Limerence (Famous Young Things #2)

Twenty Six

Twenty Six

Nico

“ G ood to see you, brother, good to see you!” Massimo says by the car. My sister’s husband is tall and lean with a trimmed beard and a sharp sense of style. He worships her, as far as I can tell, and it’s this alone that we share in common.

“Good to see you too, thank you for coming to get me.” My Italian always comes out formal and rusted when I haven’t used it in a while, but if he notices, he doesn’t mention it.

“It’s fine. I like to drive, and it is not so far. Also, you see the car?” He beams.

I see the car. It’s huge, sleek, and black, and as we set off back toward the city, he tells me all about it, excited as a kid with a new toy. I’m not a car guy. I can drive but don’t—I’ve always lived in cities where using public transport is far more convenient and efficient than owning a vehicle. But this seems like a nice one. Spacious, quiet, and with heated seats that almost lull me to sleep. I listen as Mass tells me about his job, about Auro, and then about my father and brothers as though they’re people I’m acquainted with and not related to by blood. I reply mainly with ‘mmm’s’ and ‘ahhh’s’ as we move sluggishly through the Naples holiday traffic.

Porzia and Massimo live in the centre of the city, in a large duplex apartment near the financial quarter. She’s not back from her birthday party when we arrive, and after putting my case in the guest room, he offers me a bottle of beer, which I decline, before he puts on a football match. He makes small talk, asking how London is and what the ballerinas at the company are like, but each thread of conversation tapers off quickly. Like I said, I’m mainly a solitary kinda guy. Also, I’m anxious. Because I’m dreading the next couple of days.

My father and brothers arrive tomorrow, driving the three and a half hours north from Rossano this year as opposed to us going to them, because of the baby. My brothers are both bringing their wives and staying at a hotel a block away. My father has the other guest room here, and the thought of spending the next three days with them has my gut churning raucously. I’ve worked on this a lot with Gretchen and Hana, about how to cope with these kinds of situations, and while the breathing exercises and mindfulness work to a point, they really don’t touch these sorts of family gatherings.

Christmas is always the most intense for me. It’s when there’s the highest chance of arguments, blame, and insults happening. It’s situations like this when I feel the hours and hours of therapy fall away and my mind regress back to that of a fourteen-year-old boy.

I forget who I am and what I’ve achieved. I forget how much I’ve grown and how much I’ve overcome. Coming home for things like Christmas is all a part of the work, but Christ, I really don’t want to be here.

While Mass loses himself to the football game, I take out my phone and scroll through my conversation with Felix. The need for contact with him is an itch. Friday was… well, incredible. I’d rather it wasn’t these stolen moments that no one can ever know about, but it still feels like a gift every moment I get to spend alone with him.

I don’t have him, not the way I want, which is to be able to message him Merry Christmas without overthinking it. What I want is to bring him to my family’s home and have him sit next to me as we open gifts or attend midnight mass. Even if the stars aligned to give me him, would I even be brave enough to introduce him to my father? My brothers?

Yes. Because there’s no way I’d keep him as some kind of dirty secret. If they didn’t accept who I was or who I loved, then at least I’d never need to spend another Christmas feeling like this. After a while, I tell Massimo I’m going to go for a jog; an attempt to run off some of the knots in my stomach.

It’s bitter out but it doesn’t take me long to warm up. The streets are narrow and hilly but not overly busy until I reach the thoroughfare; a Christmas market sprawling out around a large Christmas tree which is lit up. In the centre is a small child-size skating rink. Children from age five to maybe fourteen skate around the rectangular shape, holding onto each other and occasionally the sides of the rink. My eyes land on a boy with bright pink cheeks and a bright blue woollen hat, holding the hand of a much younger girl who looks like his sister. It’s hard to imagine I was ever that age.

But I was.

I was that age when Sergio first hit me. A kid. Thousands of miles from home, crying myself to sleep because I wasn’t good enough. Crying because I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stop thinking about the beautiful boy who danced and smiled like an angel. Wishing I could be as good as him.

Distracting me from my little trip down memory lane is the feel of my cell vibrating. I pull it out and smile at the notification.

Princess Peach:

Why do I look like your fucking dog?

There’s a link beneath the message to a Vogue article called ‘Lords of the Dance’. When I click on it, the page opens to the online edition of February’s Vogue and the interview with Felix and I. I have to scroll and click to get to the accompanying images, but when I do, it’s enough to make my heart cabriole out of my chest. I barely glance at myself to check how big my nose looks in the image—moderately big—eyes going directly to Felix. He’s on his haunches, one hand resting on his thigh, wearing the forest-green suit they’d put him in first. He’s gazing down the camera lens like he’s ready to suck it off. The saturation of the image combined with the exposure makes his hair look like it’s made of spun gold. His skin sun-kissed and his eyes glittering like emeralds, it only compliments the light dancing off the high points of his cheeks. His bone structure is insane, but it looks even sharper here; clean angled and dangerous enough to draw blood.

My dick stirs as I look at him, as I imagine that full, perfect mouth open and filled with me. Then I look at the image as a whole to see if I can make sense of the comment: why do I look like your fucking dog? There’s nothing remotely dog-like in the pose or the composition of the photo that I can see, though I assume it’s the fact he’s basically on his knees at my feet. I type back:

Me:

Who’s a good boy?

And then a dog bone emoji.

Princess Peach:

You’re not funny

Me:

I know

I turn away from the skating rink and start walking back through the square towards Porzia’s. I’m not sure if the conversation is over or not, but I don’t imagine he texted just to share the article with me. I’d almost forgotten about it altogether. I don’t want the conversation to be over, and as I’m trying to figure out what to say to keep him talking, another message comes in. It’s a zoomed in screenshot of my right hand from one of the other pictures from the shoot.

Princess Peach:

Is this the one you fingered me with in the bathroom the other night?

The image of it swims in front of my eyes: him facing the wall with his perfect ass pushed out, pretty balls hanging between his legs, begging for me.

Me:

Sure was.

There’s a few moments wait before:

Princess Peach:

You alone?

Suddenly I’m pissed at myself that I decided to come out for a run at all. The opposite side of the street is quieter, and after checking for traffic, I jog across. Then I hit the call button. He answers on the third ring.

“That wasn’t an invitation to call,” he says, though he doesn’t sound annoyed at hearing from me.

“Sounded like the precursor to an invitation to call.”

“No, it was simply a question.”

“Well, I don’t like texting, I prefer to call.”

“Okay, boomer.”

I laugh, enjoying the sound of his voice on the phone. “I’m outside, by the way.”

“ My house ?! You fucking creep.”

“Ha, funny.” I wish. “No, I’m in the street. Alone-ish.”

“What’s alone-ish mean?”

I glance over my shoulder. “Well, I’m alone in that there’s no one in the immediate vicinity, but that could obviously change at any moment.”

“Right.”

“You look really good in the photos,” I tell him truthfully. “Canine vibes aside.”

He snorts. “Yeah, I know. I always look good in photos.”

“So humble.”

“Humility is for ugly people.”

I chuckle. “Got it.”

There’s a pause. “You look good in them too,” he says.

“Do I?”

“You know you do.”

“I was trying to be humble.”

“Why? You’re not ugly.”

“I love it when you talk nice to me.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. We’re starting rehearsal in ten days and I will be a monster. You think I’m bad now? Oh, you’re about to be fucking terrorised.”

“Okay. Consider me warned.”

“Did you know Ben has hired an intimacy coordinator for us?” He finds this amusing because he starts laughing. “Think she’ll be able to tell I’ve had your fingers and cock in my mouth? And ass?”

“Different kind of intimacy there, I think.”

“True.”

“Felix,” I say.

“Mhm?”

“Did you miss me? Is that why you texted?”

There’s a beat before he makes a scoffing, spluttering noise. “Fuck yourself all the way off, Savini. Did I fucking miss you? Yeah, I missed you; like the way I miss having an STD.”

Through my grin, I say, “Wait, should we have a talk about sexual health? Now?”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Don’t, okay, I’ll stop,” I laugh.

I hear him shifting down the phone, getting comfortable.

“So, where are you?”

“In this little side street.”

“No, I mean, are you in Rome?”

“Oh, no, Naples.”

“Your sister lives there?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never been, is it a nice place?”

I shrug. “It’s the same as most other cities in Italy. Old. Crowded. Very hot in the summer.”

“Got it. It’s near Pompeii right? I’ve always fancied going there.”

“It is. Not far from here at all.”

“Have you been?”

“On a school trip when I was nine. Not as an adult.”

There’s a silence where I want him to say: maybe you can take me, or, want to go together? But he doesn’t of course.

I’m a few blocks from Porzia’s now, and I’m not ready to hang up. I like these moments with him; they are, somehow, the ones that feel the most surreal. These quiet moments where I feel him opening, showing me the sides of himself that only those close to him get to see and know. I feel lucky in them.

“So, do you spend Christmas with your family?” It sounds so completely lame and uninspired that I expect him to laugh and hang up immediately.

“My friends are my family,” he says. “And they’re all off visiting their own families. Usually I do go to my father’s and Miranda’s, but they’re going to Austria this year. Or Germany. I’m not sure, I wasn’t really listening.”

“Isn’t Ava in Ireland? What will you do?”

This is shocking to me; the idea that Felix—Felix, who is always surrounded by admirers and worshippers, will spend Christmas on his own.

“I’m thinking I’ll take myself to The Ritz.”

“On your own?”

“Yes. I’m very comfortable in my own skin, Nico,” he says.

“Okay, no need to show off.”

This makes him laugh.

“Honestly, I’ll probably order Chinese, watch Love Actually , and then go for a walk along the Thames.”

“ Love Actually ,” I laugh. “I’d have picked you for more of a Grinch kinda guy.”

“Excuse me?” He sounds insulted. “I’m the least Grinch-like person you’ll ever meet, and Love Actually happens to be the greatest Christmas movie of all time.”

“Well, I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never seen it.”

“You’re a disgrace, Savini.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“You’re not one of these bloody people who hates Christmas, are you?”

“I don’t hate Christmas. I just don’t love spending Christmas with my family,” I admit, feeling guilty.

“Oh, well, yeah. Most people don’t.”

“They don’t?”

“They really don’t. Anyone who says they’re looking forward to spending time with their family at Christmas is either lying or a mental case.”

I laugh. “Well, that’s comforting to hear.”

We’re quiet for a moment, but it doesn’t feel awkward, it feels oddly relaxed.

“Can I ask you something?” he says.

“Sure.”

“It’s personal.”

I swallow and then let out a breath. “Okay.”

“Do your family know?”

“That I don’t like spending time with them at Christmas? I hide it well.”

He snorts. “No, not that.”

“Then you’ll need to be more specific.” Though I’m pretty sure I know what he means.

“That you like men.”

I know what someone like Felix will think about it and it’s for that reason I think about launching into my defence first, my reasoning, that Italy isn’t like the UK, that though his dad may not approve of him, it goes a little deeper here. That some of his stereotyping of Italian men isn’t at all wide of the mark when it comes to my father. But he never asked about that.

“No.”

The silence is deafening. I imagine his face, twisted with contempt, disgust. Shame licks up my spine. It takes some strength to stay quiet, not make excuses, and wait for his response.

“Must be extra hard being around them, then,” he says finally. There’s a measure of pity in his tone. “Hiding that part of yourself.”

He doesn’t know how completely accurate that is, on so many levels. How little they actually know me, how little anyone actually knows me.

“Yeah,” is all I can manage, throat thick with shame and emotion. Memories pushing too close to the surface, that need I always seem to have around him to overshare, to have him know me, starts to overwhelm. “Look, I have to go, but if you get lonely over Christmas, call me.”

“I’ll never be lonely enough to call you.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah, we will.”

“Merry Christmas, Felix.”

“Fuck you, Savini.”