“Must be American,” Alberto said. I punched him in the arm.

“Who goes out of their way to catch a falling object and then can’t even say ‘you’re welcome’?” I asked absent-mindedly as I stared after the retreating body that rivaled Alberto’s. No, scratch that. It totally beat out Alberto’s even on his best day.

“What an ass,” Alberto muttered.

“Rude, yes, but I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“No, I mean what an ass that man has.” He let out a low whistle.

I laughed and admired the view as well. “I can agree with that.”

“He’s going to Alonzo’s. Lucky us.”

Alberto held out his arm, I looped mine into it, and we sauntered toward the club, the heels of my boots clacking on the cobblestones. Discotheque music pounded from inside, drowning out the noise of my steps and even the fountain as we crossed the center of the plaza. Bruno waited for us outside. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and took my other arm. We made a scene as the three of us squeezed through the door, and then the party swallowed us whole.

We drank and danced and drank some more. Since I couldn’t take it on the plane tomorrow, I opened the bottle of wine my fellow dancers had given me, took a swig and passed it around. It never found its way back to me. Almost all of the fifteen dancers and five crewmembers had come, including Bruno and Alberto, who was also the director.

I found this funny, in a drunken kind of way. Up until tonight, Alberto and Bruno had pretty much been the only ones to provide any kind of friendship. The rest of the dance company had grown from hating me to barely tolerating me to finally accepting me, on a temporary basis, anyway. I was American, I didn’t speak Italian well enough, I was too short, too round, too pretty but not pretty enough, and definitely didn’t dance at their level. In other words, I wasn’t one of them. Tonight, however, they acted as though they might actually miss me.

Dancing with them at the disco was much different than our dances on stage. Maybe this difference was what had finally brought them all around to me in the last week. Throughout the tour, we’d traveled every night, crossing the countryside to get to the next town in the wee hours of morning, grabbed some sleep, performed, then boarded the train again. But for this leg, this village had been our home base, centrally located between the six towns we’d visited this week. We’d taken bus trips to the dance theaters for our performances, returning each night early enough to let loose for a little while at Alonzo’s. And that meant dancing how we wanted to, and I was much better at modern freestyle than the structured ballroom numbers Alberto had us doing on stage. The other dancers finally saw how I could move.

“Our little Dirty Dancer,” Alberto teased me as he moved around me and another girl on the dance floor. I twisted and swayed, my hips writhing to the beat, and I became lost in the music and the way it slid over me like a silken gown. Alberto pressed against my back and ground his pelvis against my butt.

“Like you should talk,” I murmured without pulling away.

“Just making you look sexy and desirable, cara mia.”

I looked over my shoulder at him for meaning. His eyes glanced to our right, to a table by the window. The man from the plaza sat by himself, and his gaze was locked on us. His eyes shifted away as soon as he caught me catching him.

“Me or you?” I asked.

“Trust me—he’s not my type. And I’m definitely not his. He’s straighter than a nun’s ruler and can’t take his eyes off you.”

On its own volition, my gaze returned to the guy who could have anyone in this bar, but sat alone. He stared out the window now. Alberto had to be mistaken. He was too pretty to be straight. And even if, by the smallest chance, he was into girls, it didn’t matter. The intriguing thought of a one-night-stand on my last night here made my stomach do an excited little flip, but I shut the thought down immediately. Thinking like that would get me in trouble, as it always did.

Throughout the night, however, he proved Alberto right. Every now and then I’d feel the burn of someone watching me, and when I turned, his eyes would flit away. The one time they didn’t, I began to make my way to his table to ask him to join us, but he gave a slight shake of his head and turned to gaze out the window. I hadn’t caught his eye again the rest of the night. Probably for the better. The way my body reacted to him meant not only trouble, but Trouble with a capital T.

“I believe the sun rises soon,” Alberto said some time later when the bar had essentially cleared out. We sat in a booth, his arms spread out on the seatback across from me, over Bruno’s shoulders. Bruno’s head lolled a little to the side as he obviously fought the desire to pass out. “You finally succeeded in closing the bar down, Leni.”

“You worked my ass off, Alberto. I deserved one night to party.”

“You forget about Rieti and Pizzoli?” he asked, referring to the couple of Saturday nights we partied in our hotel. “And last week, right here at Alonzo’s?”

I giggled. “Okay, okay. But still. My last night here, and I don’t want it to end.”

“Ah, cara mia, it’ll always be here,” he pointed to my forehead, “and here.” He pointed to my heart.

“Thank you, Alberto,” I said solemnly, “for taking the chance with me.”

“No, thank you, Leni. You did me a favor.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing this wasn’t exactly true. He could have found a much more qualified replacement if he hadn’t been pressured into taking me. I picked up my martini glass and raised it in a sloppy toast—half my drink sloshed over my hand.

“To you, Alberto, for making my dream come true. And to Uncle Theo.”

“Who?” he asked as he clinked his glass against mine, more sticky liquid spilling over my hand.

“Uncle Theo, of course. The one who made you bring me on.”

Alberto’s brow wrinkled, as if he’d never heard of the man.

“My great-uncle. Your father’s best friend from way back. He talked you in to giving me this chance, remember? Probably even paid you to do it.” I tried to remind him of how he couldn’t stop talking about Theo when I’d first arrived, how much he admired him and would do anything for the man, but Alberto shook his head. I laughed as I stood on unsteady legs. “Okay. I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

“And you have a train to catch in a few hours.” He stood and pulled Bruno out of the booth. With one arm holding Bruno up, he gathered me into a hug. “Take care, Leni. It has been a true pleasure.”

“You, too, Alberto. And I mean it. Thank you for everything. I’ll tell Uncle Theo you were an outstanding host and a terrific boss.”

He gave me a squeeze and then let me go to rub his jaw. “And don’t forget sexy. Is this Uncle Theo guy single?”

I fought a shudder. I didn’t want to think that way about eighty-three-year-old Uncle Theo. How could Alberto even say such a thing?

“Go,” I said, shoving on his shoulder and making him stumble. For a moment, I thought he and Bruno were both going down, but they caught themselves. We all cracked up with inebriated laughter. “You need to get to bed before you forget me or even Bruno.”

I watched as they left with more tears stinging my eyes.

“Ah, finally, I can close up,” Alonzo said from behind the bar as I grabbed my duffle bag.

I hadn’t realized everyone else had left. My eyes automatically glanced over at the table by the window. Of course, the guy was gone. But sitting on his table was my wine bottle with a single white rose in it, like the ones the audience had tossed at me earlier. I said goodbye to Alonzo and grabbed the bottle on my way out.

Back in my room at the little inn, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, the stunning face with the enrapturing blue eyes wavered behind my eyelids. After updating Facebook with tonight’s pictures and seeing if Mira had put up a rare status update—no, she hadn’t—I sat in my bed and stared at the rose in the bottle perched on the windowsill. Of the whole time I’d been in Italy, even the whole week I’d been in this village, why did he show up on my last night? Why not sooner, when we might have had a chance to meet, to get to know each other? He’d been the only person to truly catch my eye and I his.