Duke for the Summer

4.

Thea: DUDE FUCKING TEXT SOMEONE

mom thinks you’re in a bathtub full of ice with your kidneys missing

how’s the weather? are you dead? did you marry a mafia boss and have to enter witness protection? why aren’t you answering me?

NATEEEEEEEEE

Nate’s head was fuzzy and the roof of his mouth tasted vaguely medicinal, like lemons and anise. Blinking down at his phone, he tried to type out a reply as the truck jostled up the hill.

Nate: Sorry, I’m fine. really busy getting in and they had a big party last night. I’m ok and I’m going to the castle today.

Antonio was driving, with Jacopo riding shotgun. Nate had woken in the early morning to the sound of the espresso machine, and had been fed several pastries that he didn’t need before he and his luggage were loaded into the truck. The night before was a bleary slideshow of faces and lights, names he didn’t remember–besides Gracie, who he had been sad to learn wasn’t coming along today.

It was probably about 2am on the West Coast, but Thea still texted back almost immediately.

Thea: Oh ok cool i get it. big important duke party with your duke friends. YA DOUCHE

Nate: ughhhhh i’m sorry. You know i can’t stand the group chat. I’ll let everyone know im ok I GUESS

Thea: please? dave is like seconds away from launching some covert ops mission

ooh and send pics!!

and I BOUGHTTTTT MYYYYY TICKETSSS

ITALY FUCKKKKK YEAHHHH

I’m gonna be all up in your dukedom in six weeeeekkkkkkkssss

Tell all the juicy joes to prepare themselves bc i’m single as fuck and MY BODY IS READYYY

Omg thea, Nate typed, looking at the way Jacopo’s hair curled against the headrest in front of him, the tight set of his shoulders.

Thea sent back a kissy-face emoji, followed by a horse and an Italian flag.

Nate hardly knew what he was writing as he dutifully typed a message to the family chat. He turned off his notifications before anyone could reply. They were coming into town.

The colorful little buildings were a blur as Nate stepped out of the truck, the piazza with its ruddy cobbles and the little storefronts. The midafternoon sun was brutal, pounding down onto the back of his neck, and he’d packed about a gallon of sunscreen but forgotten to put any on that morning. Jacopo was explaining something about how the community well was still in use, how Carmosino was basically just a series of iron-rich hills covering an aquifer and how the local water was some of the purest in the nation. Nate murmured some kind of response, observing the clusters of pigeons around the square, the white splatters and scattered feathers they’d left all over the stone.

God, he needed to get his thoughts together. He needed to exercise; his body was full of nervous energy and his brain was fizzling and after all the pasta and goat meat, he’d be the duke of backrolls soon if he didn’t start taking care of himself. Nate barely registered going to the corner store, grabbing Italian deodorant and other toiletries, snacks, and prosecco because fuck it, and then they were back out in the square and–

And, oh. That was the castle.

He let out an embarrassing little noise, grabbing Jacopo’s wrist.

“Yes. It is the castle.” Jacopo made a dismissive gesture.

Rearing up behind the tans and yellows and pinks of the village, the castle, his castle, was a tall, blocky structure of creamy brickwork, little windows cut into its facade. Nate counted three round towers, roofed by brick-red shingles. As they approached, walking up the hill from the village, more of it came into detail: the ornate stonework around the windows, the traces of paint that lingered on the brick walls. It was newer than Nate had expected, and friendlier-looking, too, its architecture robust and welcoming, its lines rounded and soft. There was a crumbling wall around the castle grounds, choked with dry grass, a cat sleeping on it, and Jacopo explained that the wall had been put there by the Romans, and yeah, of course, that tracked, the Romans, no big deal–and the courtyard was full of dry grass too, more cats napping in the sun, stretched out on tiles that bore some fading design.

This wasn’t real, right? This was all some big prank that had been played on him, the castle was CGI and Jacopo was a paid actor and even the cats were in on it, and–

Nate felt a full-body shiver as he saw that over the ornate wooden door was a mosaic depicting the same ducal crest that had been on Jacopo’s original emails. A stylized bird, a red banner, a lapis-blue sea in the background.

Antonio said something, clapping Jacopo and then Nate on the shoulder. Nate was vaguely aware of the now-warm bottles of the prosecco in the bag he was still holding, clinking together against his thigh.

“He says he’ll come back tomorrow,” Jacopo explained. “I need you to sign some paperwork, first of all. Antonio will take it to the mainland to get notarized.” He looked at Nate curiously. “Are you alright? You haven’t spoken. And you look–” he gestured to his own face. “The sunburn. It’s very much already.”

“No, I’m okay. I’m excited. Overwhelmed, I guess.” It’s very much already. Everything was very much, already. Nate could feel his molars vibrating in his gums, and he wanted to sprint around the courtyard, or do push-ups, or scream off the ramparts Leonardo DiCaprio-style.

“Yes,” Jacopo said. “Tonight you need to rest.”

There were awkward goodbye hugs, and Jacopo took a key ring out of his shoulder bag, and the door was creaking open and they were in the cool, silent vestibule of the castle, the smell of dust and mildew and sun-warmed marble filtering into him. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the frescoes on the walls, chunks of them missing where the plaster had sloughed away: peacocks and owls, forested glades, symmetrical patterns. But there was no time to sit and gawk, and Jacopo hustled him along before he could even pull out his phone to take a picture.

They went up a narrow marble staircase, hollows worn into the steps from centuries’ worth of feet, and into some kind of solar or bedroom that had been turned into an administrative space, an ancient laptop wheezing away on the desk along with a dusty modem and a printer that was so old it should have been outlawed. Nate signed the papers, not sure if he was signing away his soul or just signing up for ownership of the castle, and not sure if he cared. Then Jacopo showed him his bedroom, or royal chamber, a giant room, the walls riotous with frescoes, the ceiling covered in capering animals and frenetic patterns. Maximalism at its best, the furniture was also ridiculously ornate, baroque styles in mainly rust-red and burnished gold. Nate’s eyes kept being drawn involuntarily to the bed, with its painted headboard and gold canopy. There was a faint smell of must clinging to everything, and the blankets, though lushly embroidered, looked starched into oblivion, scratchy. And empty, too. The bed would be huge for one person.

“I’ll leave you alone,” Jacopo said. “You ought to have a nap. I’m sure you’re exhausted.”

Nate’s brain was exhausted, but his body felt like a convoy of bees. He swallowed, sitting down on the bed. His little wheeled suitcase looked ridiculously out-of-place in the room.

“Yeah,” he said. “Ok.”

“Tomorrow I can give you a tour of the castle, if you like.”

“I mean–I can explore on my own,” Nate said, too quickly. “It’s fine.”

Jacopo ran a hand through his hair, his eyes traveling over the designs on the wall, though he didn’t really seem to be seeing them. “Yes. Well. There is a modern kitchen on the ground floor, if you get hungry. I will leave you some sandwiches in there. And I can make a trip to the market tomorrow morning. And–and if you need help, or can’t find something, I am usually in the library or the outbuilding. Or you can text.” He held up his phone halfheartedly.

“Ok. Thanks.”

After Jacopo left, Nate washed his face and hands in the ensuite bathroom, relieved to find that the antique plumbing actually worked. The water from the faucet was fresh and cold, vaguely iron-tasting. He was still wearing the same rumpled button-down from yesterday, and he thought about changing, but didn’t want to bother. Instead, he sat on the bed and popped one of the bottles of prosecco.

A while later, stomach heavy and head pleasantly full of bubbles, Nate took the second bottle and his phone and went exploring. Everything was Instagram-worthly, honestly: the creepy faces that peeked out of the patterns painted onto the walls, this one peacock over an archway that seemed to be rolling its eyes, the giant bronze owl statues on either side of the fireplace in what must be some kind of greatroom. Each one had a leg raised in a distinctly sassy way.

He found the library, but the dark dusty solitude of it wasn’t what Nate wanted right now, the rows of books seeming to whisper that he didn’t belong. There was a desk in one corner that was bare of dust, papers and books piled haphazardly on it. A faint whiff of Jacopo’s smell: cigarette smoke and the lemony pomade he put on his hair.

Nate ran a finger along the spine of one of the books, face hot. It was old, in Italian, and probably none of his business. Jacopo wouldn’t want him messing with his stuff.

He followed the stairs upwards and eventually found what he had wanted all along: an entrance out onto the ramparts. The courtyard lay below, the grass-choked remains of a fountain now a napping place for cats, the remains of flower beds and toppled statues. Beyond it was the city, the afternoon sun pooling like butter in the piazza, and the red terraced hills with their stands of palm and olive and oak and other trees that Nate wasn’t sure about the name of. The ocean glittered in the distance like a carpet of opals, and the sky was bare of clouds. A hazy moon, almost full, lodged in the blue like a coin. Along the horizon, the tan curve of Sicily, barely visible.

Maybe it was the prosecco, but Nate could feel his eyes getting wet, and his chest was a jumble of emotions. Shit, where were his watercolors? He should have brought them up here, he could–no, he couldn’t, his fingers were clumsy and far away as he fumbled for his phone, and the liquid feeling in his muscles meant he was a lot drunker than he’d originally thought.

He took a picture of the view, the bottle of prosecco propped up on the rampart in the foreground, sending it to Thea with the caption, Bitch I’m a duke.

She didn’t reply, so he posted it to Instagram with the same caption and sat back to watch the notifications stream in.

They didn’t. He refreshed his feed, once, twice, fingers sweaty on the screen.

It was okay. It was only, like, 7am over there or something. No one was awake, probably.

Not that he even had any followers anyway.

Not that he even had any friends, really, besides his weird family and a few drinking buddies from the warehouse who, let’s be honest, kept him around because having a gay friend made them look like progressive, educated rednecks instead of regular old rednecks.

The prosecco was a hot slurry on his tongue as he took another drink, head pounding. It was too warm out here, but he didn’t want to go back inside.

Fuck it, he thought, closing the Instagram app. He’d always been by himself, so he could be a duke by himself, too. Nate turned the volume up on his phone as far as it could go, brought up his playlist, and leaned back against the castle wall, eyes closed.

*

Jacopo didn’t think he could do it. In America at least there had been a purpose, a mission to focus on. But now that he had gotten Nate back to the island, the next three months were staring him in the face and he couldn’t stand it.

He’d felt his posture change the second they’d gotten off the boat, his shoulders hunching, his stomach going nervous and soft. Anticipating having to be around his family again. The way everyone seemed to have given up on him. The contempt of his father, the distance that had sprung up between him and his mother, the way his siblings didn’t really know what to do with him–even Mirabella, who had once hung on his arm and asked him for advice about boys. It had taken Papà less than two hours to go in on him again, the way he always did, at the dinner table in front of everyone. Are you finally going to spend some time with your family now? Maybe even find a girl to marry, give your mother some grandchildren? God knows she’s worried you’ll die alone up there in the castle with all your books and stray cats.

If he only knew.

Jacopo lit another cigarette, looking out across the overgrown courtyard. His phone was heavy in his pocket, and for a moment, he thought about calling Lucia. But no, it would do no good to talk to her now, and he wasn’t even sure he had the strength to. And who knew if she even wanted to hear from him, after all the years and the many times he’d failed to get back in touch. Either way, it would have to wait until this was over.

It seemed like nothing had changed in the short time he’d been gone. His apartment, a former chapel that had been converted into a groundskeeper’s hut long before Jacopo’s time there, was just as he’d left it, everything clean and in order. His books were all there, the familiar cracked spines with lurid titles. His potted plants were still healthy, although the rosemary had doubled in size. Even the cats, a feral colony descended from some long-ago duchess’s pets, had forgiven his brief absence, coming by to rub all the smells of America off his hands.

Nothing had changed, but everything had.

The sight of Nate laughing at Gracie’s elbow lingered in Jacopo’s mind, the way his sandy hair had started curling in the sea air, the lines of his tattoo peeking out from beneath his collar. He had a beautiful smile.

Jacopo couldn’t get Nate, and his smile, and his defined arms and strong, callused hands, out of his head. It was one thing to be alone with his fantasies, Jacopo was used to that. But to have someone here, in his space, to have someone’s presence rubbing up against him at all times–

Three more months. That was all. He’d been ignoring his problems for thirty-five years; three more months wouldn’t make a difference. Jacopo stubbed out his cigarette and turned to go back in. It was late afternoon, and the glassy, exhausting heat of summer was settling over the island, making the muscles heavy. Still, Jacopo wasn’t tired, and he knew sleep would evade him tonight.

He couldn’t help glancing back up at the ramparts of the castle, wondering what Nate was up to. A sound filtered down, the faint sound of an electric guitar coming from a tinny speaker. Was he listening to music somewhere? Was he outside?

He shouldn’t be outside, not in this heat. His face had already been bright red this morning, and even the locals stayed in on afternoons like this, leaving their houses only once the sun had set. Nate didn’t know any of that, though, because Jacopo hadn’t bothered to tell him.

Jacopo groaned. “I’m an idiot,” he muttered. One of the cats, sunning itself nearby, slitted its eyes at him in apparent agreement.

Heart sinking, he stuffed the cigarettes back into his pocket and started walking toward the castle.

“Oh, heyyyyy, man.” Nate raised an arm lazily as Jacopo came out onto the ramparts, his face bright red, his cheeks shiny apples. He was very drunk, and very sunburnt, seated against the crumbling stone of the castle wall. “Welcome to the duke party. Not a very fun one, but we do what we can.”

Jacopo cursed. “You’re drunk.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“And you shouldn’t be out here. The sun–”

“I know, I know. My mom would say the same thing. But I’m a duke, I do what I want.” He gestured to his phone as if the song currently playing backed up his sentiment. Maybe it did; Jacopo couldn’t make out the words amongst all the yelling.

“You need to stay alive for three months in order to get the inheritance,” Jacopo said, crossing his arms. He took in the empty bottle of prosecco, Nate’s rumpled hair, his shirt, half-unbuttoned. What had possessed him to come up here and drink alone, out in the sun? The burn had spread down his chest, his tattoos dark in a sea of red. It was a forest, Jacopo saw, pine trees scrawled across his collarbone.

He was hesitant to touch him, but he’d have to, to get him back inside. “Come on,” he said, looping an arm under Nate’s. “You need to lie down.”

“Don’t want to,” Nate said, throwing his head back. “Punk rock! Fuck authority!” But he allowed Jacopo to maneuver him onto his feet and down the stairwell, stumbling foolishly, his feet unsteady on the steps. His little body was a furnace, and his hair smelled of salt and sweat and something sweeter. Jacopo released him as soon as he could, letting Nate fall into the bed in the ducal chambers.

He stood there, looking down at him, thinking about just letting him sleep it off. But Nate’s mother had said he got sick in the heat, and Jacopo had felt how hot he was to the touch.

“I’m going to–” he gestured helplessly. “Help you cool off.”

“M’okay,” Nate said, trying unsuccessfully to fight his way out of his shirt. “Is there more prosecco?”

“Just a moment.” There was a washcloth in the bathroom, and Jacopo ran cold water over it. He ought to bring Nate water to drink, too, but he’d have to go down to the kitchen for that, and who knew what Nate would get up to while he was gone.

“Here.” He really didn’t want to touch him more than was necessary, but Nate needed his help and like Jacopo had said on the ramparts, the new duke of Carmosino needed to stay alive for the next three months, so Jacopo would have to divorce his mind from it, he would have to keep his hands from shaking and his mouth from watering as he helped Nate out of his shirt, keep his eyes from tracing the excess water from the washcloth as it trailed down between Nate’s pectoral muscles and circled around one of his nipples. Keep his stomach from lurching and his cock from twitching at the little sound of pleasure Nate made when Jacopo applied the cloth to the nape of his neck.

“That feels nice,” Nate said. “Thank you.”

Looking resolutely at the ceiling, the bedspread, anywhere but Nate’s flushed chest and his hooded eyes, Jacopo grumbled, “You’re lucky I found you. Why would you go out there in the first place? Everyone knows that it’s crazy to go out during this time of day.”

“I don’t know, dude.” Nate sighed. His hand, on the bedspread, was dangerously close to brushing Jacopo’s thigh. “I like–I guess I–” He groaned, throwing himself back onto the pillows and slinging an arm across his face. “I wanted to feel special or something. It’s not–it didn’t fix anything, you know? I have a castle and an inheritance and all this shit and I thought–I thought I’d magically be someone else. But I–I’m not. And I keep thinking it’s a dream, and tomorrow I’ll wake up and my alarm will be going off and I’ll have to put on my work clothes and go back to that fucking warehouse and–”

Jacopo looked down at him, thinking about his own dreams.

“It will take time,” he said slowly. “But you will be different. Everything has changed.”

“Your family is nice,” Nate said after a moment.

Again, Jacopo pictured a scene from the night before, Nate at Gracie’s elbow, the two of them talking as if they’d known each other for years.

“They like you,” he said.

“Do you–do you know anything about my family? Or, I guess, my ancestors?” Nate took his hand, so suddenly that Jacopo had no time to pull away. “You said I could learn about them while I’m here. But I don’t know where to start.”

Jacopo could speak volumes, entire banks of encyclopedias, about the famiglia di Carmosino. In his time cataloging the library, he’d learned about generations upon generations of fascinating scandals. But he wasn’t sure Nate would want to hear any of that. He cleared his throat.

“This is the original story of your family,” he said at last. Nate’s fingers were threaded through his, his eyes heavy. He looked near sleep, but his chest was rising and falling sharply. Jacopo tried not to admire it. Licking his lips, Jacopo steeled himself, trying to summon some of the liveliness his mother had always had when she’d told this story. “There was a Roman general, centuries ago. Caius Calvinus, the last remaining survivor of a battle at sea. He floated for days, clinging to a board from his ship. No food, no water, nothing but the hot sun beating down upon him.” Nate’s eyes were bright and focused now, tracking Jacopo’s face, his lips. Jacopo wondered momentarily if Nate’s ancient ancestor had been as sensitive to the sun as he was. “At last, he saw land. It was this island, nameless at the time, its red cliffs rising from the sea. He rejoiced. But then, once he had finally found dry land, there was still no water, nothing but the salt sea around him and the empty beaches. Calvinus despaired, sure he would die there of thirst, with no one to remember his name.

“The night came. Feeble with thirst, his skin covered in a rind of dried salt–”

Jacopo was getting a little dramatic; he couldn’t help it. He’d always loved stories. And he loved the rapt look on Nate’s face at that moment, the gentle parting of his lips.

“–Calvinus lay on the beach. Then he heard something, far off. The low hoot of an owl. It seemed to him that he should follow it, and so he did, climbing up the hills despite his weakened state. There, at the highest point of the island, was the owl he had heard, drinking from a natural spring. And so Calvinus was saved. And so he made his home here, and the owl became the symbol of the family of Carmosino, because he was forever grateful to the bird for saving his life.”

“Wow,” Nate said after a moment. His thumb was making small circles on Jacopo’s palm, and his eyes had a feverish glint to them. “That’s an epic story, man. I wondered if that bird on the family crest thing was an owl. I’ve always liked them.”

“I know.” Jacopo let his gaze trail over Nate’s shoulder.

“I guess it’s fate or something.”

“Fate.” Jacopo chewed his lip. Nate was pale and lean and glorious against the bedspread, his hair a tangle across the pillow, his eyes luminous. There was another tattoo just visible on his hip, peeking out from beneath the waistband of his pants, and Jacopo wanted to sink his teeth into it, or maybe throw himself out the window.

“I feel like–” Nate murmured, a kind of forced casualness in his voice. His hand had unlaced itself from Jacopo’s and was on his leg, idly tracing the seam of his trousers. “I feel like I could–do something really stupid right now. If you wanted me to.”

God, he was drunk. He was drunk and heat was radiating off of him and the room was full of his smell, and even though Jacopo desperately, with all his heart, wanted to do something stupid as well, to break his own life open and dance on the pieces–

He stood, putting distance between them.

“I should get you some water,” he heard himself say, from far off.

“Oh,” Nate said, as if he had just now remembered that water existed. “Yeah. Probably a good idea. Also I might puke. So.”