So Francesco and I headed for the club at a slow pace, chatting, when we heard voices speaking English coming from the park. The park wasn’t the safest place to be in the middle of the night; junkies went there to get their fix and left all kinds of shit around. Not to mention that a pervert sometimes showed up around that area and you wouldn’t want to be in a dark place full of trees with him. I really hoped the people in there were okay as an insidious doubt started crawling through my mind.
Please, don’t be James.
And, of course, there he was.
He was sitting on a bench with the arm of my idiot brother around his neck, his cheeks flushed and his relaxed, beautiful smile illuminating his face. I should have been relieved that he was okay, and I was, initially, for about five seconds. Then my stomach decided to set itself on fire and I was barely holding back from snapping at Marco to keep his fucking hands in their rightful place.
Francesco said some kind of joke to the three of them –it must have been Jennifer who dragged James out and I didn’t know whether to respect or hate her for that– and when James turned his face to me he was…
My stomach dropped and I felt blood pounding furiously in my temples. “You’ve been drinking,” I said in Italian, as calmly as I could, which was probably not too calm.
“Rob,” Marco tried to say, but I stopped him.
“Shut. Up.” I warned him. “Did you take something?”
“What?” Jennifer said, as if she couldn’t believe I asked.
“Weed, coke, any kind of pill?”
Francesco cleared his throat behind me. “Rob, you’re overreacting.”
“Am I? Because last time I checked, these idiots were sitting in a park, drunk, at 3 a.m., with no intention of going home or calling anyone to pick them up. They might as well be fucking high.”
Marco scoffed. “Is this all the trust you have in me?”
“Don’t talk to me about trust right now, Marco!” I shouted. “Get up and let’s get the hell out of here.” They stood silently, looking at the ground. I let my eyes focus on James, who was biting his lip again. There was no need to know Italian to understand that I had been scolding them. And I felt like shit.
“Fra,” I turned around. “Can you walk Jenn and Marco home?”
Francesco shot me a glare that felt a lot like a punch in the face and crossed his arms over his chest. “Since you’re all going in the same direction, it makes much more sense if I just walk Jenn home and you take the other two.”
Of course it made sense, if it wasn’t that I was being a complete idiot and I just needed to speak with James alone. “James,” I extended my hand to him. “Walk with me for a while?”
He looked like that was the last thing he was expecting me to say. He hesitantly took my hand and I almost gasped at the contact. I had gone two days without touching him and apparently it was too fucking long. I tightened my fingers around his and we walked away.
Somewhere behind us, I heard Jennifer whistle.
JAMES
I had no idea what the hell was going on. Roberto held my hand and led the way through the narrow streets of the town, illuminated by the warm light of the streetlamps. When he noticed some people chatting in front of a nearby house, Rob broke into a run, pulling me along. Despite my confusion, I was glad he never let go of my hand.
We were at the seafront when he finally stopped to let me catch breath. My chest tightened as I opened my mouth to let in as much air as I could. I was sweating and starting to feel dizzy.
Roberto took a few steps toward a public drinking fountain and said, “Come here.”
He made me drink some fresh water, wet his hand and passed it on my forehead and neck, which made me feel immediately better. I leaned into his touch and when he removed his hand from the nape of my neck a long, suffering whine escaped my lips.
His expression was hard, with his mouth pursed into a straight line and his eyes focused in a cold stare.
“Now what?” I said in a broken whisper. Somewhere deep inside me, a fire started burning and I clenched my fists, preparing myself for the worst.
“You got drunk and put yourself in danger,” he said dryly.
“No, I didn’t,” I argued, my voice slightly raised. Why were things so weird between us? Why was I unable to make it better? I was so frustrated that I wanted to rip out my own hair.
“What if somebody drugged you, or touched you, or–”
“Jesus Christ!” I screamed. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I recall someone saying to me that I owed it to myself to, in quotes, ‘party like crazy and have fun.’”
“Not like this!”
“Then like what?!”
“I wanted you to do these things with me!”
My eyes widened to the point they almost hurt. First he rejected me, and now he had the absurd audacity to be jealous? I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him closer. “I don’t owe you anything, and you know it!”
His face was inches from mine. We were staring at each other, our breath mixing and eyes lingering on every little detail of our faces, when something in his expression shifted. “You’re right, you don’t,” he whispered as he put his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed me away. “I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat, turned around and walked away from me. “Let’s go home,” he said.
As I stood behind him, looking at his back as he walked away, a storm raged inside my brain. My body was starved for contact, still itching in all the places his hands had been: my shoulders, my face, the nape of my neck. My mind was foggy and confused, and I wished, wanted and craved to do something, anything, to make that agony go away.
So I laughed. I laughed at my misery, at how ridiculous I was, at how crazy I had been to want someone like him, who had the world at his feet and didn’t give a shit. I laughed the fakest laughter I could pull off, and beyond that. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes, until my stomach clenched, and I was about to throw up. He turned to me, and I don’t know what I saw in his eyes, but they were beautiful and shining, and I wanted to die.
I screamed, “Why do you do this to me? Why the hot and cold treatment?”
Roberto’s arms dropped to his sides, and in a moment, he completely lost his cool and he seemed as small and pathetic as me. He raised his shoulders and said, “Fuck, James, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’m not perfect.” He looked at the ground, made a half-smile and said, “I’m a klutz when it comes to you. I want you, and I want to stop wanting you, and I want to stop worrying about stopping wanting you.”
His words rested heavy on my chest. I didn’t know if I could allow myself to be happy or if that made me just more miserable. “Are you never going to look at me again?” I asked, and he walked toward me. “Do I have to get wasted from now on to get you to look at me?”
“You wouldn’t do that for attention.”
I smiled, baffled that he knew that about me. “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t. Tonight, it wasn’t about you. It’s just that… I’m a klutz too, and not only when it comes to you.” Roberto was now standing in front of me, his eyes fixed on mine. Everything around us felt so hot, and his gaze was so intense it burned in my stomach, in my chest, all the way up to the tips of my hair, making my toes tingle, consuming me from the inside. What were we doing? Stuck playing a game of gay chicken when the solution to all our problems was so obvious.