When in Rome, do as the Romans do ─ and apparently, all the Romans of the modern age did was lounge around under the golden sun and drink wine coolers that their ancestors would have considered worthy of a gladiatorial death.

Jason didn't mind. This was a Rome he could get behind.

He'd seen The Colosseum, St. Peter's Basilica, the Pantheon. He'd dragged you to the Trevi Fountain and you'd held hands through the Vatican Museums. He read Dante's Inferno on Fontane Bianche while you grinned at him from the waves lapping against the sand. Essentially, he'd seen Elysium.

If you were to ask him what his favourite part of the trip was, he would shoot out a dozen facts about the Pantheon. Really, though, it was all of this ─ the languid afternoons on the beach, the midsummer nights on your aunt's patio with a bottle of wine and the black olives you liked so much. Right now, it was the evening snack run to the cart a few blocks from where you were staying to satisfy a craving.

The man who had sold you Italian ices when you were a child in Naples had retired, apparently, and left the business to his son (who seemed equally passionate about the business). You insisted it tasted the same as the two of you wandered the piazza with paper cups of syrup-soaked ice gratings.

He loved this. He loved you.

You stopped him as the two of you were crossing a small bridge, tugging him to the other end of the worn wooden railings. The sun hung low in the sky, on the verge of dipping towards the horizon, and the sky was nearly the shade of orange paint chipping off the railings. It was cheesy. It was perfect.

"A sunset? What, is Nancy Meyers and her possé of cameramen about to give us instructions to kiss?" His tone, despite his words, matched the boyish grin on his face. "'Cause, just saying, I don't think we could say no to the Parent Trap lady."