Page 56 of Tour Wars
For a moment, he was so disoriented that he didn’t know what she meant until he checked the date on his phone. The anniversary of his dad’s death was in two days. He’d been so focused on the tour—and on Emilia—that he’d pushed it out of his mind.
Maybe this year, the grief wouldn’t hit him as hard, but he didn’t want to make assumptions. He couldn’t risk losing his shit the way he had when he was eighteen, away at college for the first time. He’d been hit by a painful wave of misery that had completely caught him off guard. As a result, he’d spent hours on the phone with Romily until she’d talked him down from his agony.
The only upside of that incident was that it had led to a new tradition. Every year, on the date of their dad’s death, they picked one of his favorite movies and did a watch-along.
TJ: I’m ok right now but the actual day might be hard. Are we still on for our annual movie night? Any preferences?
Last year, he’d chosen the old-school classicSpartacus, but she wasn’t as wild about gladiator movies as he was.
A text bubble appeared, then disappeared. He stared at the screen, wondering if she was torn over which movie to pick, until her reply appeared.
Romily: I can’t do it because I’ll be stuck at a symposium for work. Sorry.
TJ: No worries. I can handle it.
Could he handle it? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want lay a guilt trip on her. He’d just have to deal with it on his own.
He closed his eyes, hoping to fall back to sleep, but it was no use. Next to him, Emilia was dozing again, so he eased the binder off her lap. For the next hour, he brushed up on his facts about Bari, a large port city located on the Adriatic Sea.
Once their bus arrived in Bari, he and Emilia dealt with check-in, got everyone’s luggage sorted, and dropped off their own bags. They returned to the lobby to ask the clerk about the possibility of a sing-along. To TJ’s relief, the woman told them the hotel bar contained a baby grand piano. Not only that, but it was going unused since the lounge singer who usually entertained the guests was on vacation. After the clerk gave them the go-ahead to host a piano night, she directed the two of them to the hotel’s office center, where they could make copies.
Upon opening the door, Emilia burst out laughing. “Not exactly what I’d call a high-tech business hub.”
On one side of the room, an ancient-looking desktop computer and an inkjet printer rested on a card table. Beside it was a folding chair and a rolling cart filled with office supplies; a battered copy machine took up most of another wall.
“It’s not great, but it’s better than looking for a place in town to make copies,” he said. “We need to pick twenty songs. I got a lot of requests but eliminated the ones I didn’t know, so I narrowed it down to thirty.”
She plopped onto the folding chair and booted up the computer. “This is giving me flashbacks to freshman year when I went through this annoying phase where I wanted to be a DJ. Once we pick the songs, I’ll look up the lyrics and print them out. We can make booklets for everyone on the tour, plus a few extras, in case some randos decide to join us.”
He grinned at her. “You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”
She rolled her eyes as if to remind him she was still Em, despite her uncharacteristic display of enthusiasm. “The sing-along is a nice gesture, and it allows you to show off your piano skills. It doesn’t mean I’m going soft.”
The thing was—shewassoftening up. Compared to her attitude back in August, when they’d been stuck doing weekend tours of Pompeii together, she’d opened up a lot. Not just to him but to the guests in their tour group. This Emilia seemed intent on making people happy.
He passed her the notebook where he’d written the requests. “Here’s the short list. Any suggestions on what I should cut?”
She scanned it, grabbed a pen from the rolling cart, and crossed out one of the songs. “No ‘American Pie.’ It’s fifteen minutes long.”
“It’s only eight and a half, and everyone loves it.”
“No, everyone thinks they love it until they get to the fifth verse, and then they just want it to be over.”
“Fair enough. Anything else that needs to go?”
“I’d limit the Elton John numbers to two. Same with the Beatles. Let’s mix the ballads with the up-tempo songs to keep things lively.”
He nodded, pleased she was taking this so seriously. “I’ll let you arrange the order of the songs, DJ Flores. Any other suggestions?”
She regarded the list with intense concentration, her brow furrowed. “Why isn’t ‘Piano Man’ here? You killed it the other night.”
“Since I already played it, I figured people wouldn’t want to hear it again.”
“But not all our guests were there. You should include it, especially since I didn’t get to hear it all the way through.” Her lips quirked up in an affectionate smile. “Youarethe piano man, TJ.”
“Okay.” He loved that she’d given him that nickname. It made him feel special. Not just hard-core archaeologist TJ or Harvard-grad TJ, but a guy who could entertain people in a way that had nothing to do with his degree or his background. In a way that had clearly made a strong impression on Emilia.
Once they narrowed down the list, she looked up all the lyrics, printed out the pages, and made forty song booklets. She even created a cover featuring a photo of a piano superimposed over a silhouette of Italy. She was so excited about it that it took all of TJ’s willpower not to use their precious time alone to take her in his arms and kiss her until she was breathless.
