Page 17 of My Super Sexy Spy
“Hey,” Ted said when we spotted our first gondola.
“Nope,” I shot him down quickly.
“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please, nobody sees a gondola and doesn’t think, hey I want to ride in that thing. But it’s cheesy and touristy and probably a total rip off. And it’s supposed to this big, romantic gesture and you and I have already determined we’re not romantic.”
“Oh. Right,” he snorted. “Forgot about your thing with the douchebag. Wouldn’t want to steal his thunder by popping your gondola cherry. Because we’ve already got a lot of cherry popping going on.”
This time my look was more of a glare than an eye roll. “Just look at the map and tell us where we’re going.”
“Yeah, this map is not really conducive for that,” he said, his sarcasm obvious. “Okay, I think we have to go down that street.”
I looked at where he was pointing. A dark narrow alley. “That’s not a street. I don’t even know if we can fit down there.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the only way to get to the next piazza,” Ted said. Then he wiggled his eyebrows. “You’re not scared, are you?”
It was broad daylight and there were a hundred other tourists around us, all following maps or I should say all struggling to follow maps. It’s like we were dropped into the middle of a maze and all of us were trying to make our way out.
I gave Ted the finger and led the way down the alley. I was right that it wasn’t wide enough to fit two people.
I was also convinced it was getting narrower and narrower the farther we walked, and we were going to have to turn sideways to keep going. But then, sure enough, it spit us out into another large, open square with café tables at every corner.
“This city,” I muttered. Then I remembered I was supposed to be taking pictures of it. I lifted my phone and snapped a few. Then I turned the phone on me and took a selfie.
Ugh. This was so embarrassing. But still, I smiled for the camera.
“I know, right?” Ted said, coming out of the alley behind me. “It’s kind of cool, though. Almost like a game. Come on, the church is over there.”
I followed him across the piazza and enjoyed the views. The church was old and lovely. It was sobering to think how long this building had been here, how much it had seen. And how they had created this much beauty without any of the modern tools. Wild. I could spend hours admiring the architecture alone.
There was a mural along one of the vestibule walls, faded but still visible, of Mary holding her dead son in her arms. The cross in the background behind them. Whoever had constructed it was an incredible artist.
“Do you believe?” Ted asked me.
“Do I believe in what?”
“You know. God, Jesus, the whole thing.”
I shrugged. “I don’t really think about it too much. It’s not like I had any religion growing up. But there’s a lot of fucked up shit in the world. If God was this great, all-powerful dude, why would he let all of that happen?”
“Ah. Spoken like a person who has had fucked up shit happen to them in the past.”
I didn’t comment. My past wasn’t something I talked about. A. because it sucked and B. because I didn’t want people thinking I was pathetic. Because the second you shared with someone that you’d spent time on the streets, they immediately looked at you like you were different.
Like there was an automatic assumption I turned tricks to eat. Or I pandered for drug money.
I did neither of those things. Which, of course, had left me with only one option.
I stole.
But I didn’t do that now. I’d made myself into a different person and I wasn’t going back to that life, ever. This trip was about making another change. I’d trusted no one and made my world as small and safe as possible. Now it was time to open a door and start exploring the other side of normal. With adventure and dangerous-looking guys.
None of which I was prepared to share with Ted.
“I’ll tell you what I do believe in,” I said. “Art. The mural is stunning.”
“It is. Is that what you do for a living? Something art related?”
