“Name?” she asked me first.
“Harley. H-a-r-l-e-y.”
She nodded, and with tiny, precise handwriting, she inscribed my name on a piece of rice before tucking it in the necklace I’d chosen and filling it with some type of oil. She glued the top on before handing it back to me and telling me to be careful with it.
Liam grabbed it out of my hands, instructing me to turn around so he could put it on me. As I did, she asked him what name he wanted on his.
“The same, please. Harley.”
I stilled where I was scooping my hair off my neck, my next breath lodged in my throat, but Liam put the necklace around my neck and fastened it at the back without so much as a pause or look in my direction. When it was on, I let my hair fall again, peeking at him from over my shoulder.
Did he just get my name on a necklace?
On his necklace?
A few moments later, and Liam was handing me his new jewelry and turning around so I could put it on him. I had to step on my tiptoes, and even then struggled a bit, but I got it on, and then he looked down and framed the little tube with his finger and thumb.
“Cool,” he said simply. He pulled out his money before I had the chance, and then we were on our way again — but not before he pulled out the camera and snapped a picture of us with our new necklaces.
“You know, I haven’t paid for a single thing tonight,” I remarked as he put the camera away. “That’s not very fair, considering this was all my idea.”
“Well, I’m getting hungry. Care to buy our midnight snack?” He frowned. “Or after midnight. What time is it, anyway?”
I glanced around for a clock, and when I didn’t find anything, I paused mid-step to ask a table of girls sitting outside a bar.
“Excuse me, do you have the time?”
They looked at me confused, one arching a brow at the other before she shook her head. “No English.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “Of course. Um…” I tapped my wrist as if I had a watch on. “Time?” Then, I saw the smaller of the two had on a watch, and I pointed to it next.
“Oh!” she said as recognition hit, and then rather than trying to read it to me, she stuck her arm out for me to read on my own.
“Grazi,” I said, waving, and then I turned to Liam. “One thirty.”
“Ah, the night is young!”
I chuckled, tucking my hair behind my ear as we stood there in the middle of the street. I wanted so badly to ask him about his drawing. I wanted even more so to ask him why the hell he got my name on a necklace. Instead, I just waited for his next move.
“Do you hear that?”
I froze. “What?”
“The song.”
I strained to hear what was coming from down the street somewhere. “Is that… Mariah Carey?”
Liam started walking in the direction of the sound, and the longer we walked, the louder it got, until we were standing outside a dimly lit bar across from the Pitti Palace.
A set of street performers stood near the entrance, one with a guitar and the other with a cajón, and sure enough, they were playing a unique version of ‘Fantasy’ in very broken English.
Liam and I joined the small crowd around them, and I sang along and bopped my head to the rendition.
When they finished and asked if the crowd had any requests, Liam arched a brow at me. “Do you really want to mosh? I can see if they know any Pearl Jam.”
I barked out a laugh. “Well, since I can’t say no tonight, yes. But only if they know a Pearl Jam song.”
Liam dug in his pocket and fished out a two-thousand lira note, laying it in the guitar case at the performers’ feet before he asked them so quietly I couldn’t hear. They shook their heads apologetically and offered something else, to which Liam nodded, and as he walked back to me, they began playing ‘Tears in Heaven’ by Eric Clapton.
“Can’t exactly mosh to this,” he said when he made it back. “You got lucky.”
I chuckled, folding my arms over my chest as a cool breeze blew over us. We stood there for a long moment, just watching each other, and I could feel goodbye close enough to touch.
But I didn’t want to say goodnight.
Not yet.
“You haven’t held up on your end of the deal, you know. About doing something that terrifies you.”
Liam sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets as he looked down the street instead of at me. “And you haven’t forgotten, huh?”
“Nope.”
“Well, a deal’s a deal,” he said, and then he reached out a hand for mine. “Come on. We need provisions. Let’s see what we can find that’s still open.”