drive. Wind whips the hair off my face. I ease my eyes open, just a crack, just to see what’s happening . . .
Giovanni twists the moped’s grip again, and the tiny bike lurches. A scream rises in my throat, but I bite it back, digging my knees into Giovanni’s sides. His T-shirt is a sweaty ball of fabric in my fists.
We go faster. Faster. My heart climbs into my chest. I feel . . .
Exhilarated. Like I’m flying.
Giovanni takes a turn, and we whip higher into the mountains. Craggy rocks rise on either side of us, looking nearly black in the darkness. The bike slows as the road angles upward, and then Giovanni twists the handlebar and a deeper roar thrums through the tiny vehicle. We shoot forward, faster, struggling against the incline. The moon hangs straight ahead, a silver orb bobbing in the sky, chasing away the stars. The valleys below are inky black and endless.
I squeal—out of delight, not fear—and curl closer to his body, pressing him between my legs. Vibrations shudder through me, making my bones and teeth clatter. I press my face into the back of his neck, relishing the sweaty, still-warm feel of his skin against my nose and cheek. He tilts his face toward mine, still keeping his eyes on the road ahead, and I feel the rough prick of the stubble on his cheek scrape against my lips.
I can’t quite put a finger on the feeling rising inside me. It’s not just happiness—it’s freedom. I feel freer than I have in forever—since before the institute and everything that happened. I want to throw my head back and shout into the deep, velvety Italian sky.
I whisper in Giovanni’s ear, “Let me drive?”
Giovanni doesn’t say anything for a long moment. I’m just starting to wonder if he heard my voice over the wind roaring in our ears when he half turns over his shoulder, shouting, “I do not know. This is not as easy as it looks.”
“Come on!” I yell back. “When am I going to get another chance to ride a real Italian moped?”
Giovanni shakes his head, but I catch the edge of a smile pulling at his lips, and I know I’ve talked him into it.
He steers us to the side of the road, where the dry grass has been trampled flat, and cuts the moped’s engine. The low buzz seems to hang in the air around us.
Giovanni swivels around in his seat, both bushy eyebrows rising so high they nearly disappear beneath the swoop of his dark hair. “You are sure you want to do this?”
I lean forward, planting a kiss on his nose. “Haven’t you heard? Us American girls are all crazy daredevils.”
“I have heard that,” Giovanni says, winking. He shakes the hair from his forehead and hops off the moped. I scoot forward, the vinyl seat warm where he was sitting.
He slides in behind me, covering my hands with his hands. His voice is in my ear. “You turn it on like this . . .”
He twists my right hand, and the moped roars beneath me. It sounds a lot louder from the driver’s seat. I bite into my lip, grinning like a fool as we roll forward.
“Careful,” Giovanni purrs, lips tickling my ear. “We go slow at first, okay? She is delicate.”
“Okay.” I nod. “Slow.”
With Giovanni guiding me, I coax the moped off the side of the road and onto the packed dirt, moving in spurts. It’s not nearly as easy as he made it look. Every time I move my leg or twist my wrist, the moped jerks, following commands I didn’t realize I’d given.
“You are too tense.” Giovanni moves his hands from my hands and rubs my shoulders. “Lighten up, maybe?”
Lighten up. Okay. I can do that. Taking a deep breath, I loosen my tiger-like grip on the handlebars. We roll forward.
“There!” Giovanni squeezes my shoulders. “You are driving like an Italian girl now.”
I ease my foot off the brake. We go faster. Giovanni explains how to turn the bike by leaning into it, and the wind blows my hair off my shoulders as we roll around a corner and start heading back down the mountain, the road a steady decline beneath us. Giovanni leans forward and hooks his chin over my shoulder. He moves his hands to my waist, his fingers grazing the inch of space between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans.
“You can go faster now,” he murmurs. “It feels like we are moving through mud.”
I nod. The fear I’d felt when I’d first slid into the driver’s seat vanishes as the road disappears beneath the bike’s front tire. I twist the handlebar, and the bike responds with a low growl. We curl around the tiny mountain roads, faster and faster, the wind screaming in our ears. No one is up here but us. It feels like our own private mountain pass. I can’t help feeling like the universe made this moment just for me, as a gift after all that time in the institute.
I twist and we go faster. Faster.
“Okay, bella,” Giovanni says, laughing. “I think we are going fast enough now, yes?”
I nod, but in my head I’m thinking: Not a chance. Every time the speedometer climbs a little higher, I feel a twist of triumph in my heart.
I’m fearless. I’m a warrior. I push faster.
“Bella . . .”
The wind steals the rest of his voice. He’s just being cautious, anyway, because he knows I haven’t ridden one of these things before. He was going way faster than this when he was driving. And I’ve got the hang of it by now. I know my limits.
And I need this. This is everything I’ve been missing since the institute. I no longer feel like that zombie girl on all the pills. I no longer feel like I’m not even really alive.
This. This is living. This is flying.
The turn up ahead is sharper than the others I’ve taken so far. I see it coming and inhale, preparing myself. I tilt the handlebars to the side and lean in . . .
But something’s wrong. I feel it right away. The balance of the bike is off. I’m tilting too far to the right, and the wheels feel unsteady and slick.
And then—
A horn blares, the noise cutting through all my careful concentration. I look up, and there’s a truck rumbling toward us. It’s so close. I can’t tell where its lane ends and mine begins.
I start to shake, and my tension spreads to the moped, making it tremble between my legs. We’re going down. We’re going to fall, and the truck is going to run us over. I open my mouth, wanting to scream—
Then Giovanni’s hands are curling over mine, and he’s pulling the handlebars of the moped back, stopping the skid before it starts. We jolt forward as the bike slows, too quickly, and for a moment a horrible image plays in my head:
The back wheel skidding out from behind us, sending us into a slide beneath the oncoming truck. Bones breaking . . . skulls crushing . . .
The truck’s horn blares a second time. I clench my eyes shut . . .
And then I hear the truck rumble away, horn still blaring. The danger has passed. I open my eyes again, whipping around to watch the truck vanish up the side of mountain. We didn’t crash. We’re alive.
“Turn back around!” Giovanni squeezes my hand, which is still wrapped around the bike’s handlebars. “Pull over.”
I return my focus to the moped. Hands still shaking, I pull the bike over to the side of the road and hit the brake.