The Summer of the Selfless - 10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Daniele slipped out of bed to use the bathroom while Giacomo was still sleeping. By the time other boy sat up in bed, rubbing his dark eyes, Daniele already had his shorts on and was squirming into his blue tie-dye t-shirt.

“Buongiorno,” Giacomo mumbled with a sleepy smile. “Why are you so keen this morning?”

“I didn’t sleep well,” Daniele replied, which was true enough. “I got tired of lying in bed, that’s all.”

Without further ado, he flung open the shutters on the nearest window, causing the other boy to shrink back from the onslaught of bright sunlight.

“Slow down, Dani!” Giacomo protested plaintively. “I’ve still got sleep in my eyes…”

“Sorry,” Daniele sighed.

He sank down onto his side of the bed and glanced miserably over his shoulder as the other boy clambered out and stretched luxuriously. He looked just as perfect as ever… so why did the sight of him make him feel so sad?

Could it be that he’d made his mind up already…?

“I’m just going to drain the lizard,” Giacomo declared, and he disappeared to the bathroom. Daniele watched him go, staring unhappily at the space where the other boy had just been.

What have I been doing?

He ran the back of a hand across his eyes to wipe away a couple of tears that had formed there, then dragged himself to his feet to open the other window.

* * *

The mood was weird over breakfast. Daniele felt lost in his own world, picking at one of Patrizia’s wonky pastries without much enthusiasm. He was dimly aware of his parents talking, and Giacomo casting him uncertain glances when he thought he wasn’t looking.

When they had finished eating and brushed their teeth, Daniele mumbled a few words to his friend about walking to the olive grove. Giacomo agreed readily enough, and they donned their trainers and set out together.

The climb up the gently sloping road seemed longer than usual. Daniele walked with his hands in his pockets and his chin tucked low, immune, for once, to the scraping of the cicadas among the terraces below and the screeching of the passing swifts. Giacomo walked by his side, watching him anxiously but saying little. He could clearly tell that something was wrong, but he held his peace. Perhaps, Daniele wondered, he already had some intuition of what was coming? Maybe he had decided that the best thing to do was to say nothing until Daniele had set out his stall.

They made the walk through San Cosma in unhappy quiet, trailing along the dusty, sun-drenched concrete path at the foot of the cliff until they reached the dappled shade of the olive grove. They clambered up off the path, sitting down together under a gnarled old tree that was a particular favourite of theirs.

Finally, Giacomo broke the silence.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” he said. “You haven’t been right since you came back from seeing Marco.”

Numbly, Daniele nodded. He didn’t know where to begin.

Very quietly, Giacomo went on, “are you… breaking up with me?”

He knows…! But how does he know?

Daniele gave him a pained look. “I don’t want to,” he said. “The last couple of days have been weird and scary and amazing all at once. But…”

He turned away again, screwing his face up miserably. How could he even try to explain?

“Is it… Marco?” Giacomo asked, with the trace of a catch in his voice. “Do you like him more than me?”

“What?” Daniele asked, glancing back at him in confusion. “No! It’s just, I… he… said some things that made me think.”

Giacomo spread his arms wide in desperate confusion. “Think what? Talk to me, Dani!”

Daniele took a deep breath to steady himself. “I’m not sure any of this is real.”

Giacomo shook his head. “We’ve been through this already!” he exclaimed. He clapped a fist to his heart. “I love you! I mean… what more can I do to show it?”

“You say that,” Daniele mumbled, “but…”

Giacomo’s clenched fist fell loosely to the dirt.

“Don’t you trust me…?” he said quietly, his dark eyes wide and dismayed.

Daniele couldn’t bring himself to answer him. He looked away again, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face in them.

“But…” Giacomo murmured, “I crossed the line for you, in front of everyone. I risked everything.”

Daniele drew a ragged breath. “I’m sorry!”

There was a moment’s miserable silence. Daniele forced himself to look up and saw the other boy running his hands roughly through his black hair, reducing his usually immaculate style to chaos. Giacomo glanced back at him with injured eyes.

“I think I’ll sleep at home tonight,” he said. “Mamma’s coming back tomorrow.”

Daniele nodded. “Yeah,” he sighed, “okay.” He made as if to get up. “Should we…?”

“Yeah, I’ll come and collect my things.” The dark-eyed boy looked away. “I’ll… catch up with you. I just need a few minutes.”

To Daniele, in that moment, all Giacomo’s easy confidence and artifice was finally stripped away, and he saw his friend for who he must have been all along: an ordinary, thirteen-year-old boy, probably just as lost in the world as he was, with his once-neat black hair pulled into unruly tufts and a charming but deeply unhappy face that looked like it was about to cry.

He recalled the warning Claudia had given Giacomo during the phone call on the beach.

‘Don’t go breaking my Dani’s heart, okay?’

The irony…

Daniele couldn’t bear to watch. He turned and walked away, leaving his friend behind him.

* * *

Once Giacomo had left for home, with his rucksack dangling wretchedly from one shoulder, Daniele lingered in his empty house for a while, feeling desperately conflicted.

If Marco was right to question Giacomo’s intentions? Then they were better off broken up, but…

There had been nothing unreal about Giacomo’s reaction to his decision. Daniele couldn’t escape the feeling that he had made a terrible mistake.

Worse, though, was the thought that he might have lost his best friend for good, this time. There could be no taking back the things he had said. And once you’d admitted to someone that you didn’t trust them… who would still want to be friends after that?

There was a small object lying forgotten at the back corner of his bedside table. He examined it, and an old conversation, from before their world had changed, seemed to echo in his head.

“It’s a friendship stone.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I know you will. You always take care of things that matter.”

As Daniele pictured passing the rest of the long summer holidays without Giacomo, and then forging ahead into high school without his friendship to lean on, the true enormity of what he had just done hit him and he felt a great tide of unhappiness well up within him. He threw himself onto his still unmade bed and pounded his pillow with an angry yell, then lay there for a while, crying quietly to himself. There was nobody else there to comfort him, and soon his light blue bed sheet was spattered with dark splashes.

I guess this is why they say love ruins friendships.

He turned over in his bed. As he did so, he caught a hint of a familiar scent: Giacomo’s deodorant, which must have made its way into the bed sheets during their time together. With fresh tears, he scrambled out of bed and began to strip the covers. He couldn’t sleep for a moment longer with the smell of the dark-eyed boy all around him.

He chucked the sheets into the laundry basket in the hall, then dug out some fresh ones and began to re-make the bed. The familiar task was soothing, but… he needed more. He needed people.

* * *

A while later, Daniele knocked on the old, brown-painted front door of Gianni, Angelo and Marco’s house in the Toro. His feet had brought him here in search of company; as he approached the courtyard, he had kept his head down, trying not to look at the upstairs windows of Giacomo’s apartment across the street.

The door cracked open a few moments later to reveal Angelo, who, judging by his comfortable clothing, had taken the morning off from his carpentry work. He began to smile in greeting but, when he got a proper look at Daniele’s tear-stained face, the smile faded away.

“Dani?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

Daniele looked down miserably. With his concerned dark eyes and neatly spiked black hair, the young man had suddenly reminded him intensely of Giacomo.

“Is… Marco home?” he mumbled.

“Of course… yes, come on in,” Angelo said, taking Daniele by the shoulder and guiding him gently across the threshold.

Daniele stepped into the welcoming gloom of the kitchen, where Alfredo the dog slumbered in his bed under the stairs.

“Take a seat,” Angelo said gently, gesturing at the old wooden dining table. “I’ll fetch you a drink.”

Daniele trailed across the room and sat down at the table, placing his back to the windows so he could talk to the young man.

“Where’s Gianni?” he asked, for the sake of making conversation.

“At work,” Angelo replied, hitching a Lemon Soda out of the fridge, “so it’s just the two of us today.”

Daniele jumped as, with a ‘prrt’, a furry grey shape sprang up onto the table and fixed him with a green-eyed stare, demanding attention. Daniele couldn’t help smiling slightly.

“Ciao, Ennio,” he said, reaching out to stroke the cat and rub its ears. The cat leaned into his hand, purring vigorously.

“Off the table, Ennio,” Angelo said, shoving the cat gently but unceremoniously back down onto the floor. Ennio stalked off and resumed his usual perch on the old church pew below the windows, nonchalantly washing his paws.

Angelo popped the ring pull and passed the can to Daniele, who thanked him and took a grateful sip.

“Dani…?” came a quiet voice.

Marco had appeared on the stairs, drawn, presumably, by the sound of their voices. His cool grey eyes looked a little anxious, as if he had been reflecting on his outburst of the night before and was unsure how he would be received.

“Ciao, Marco,” Daniele mumbled.

Frowning, Marco slipped past Daniele and sat down in the chair next to him.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

As Daniele looked unhappily at the smaller boy, wondering where to begin, he was dimly aware of Angelo lowering himself into the chair opposite.

“It’s over with Giaco,” Daniele replied. “I… don’t know if we’re even friends anymore.”

“Over?” Angelo repeated, drawing Daniele’s attention for a moment. “I didn’t even know you two were together.” He scratched his head. “How did I miss that?”

Daniele shrugged. “It was… kinda new.”

His eyes returned to Marco, who had gone very quiet and seemed to be inspecting his fingernails.

“You mean… I broke you up?” the mousy-haired boy mumbled.

Marco gave him a troubled glance, and Daniele suspected he knew where the other boy’s thoughts were heading.

Don’t, Marco… I know this wasn’t all some kind of master plan…

Angelo was looking at his foster son with a concerned frown.

“What did you do, Marco?” he asked. Although his tone was gentle, it demanded an answer.

Marco, however, seemed to have withdrawn into himself. Glancing at his pinched, unhappy face, Daniele decided to spare him the shame of having to respond.

“Marco was just telling me how he felt about Giaco,” he said. “I kinda spun him with the news we were together. I don’t think he meant to hurt anyone.”

Marco gave him a grateful look, but still seemed unsure what to say.

“And yet…” Angelo pressed gently, “it was enough to make you break up with someone you’ve liked for years?” He shook his head. “Forgive me, but… getting together with Giacomo must have been a massive deal for you, Dani. What changed?”

The tears were coming back, and Daniele wiped miserably at them with his free hand, wishing they wouldn’t. Faced with his misery, Marco finally found his voice.

“I told him I didn’t think Giaco was for real,” he confessed.

Angelo frowned slightly. “You mean… like it was all a game to him?”

Marco looked away again. “I didn’t want to see Dani get hurt.”

Angelo sighed slightly. “Which is sort of ironic, when you look at where we are now.”

Marco nodded. “Yeah,” he said miserably.

Angelo still looked thoughtful. “Giacomo’s always seemed like a nice enough boy to me,” he said. “A bit full of himself, perhaps, but not someone who would wilfully mess with someone’s heart like that…” His dark eyes found Daniele again. “…especially not a friend as devoted as you, Dani.” He scratched his head. “But, for a few words from Marco to have had such a profound effect on you… that suggests you must have had a few doubts of your own already?”

Daniele shrugged. “I did, but… I thought I was over them.”

“But, instead, you found yourself thinking you’d moved too fast?”

“I thought I was doing the right thing!” Daniele burst out, “but… I think I really hurt him, and… why would it hurt him that much if he wasn’t for real?” He sobbed. “I’ve ruined everything! I don’t know what to do, and…” He sniffed loudly, rubbing harder at his eyes. “I just… really need a friend.”

Marco looked on in horror as Daniele fell apart in front of him. Dimly, Daniele saw Angelo urge the smaller boy on with an encouraging gesture. Spurred into action, Marco jerked out of his seat and placed a tentative arm around Daniele’s shaking shoulders. Daniele reached across and grabbed him, drawing strength from his support.

Daniele felt the smaller boy sigh slightly.

“It’s okay,” Marco mumbled. “You’ve got me.”

* * *

Over the next few days, Marco and Daniele kept each other busy. They went for walks or bike rides together, played games in the square or just plain chilled out in the shade of the trees at the Municipio gardens. They messaged Emilia, who said she was doing okay and would see them soon, but there was no sign of Giacomo, whom Daniele presumed was lying low at home.

Once Marco realised Daniele didn’t blame him personally for the disintegration of his relationship, he seemed to relax a little and the mood between them became easier again. After the intensity of the previous few days with Giacomo, it was sort of a relief to hang out with someone who was just a friend… but, at the same time, Daniele’s grief was always there, lurking at the back of his mind. It would strike him unexpectedly at quiet moments, or when he was walking home on his own. He would find himself wondering miserably what the dark-eyed boy was doing right now, or how he was feeling… but he had made no attempt to call or message him. He was too afraid to try.

Marco avoided bringing up Daniele’s problems, for which he was grateful, but there was a certain charge in the air between them. Daniele could tell, from the way he sometimes caught the smaller boy looking at him, that they were both remembering how things had ended the last time they had spent this much time together without their other friends to keep them grounded.

The kiss they had shared on that stormy summer night… it hadn’t been terrible, had it? It was just that…

I was still too hung up on Giaco to really go with it.

From time to time, Daniele still glimpsed a faint yearning lurking in the depths of Marco’s cool grey eyes. At such moments, the smaller boy would invariably look away, sensing with uncanny accuracy that his deepest feelings were being observed.

All the same, Daniele ended each day he spent with Marco feeling slightly better about himself and slightly calmer about his future. If it turned out that his friendship with Giacomo truly was over, at least he would still have one loyal friend by his side when he went to high school in the autumn.

* * *

Sunday afternoon found them camped out in Marco’s cosy little bedroom under the eaves of Gianni and Angelo’s roof. The midsummer weather was oppressively hot, but in Marco’s room, with its single, small window that faced out onto their shady, creeper-covered courtyard, the heat was just about bearable.

“Are you sleeping okay in this?” Daniele asked. They were both perched on the edge of Marco’s bed, which was made up with the thinnest of thin cotton sheets.

The tiny attic room had a sloping ceiling. It was furnished with a big old wardrobe and a small bedside table with a battered old reading lamp. A small desk had been installed next to the door, with room enough for Marco’s laptop computer and his schoolwork; although, being the holidays, it was covered with his drawings instead. Mounted above the bed was a framed drawing of a sparrow sitting in an open window; Daniele recognised it as the view from Marco’s old bedroom in his birth parents’ house, which was one of the few things about his old home that the smaller boy had liked.

Marco shrugged. “It’s all right, as long as I…” he snickered in an embarrassed sort of way, chewing on a thumbnail.

Daniele grinned. “…sleep naked?” he suggested.

Marco flushed at once. “No! I mean… I wear underpants, Dani.”

For a moment, Daniele was left with a very awkward visual. There was silence for a moment, and then he offered an embarrassed laugh.

“My bad,” he admitted, “that was too much information.”

Marco ran a finger round the collar of his yellow check shirt – it was the one Daniele had given him for his birthday – and tried valiantly to move the conversation on.

“So… Gianni has the morning off work tomorrow,” he said, “and they’re taking me out for the day. Want to come?”

“Maybe,” Daniele replied. “Where are you going?”

Marco looked away in embarrassment and shrugged.

“Just the beach again,” he responded, stealing a furtive little glance at Daniele as he said so.

Daniele twisted his mouth thoughtfully.

Here we go…

“It’s… not a date, is it, Marco?”

Marco blanched. “No! No, I swear… they just told me I could bring a friend.”

Daniele smiled. “All right, then. That’d be great.”

Marco offered him a shy smile in return. “Cool.”

…but, when the smaller boy turned away, Daniele thought he could see a faint blush forming on his cheeks all the same.

No, I can’t… not yet…

Daniele took the smaller boy by the shoulder, gently pulling him back round. Marco jumped slightly, glancing down at Daniele’s hand in confusion.

“It’s just…” Daniele explained, “I haven’t, you know… got over what’s happened with Giaco yet.”

Marco nodded quietly. “I know.”

They stared at each other slightly awkwardly for a moment. Realising he still had his hand on the other boy’s shoulder, Daniele lowered it slowly to his side; the mousy-haired boy followed it with his cool grey eyes, looking a little disappointed.

“But, you know…” Marco murmured, “if you ever did…”

He reached up and cupped Daniele’s cheek in one hand. Heart beating anxiously, Daniele took the other boy’s hand and pulled it back down.

“Love ruins friendships,” he said.

Marco shrugged. “It doesn’t have to,” he mumbled. “Not if you do it right… think about Gianni and Angelo, or Toto and Michele.” Abruptly, he got to his feet. “Want to go outside for a bit? It’s getting kinda stuffy in here.”

* * *

Gianni and Angelo still didn’t have a car, so they had arranged to walk down to Minori together and catch the bus back up the mountain later on.

The next morning, Daniele set out alone, dressed in his swimming shorts and the rainbow tie-dye t-shirt Gianni and Angelo had given him. He carried the rest of his things in his rucksack, slung carelessly over one shoulder.

He wandered down the quiet hillside road, passing scattered olive groves and orchards among which plump lemons hung, ripening in the summer sun. Cicadas scraped among the trees, and the stone retaining wall above the road was festooned with tufts of pink valerian flowers. He walked until the ancient hamlet of Torello came into view, a cluster of picturesquely scruffy old houses centred around an old church on a small promontory below the road. The dwellings tumbled down the terraced hill to the sea, backed by the twin, tree crowned mountain ridges beyond Minori and Maiori.

At the point where the ancient stairways down from Ravello crossed the road, Daniele stopped and waited for his friends, adjusting his rucksack and sipping at the bottled water his mother had insisted he take with him. With the faintest flutter of his heart, he cast his eyes skywards as a family of swifts flew overhead, screeching shrilly. He still envied their freedom, tethered as he was to his earthly concerns.

Before too long, he heard familiar voices and spotted the others descending a gentle stairway that traversed the hillside, chatting cheerfully among themselves. Marco caught sight of Daniele and they exchanged a wave. Perhaps Marco hadn’t wanted to wear his best things to the beach, because he had donned his faded old olive-green check shirt, a sudden and unexpected reminder of his old life with his birth parents.

How far, Daniele thought, the other boy had come. He was still small for his age, but he seemed more robust, somehow, less likely to blow away in the faintest breeze, and his complexion was better, like a boy who was eating a more balanced diet.

Something else was different about Marco today, though, and as they drew nearer Daniele realised what it was. The smaller boy had changed his look again. The mop of untidy, mousy-brown hair that had always drowned his elfin features, telegraphing, somehow, his lack of self-confidence, had been cut short at the back and sides and gently swept at the front. It was quite a transformation.

“Ciao!” Daniele said as Marco stopped in front of him. He ran a finger through the other boy’s new fringe. “How did you manage to do this… since yesterday?”

Marco smiled slightly sheepishly. “Angelo knows a guy who knows a guy,” he replied.

“It looks great!”

Marco looked a little embarrassed, prompting a chuckle from Angelo.

“We’ll make a slayer out of Marco yet,” the young man said.

“I don’t want to be a slayer,” Marco grumbled. “I just want to…”

Feel good about yourself?

Daniele felt such a thing was long overdue.

“Loving the t-shirt, Dani,” Gianni said with a smile. “How are you holding up?”

“I’m all right,” Daniele replied.

“Have you heard from Giacomo at all?”

Daniele shook his head. “I haven’t seen him in days.”

Gianni sighed. “I saw him,” he said. “He was walking with Elena… he seemed pretty down, to be honest.”

…and it’s all my fault.

“He probably hates me now,” Daniele mumbled.

“I told you,” Marco interjected quietly, “Giaco doesn’t hate.”

Gianni placed a hand fondly on the smaller boy’s shoulder. “Like Marco said,” he said gently, “it might be that he just misses you.”

Maybe, but does he miss me enough to forgive and forget?

Marco looked like he had had enough of talking about the other boy.

“We should get going, don’t you think?” he said quietly, appealing to the others with his cool grey eyes.

Gianni nodded. “Right. Andiamo.”

They began to walk down through Torello. The old houses crowded in around the narrow street, sometimes bridging it completely. Through the open windows, they heard the sounds of the morning: the chink of coffee cups, snatches of conversation, the churn of a washing machine, tinny music playing on the radio. Then they broke free of the houses and descended to the coast through olive groves that rung with the scraping of cicadas.

Marco walked at Daniele’s side. Daniele felt more aware of the other boy than usual: it was partly the memory of the previous afternoon, when the other boy had made his continued interest in him crystal clear… but it was also because his new haircut really did look good.

Idly, he found himself wondering what it would be like to go out with Marco. He had never felt as hot and excited around Marco as he did around Giacomo, but did it matter? As friends, they were more alike, more in synch in the way they looked at the world. Surely there was more to love than simple chemistry?

Eventually, they descended a final flight of steps onto the main street through Minori and strolled onto the seafront. The beach was much busier than it had been on Daniele’s birthday back in May, and the private bars had spread out to fill more of the little cove, but there were a few patches of clear sand remaining. Since it was still the morning, the beach was barely half as crowded as it would be in the afternoon.

They set up their beach towels in two pairs, with Gianni and Angelo at the top of the beach and Daniele and Marco on their own a little further down. As custom (and the heat) demanded, they stripped to their swimwear.

Since Daniele was already wearing his swimming shorts, all he had to do was whip off his t-shirt and shed his shoes and socks. As he pulled the t-shirt up over his head, he caught Marco looking at him. The mousy-haired boy returned to his shirt buttons with an embarrassed flush.

“What do you want to do first, Marco?” Daniele asked, hoping to break the tension.

Marco shrugged and knelt down to rummage in his rucksack, his narrow shoulders working industriously.

“Catch?” he asked, producing a throwing ball with a colourful nylon tail.

“Why not?” Daniele replied. He turned to the adults. “Do you guys want to play?”

Gianni and Angelo had settled down on their beach towels and were sitting with an arm around each other, seemingly quite at ease with being seen together in public. Daniele smiled to see it, knowing that their journey to get to this point had not always been an easy one.

“Maybe later,” Angelo called back. “The gattino and I have some important cuddling to do.”

“Gattino?” Daniele asked with a laugh.

“Do you mind, Angelo?” Gianni chided him, fixing his partner with his keen blue eyes. “Some things are private.”

Angelo pursed his lips. “Right. Never provoke a pussycat, Dani.”

Daniele turned away, still smiling. Perhaps Marco had a point; maybe friends could become boyfriends, if the foundations were right.

But then, for Angelo at least, hadn’t it been love at first sight? What if you had started out as enemies?

Right on cue, Marco tugged at his arm, swinging the ball impatiently by its tail. “Come on, Dani!”

Moving down towards the water to avoid bothering the other beachgoers, they spread out a little and began to hurl the ball to each other. The long nylon tail made the game faster and more unpredictable than using an ordinary tennis ball; swinging or spinning the ball by the end of its tail, they could give it a lot more momentum. The game became to throw the ball as high as you could, so that the other player had to look high up into the sky, catching it on the descent like a baseball. Daniele tried his best to keep his shots on target; he dreaded to think how the sunbathers a little further up the beach would react to a ball landing hard and fast in their laps.

Marco moved well, Daniele noticed; darting about in his swim briefs, he backed up and caught the ball with balance and grace. He had always been good with his hands, but it seemed he had a good relationship with the rest of his body, too. Small and skinny he may be, but he had learned to use what he had to best effect.

What am I doing?

Daniele frowned, and for a moment he took his eye off the ball. Was he really… checking Marco out?

I’ve only just broken up with Giaco.

All the highs and lows of the last few days must really have messed him up.

“Dani!” Marco protested. There was a ‘thud’ as the ball flew right past the distracted Daniele and bounced off into the shallows, where it came to a rest, tail drifting languidly in the waves.

“Sorry!” he called. He hastened across the grey volcanic sand and pounced on the ball before the waves could wash it away by the tail, getting thoroughly wet in the process.

He emerged from the waves, water running down his stomach, arms and legs, and watched the ball dripping forlornly from its colourful tail. He looked up at Marco, who was watching from safety on the shore, and they both giggled slightly.

“Throw it back, then,” Marco called.

Daniele shook his head. “Come and get it,” he replied.

“No, no,” Marco replied, taking a step backward.

Daniele grinned. “C’mon. If you’re going to get wet, you might as well do it properly.”

Marco’s cool grey eyes narrowed a little. “Fine.”

He charged like a bull to a red rag, then flew at Daniele, seizing the ball but knocking them both off their balance. Daniele held onto the ball for dear life as they turned over each other in the shallows, to startled noises from both Gianni and Angelo. Eventually, Daniele felt the ball wrested from his grasp and he yielded. Marco rose from the shallows, brandishing the ball triumphantly at his two foster fathers on the beach.

“Yes! I finally beat you in a fight. I…”

But Daniele sprang up and tackled him back to the ground before he could finish. There was laughter from Gianni and Angelo as they crashed back down into the waves together. Daniele landed on his elbows, almost but not quite on top of the other boy. They stared fiercely into each other’s eyes for a moment.

This time, Marco yielded.

“Jesus…!” he breathed. “What’s happened to you, Dani?”

Daniele began to giggle slightly, and rolled away, closing his eyes and lying back in the shallows so the breaking waves lapped gently over his shoulders.

“Sorry,” he panted. “I think I’ve gone slightly pazzo.”

“No kidding,” Marco replied, appearing in front of him and extending a hand to help him to his feet.

Daniele accepted the helping hand, and soon they were standing in front of one another, dripping gently.

“Am I being really weird?” Daniele asked.

“I sort of like it,” Marco replied uncertainly, “but… I kinda miss the old Dani, too.”

“I think I left him on the mountain,” Daniele said, twisting his mouth ironically.

Marco shook his head, looking at him intently. “No, he’s still in there, somewhere. He just needs someone to… bring him back out.”

Having said this, he looked at his feet, flushing furiously.

Smiling gratefully, Daniele took him by the shoulder.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s go and chill out for a bit.”

* * *

Gianni and Angelo treated them to a late lunch at a pizza terrace on the narrow main street of the little town, amidst its eclectic clutter of cream and salmon-coloured townhouses and modern apartment blocks. Under a shady pergola draped with lemon trees, Daniele tucked into a traditional pizza capricciosa with ham, mushrooms and artichokes, while Marco tackled a pizza diavola with chilli and spicy salami.

With some difficulty, Daniele had swapped his swimming shorts for a pair of ordinary street shorts under the cover of his towel. He could feel the salty seawater stiffening his hair as it dried; he would be needing a good, long shower tonight.

As he ate, he tried to make sense of his own actions. He hadn’t expected things to get so weird with Marco, especially so soon after his split with Giacomo.

As to the other boy, he seemed to be every bit as confused, nervous and giggly one moment and quiet and moody the next. Daniele supposed he had been giving out some pretty mixed signals; no wonder Marco, who had crushed on him for over a year, was feeling rattled.

What could they do, Daniele wondered, to restore some calm and normality to their friendship? Maybe, if they could hang out with someone else who would distract them from each other –

It was then that he hit on it.

“Do you want to take Sami out for the day tomorrow?” he asked the other boy. “It’s been ages.”

Marco paused with a forkful of spicy pizza halfway to his mouth.

“That sounds cool,” he said with a nod.

“I’ll talk to Reza,” Gianni put in, “see if I can arrange it.”

“I wonder what Sami will make of your new look?” Angelo said, running a finger through the smaller boy’s neat new locks.

“Do you really think he’ll notice?” Marco said, looking surprised.

Angelo smiled. “His hero’s moving up in the world,” he replied. “Of course he’ll notice.”

“Hero,” Marco repeated a little scornfully.

Gianni laughed. “Again with the self-doubt. Just go with it, Marco. Dani’s already accepted the mantle of ‘hero’… haven’t you, Dani?”

Daniele smiled a little awkwardly, suddenly reminded of Giacomo. “Ah…”

Marco shook his head. “I’ve told you before, I don’t want to be the hero, I want to be the good guy gone bad. I’d be the supervillain. They get all the best lines.”

Angelo inclined his head. “Fair point. Plus you get to have the mysterious history with the hero that way. Were they best friends, brothers, lovers…?”

There was a moment’s slightly weird silence, during which Daniele and Marco’s eyes found each other across the table, then they both cringed in embarrassment.

“Oh, Dio,” Gianni chuckled.

“Angelo!” Marco protested, not for the first time.

Daniele snickered. “Awkward.”

The young man grinned. “Sorry,” he said, smiling quite unrepentantly. “I don’t know where I get these ideas from.”

“Your perverse Rossi brain, that’s where,” Gianni remarked.

“Hey!” Angelo objected. “Only half the Rossis are perverse. That is, I mean…”

There was laughter, then, but Daniele and Marco’s eyes had found each other once more. Even with all the jokes, Daniele couldn’t quite escape his confusion over the events of the day. He felt that there was a question between them that needed to be answered.

* * *

They caught the bus back up to Ravello after lunch, a two-stage journey, but one to which they were all accustomed. As always, although he had enjoyed their day among the busy resorts of the coast, Daniele was relieved to return to the relative quiet of his airy mountain town, especially as they ploughed into the hottest part of the day.

To prolong the occasion a little, Daniele walked back up to the Toro with the others, where they got ready to part company outside Gianni and Angelo’s courtyard. Daniele thanked the two young men for inviting him on their day out together.

“It’s always a pleasure, Dani,” Gianni said; his key was already in the front door. “I’ll check in with Reza and Tiziana about Sami, then I’ll get Marco to text you later.”

“See you tomorrow, then,” Daniele smiled to Marco, turning to leave.

The smaller boy didn’t look ready for him to leave just yet. “Dani – wait a second,” he said quickly. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes,” he called to the others.

Gianni and Angelo nodded and let themselves into the house, closing the door behind them on Alfredo’s enthusiastic barking and leaving the two boys alone.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Marco asked, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Daniele nodded curiously, and they headed a few metres back down the crazy-paved street to the shade of the Municipio gardens, where a few cicadas scraped sluggishly in the leafy canopy. Some distance away, a pair of cracked-sounding church bells chimed half past three.

“What’s up?” Daniele asked.

“I had a great time today,” Marco said quietly.

Daniele smiled. “Me too.”

The mousy-haired boy shuffled his feet slightly awkwardly. “Look, I know this is kinda soon,” he mumbled. “Until today I thought it was just me, but… I sort of felt like there was something… you know… going on between us there on the beach.”

Daniele shrugged slightly. “Maybe,” he said. In truth, he didn’t really know how he felt.

“Would you, maybe…” Marco reached out and grasped Daniele’s hand for a fleeting moment, his manner both hopeful and anxious, “…try being my boyfriend for a while?” He shrugged and cast his gaze down at the grass, his voice dropping to a mumble. “I know it’s soon, but I think it might be good.”

Daniele weighed the question, his loyalty to Giacomo crying out like a child that wanted to be heard, but something more adult and pragmatic pushing him to open his mind to the alternatives.

Marco looked up at him again, his cool grey eyes pleading for an answer, and Daniele felt a surge of affection for the other boy, a once bitter enemy turned loyal friend who had never connived to present him with a face other than his true, flawed but honest self.

Daniele nodded slightly. “I think that’d be nice.”

Marco broke out into a painfully sweet smile. “That’s… awesome.”

The smaller boy moved forward, and they pulled each other into a chaste little hug in the soporific afternoon heat, alone apart from the scraping of the cicadas.