“Shall we?” Olivia says, shielding her eyes from the sun and gesturing up the stairs.

“Climb a thousand steps?” I ask her—which is my way of saying, no, we shan’t.

“Not a thousand. Only nine hundred and twenty-one!”

“Well, in that case, what are we waiting for?” I laugh. “Let’s do it.”

She smiles, turns, and starts climbing.

The first thirty or so steps are shallow, and I trail behind her, admiring her well-defined calf muscles. The stairs become steeper as we go, and within a couple of minutes, I feel like I’m doing the StairMaster on the highest level and my thighs and lungs start to burn.

Meanwhile, Olivia bounds effortlessly up the steps while still chatting. By the time we reach the top of the staircase, I’m drenched with sweat and panting.

As I slowly catch my breath, Olivia leads us to a spot of shade and pulls a water bottle out of the side pocket of her backpack, offering me the first drink. I take a few swallows, then hand it back to her.

“You’re in unbelievable shape,” I say.

“Thanks. You’re pretty fit yourself.” She smiles.

I smile back at her, feeling grateful that I recently added more cardio to my yoga-heavy exercise regimen, even though my effort was more about looking good in my wedding dress than about my health.

We walk toward the heart of Anacapri, stopping when we get to a piazza with a gorgeous old church called the Chapel San Michele. The architecture is beautiful, and we take a quick peek into the nave, admiring the exquisite ceramic floor. In the center is an angel with a flaming sword and what appears to be Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

Olivia points to a serpent wrapped around the trunk of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and says, “Yikes. I guess that’s the devil.”

“God, I hate snakes,” I say.

“Yeah. This place kind of gives me the creeps,” she says, backing her way toward the door.

I follow her outside, and we take a moment to study a map of Capri.

“What do you say we hike the Sentiero dei Fortini?”

“What’s that?” I ask, more than a little worried about Olivia’s notion of a “hike.”

“It means the Path of the Forts. It’s a trail along the coast,” she says.

“How hard is it?…I mean—for someone who isn’t a professional athlete?”

“It doesn’t look difficult at all. And it’s short,” she says. “Looks like three miles from start to finish, but we can pick up the trail somewhere in the middle.”

I nod, knowing that distances can be deceiving when you’re talking about rough terrain. As I make a quick search on my phone, a boldface warning jumps out at me: This is a rigorous hike with many twists, turns, and sheer drops to the sea.

Once again, I tell myself I can do it—and that I’m a lot tougher than I thought.

“Sure,” I say. “Sounds fun.”

—

A few minutes later, we board a bus in downtown Anacapri, headed toward the coast. I check my phone, surprised but also relieved that I’ve yet to hear from Lainey or Tyson. After a short ride, we hop off, making our way down to one of four forts. We peruse the placards, learning that they were originally built to defend Anacapri from the Saracen pirates and were later occupied by the British and French. We take a few minutes to explore, then proceed along the wooded trail. Over the next hour, we pass the three other forts, while taking in gorgeous views of the coastline, cliffs, and various little coves.

It’s all very pleasant until the trail suddenly narrows, quickly gaining elevation. The result is steep drop-offs and dizzying views to the water below. Even worse, there are no guardrails at this point. I try not to look down, my stomach twisting in knots.

“Hold on one second,” I call out to Olivia, my voice as shaky as my knees.

She turns and says, “Uh-oh. Are you afraid of heights?”

I nod, taking a deep breath but otherwise feeling frozen.

“Hold on. Stay there,” she says.

She retraces her steps and extends her arm, reaching for my hand. As Olivia’s fingers wrap firmly around mine and she uses her body to shield me from the view, the gesture feels oddly chivalrous. Can chivalry be platonic? I wonder. I decide that it can—and in this instance it is.

Still, as she grips my hand more tightly, pausing every few seconds to ask if I’m okay, I feel flustered and confused. Not about Olivia’s intentions—but about my own feelings. It’s almost as if I have a crush on her. I tell myself that’s impossible. I’m straight, and I’ve never been attracted to a woman. Any feeling I have about Olivia holding my hand surely stems from friendship, security, and the warmth of human touch—no different than how I felt when Lainey held my hand on the way to dinner the other night. But somehow, it is different, and it suddenly crosses my mind that maybe Lainey’s belief in a sexuality continuum is right—and that maybe I’m not where I thought I was on that spectrum. It’s a scary but exhilarating thought that feels amplified by my fear of heights.

A few seconds later, the sheer drop-off disappears and the trail widens. I breathe a sigh of relief, but still feel disappointed as Olivia finally relinquishes my hand. We stop to lean on a split-rail fence doubling as a guardrail and admire the most incredible view below.

The sun is a bright ball of fire, lowering toward the horizon, turning the sky and water a thousand shades of pink and orange. A handsome red-striped lighthouse looms over the rocky beach below.

“Damn. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sky this gorgeous,” Olivia says in her raspy voice.

“Me either,” I say. “It looks like a watercolor painting.”

“A painting that changes every second.”

We enjoy the view for a few more minutes before I start to worry about Lainey. Surely she and Tyson are wondering where I am. I pull my phone out, checking my texts. Olivia must know what I’m doing because she says, “Have you heard from her?”

I exhale, then say, “She just texted.”

“What did she say?”

I read Lainey’s text aloud: Hey! Hope you’ve had a nice afternoon! I assume you’re with Archie?? How’s it going? What’s your dinner plan? Do you want to meet up with Tyson and me or are you guys doing your own thing? We are flexible and cool either way. Hope you’re having fun!

Olivia bites her lip, staring at me.

“What should I tell her? Should we head back now?” I ask her.

“I guess we should,” she says, looking a little reluctant. “But if we go now, we’ll miss the sunset.”

“Good point,” I say.

I hesitate, then text Lainey back, avoiding any mention of Archie. Went for a hike. You would have hated it. About to watch the sunset—so y’all should go to dinner without me. Let me know where you’ll be! XX

—

As the sun slips lower in the sky, Olivia and I end up at a little beach bar called Maliblù. A violinist is serenading the crowd. His sound is unique to me—more pop than classical—but Olivia seems to know all about the genre.

“You’ve heard of Lindsey Stirling, right?” she asks, as we sit shoulder to shoulder with a view of the water.