Chapter Eight
Rory
R ory was so used to seeing Nash's grumpy face that it was disconcerting to see him smiling so much. But when the ceremony was getting ready to start, he put his concentration face back on, the deep vee of his eyebrows dominating his face. His scowl, his stubble. Rory had to own up to the fact that it was that scowl that he’d always been attracted to, viscerally, since the first moment Sam brought him home from college one spring break.
He also had to deal with how blisteringly hot Nash was with his camera harness on.
As photographers, they were supposed to be invisible throughout the day, but even as Rory watched Nash photograph the bride coming down the aisle, dodging an aunt with an iPhone she had out despite the couple’s request to have a phone-free ceremony, he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. Olivia was radiant, Italy was bonkers beautiful, and Rory only had eyes for this prickly Midwesterner he’d fucked once at his brother’s wedding.
Rory sagged as they got through the ceremony, and they got a few minutes of a break before doing the call to alter group shots with family and friends.
“You’re doing great,” Nash said, his voice pitched low as he exchanged one lens for something better for portraits. He pulled a protein bar out of a separate pocket of the camera bag and handed it over. “Eat something. I can’t have you passing out on me.”
Rory took the snack, wondering if he wore his hunger on his face, but grateful all the same. Nash grabbed his own bar and they ate quickly, instead of doing what Rory wanted to do, which was pull Nash into a closet and make out for a while.
Rory had a list on his phone of every configuration of guests the couple wanted to be photographed with, and he was in charge of wrangling folks while Nash, Olivia, and Bailey largely stood in the same spot, the Italian countryside on display behind them. This place was absurdly beautiful. And while he never wished anything bad on his brother, it was a little convenient for him to get emergency surgery right before this trip. He wasn’t sure when he would have made it to Italy otherwise, and he was reasonably confident that without being forced to confront their issues, he would have never kissed Nash again.
“You two are doing such a good job today, I can just tell,” Olivia’s slightly drunk aunt Jen told Rory as she waited for her turn with the rest of her siblings to be photographed with the couple.
“Thank you. Pretty nice gig, honestly.”
“Italy is gorgeous . My first husband and I came here in the nineties, and I will never forget the first bite of real Italian pasta I had. Plus we must have had sex a hundred times on that trip. Italy is a good place for lovers.” She leveled him with a look that you can only get from the generation above you, when they’re telling you about life . Her eyes shot over to Nash who was directing the family members presently being photographed, to make sure he could see everyone’s faces. “I know that look.”
She was teasing, but Rory still went bright red.
“So I’m right?” she asked, nosy as all hell, but in a way Rory respected.
“You’re right.”
“How long?”
“Still figuring it out.”
“Italy is a great place to do that. Eat pasta. Drink wine. Have amazing sex. Embarrass young people with stories about it in thirty years.” She smiled at him as Nash waved her group over, and Rory went about collecting the next batch of guests. Pasta, wine, and sex. He couldn’t blame her for telling a stranger about that.
Around them, cocktail hour buzzed with happy people partying in a beautiful country, and Rory watched as guests mingled for a few minutes after he handed off the final group for photos.
“Time to eat,” Nash said, a whisper in his ear, one hand hot on Rory’s hip.
They had forty-five minutes of cocktail hour that they weren’t scheduled to photograph, and the wedding planner gathered the two of them and a few others working support jobs that day, and they sat around a table inside filled with pasta and bread and salad, and Rory lamented the fact that he had hours to go until he and Nash got to be alone with each other.
The conversation swirled around how the day was going, and Rory checked out, focusing on the warmth of Nash's thigh that pressed against his.
The reception went by in a whirlwind. The easy, fun part of the day. The two of them were scheduled until 10 p.m., and after making sure they had candids of every guest (to the best of their ability), they checked in with the bride and groom, who were getting the first slices of late-night pizza they were serving.
“We can’t tell you how much we appreciate you being here,” Olivia said, buzzed and happy, a smear of pizza sauce on the corner of her mouth that Bailey leaned in and licked clean. “We’re so excited to see the results. Take a pizza!”
She handed them an entire pizza tray, and while the pizza was small, Rory was grateful for it. They ate it quickly on the edges of the celebration in order to leave the tray behind, and fuck, Rory was going to miss Italian food. There simply had not been enough of it.
Nash had his gear bag on his back, and he took Rory’s hand as they walked back toward the villa together. Nash yawned, which cued Rory’s own yawn.
“Fuck, I’m tired,” he lamented, as Nash unlocked their room and put his gear bag down carefully. As soon as Rory closed the door behind him, Nash was pushing him against it, hands coming up to cup his cheeks as he pulled Rory into a kiss.
Rory melted, reaching for Nash to hold on to his waist, pulling their hips together. Nash's kiss was deep and slow, and the only thought Rory had was that it was worth waiting for.
Until Nash broke the kiss to yawn again.
“Sleepy boy,” Rory said, reaching up to run his knuckles over Nash's soft bearded cheek.
“I’m so upset that I’m dead on my feet right now.”
“We’ve had some long days,” Rory agreed mournfully. He didn’t want to go to bed. He wanted that Italian pasta-wine-sex that Olivia’s aunt had bragged about.
He wanted Nash.
Nash yawned again. Can’t win ‘em all.
“How about we take a shower and we can get into clean sheets all fresh. And wake up and make them dirty in the morning?”
Nash managed to give him a sleepy little smile, and Rory pulled him toward the bathroom.
“This thing is so fucking sexy, I’ve been drooling over you all day,” Rory said, hooking his fingers under the leather harness Nash still had over his shoulders, even though his cameras had been put away. Nash turned his face away from Rory, like he couldn’t handle the compliment, and fuck , that was cute.
Nash let him slip the harness over his shoulders, and Rory hung it on the back of a chair by the fireplace. Nash got the shower started, and Rory watched as he unbuttoned his shirt, a white tank top beneath it. When he looked up and caught Rory watching him, he blushed again.
“C’mon, I’ve already seen it all,” Rory said, unbuttoning his own shirt to put his money where his mouth was.
From there, they got down to business, stripping efficiently but not quickly, tired limbs moving clumsily.
The bathtub was an old claw-foot with a low showerhead. Nash parted the shower curtain and stepped in, holding his hand out for Rory to take. Did Rory need to hold Nash's hand to step into the bathtub? Usually no. But he was tired enough to appreciate the extra balance.
The shower spray hit Nash at the shoulders, and Rory shivered, none of the warm water hitting him.
“C’mere,” Nash said, pulling Rory close and carefully guiding him into the spray. The highest it got was the nape of his neck, so he ducked into the spray, lukewarm water wetting his short hair.
“If I wasn’t so sweaty and tired, this would be sexier,” Rory bemoaned, his opinion changing quickly as Nash's hands spanned over his hips, pulling Rory close enough to feel the evidence of Nash's arousal.
“I’m not having a hard time finding this sexy,” he said, the exhaustion clear on his face, regardless of his words.
Nash shivered, and Rory realized he was hogging the spray.
“We can have a sexy shower in America,” Rory said, grabbing the travel-sized bottle of shower gel he brought and squeezing some into his own hands, and then Nash's. They sudsed up quickly, did a brief shampoo, and called it good. “Olivia’s aunt promised me hot Italian countryside sex, and so far that hasn’t come to pass.”
“She propositioned you?” Nash stepped out of the shower and handed Rory a towel after Rory shut the water off. He looked like he was ready to fight for Rory’s honor. It was hot.
“No,” Rory said, realizing how he worded that. “She was bragging about her own trip to Italy in her youth, and all of the pasta and sex she had.”
Nash hummed, scrubbing the towel across his beard and face, then up into his hair before he gave his dripping body any attention. It made his dark hair a little fluffy, and Rory realized he hadn’t made one move to start drying himself off. He couldn’t help it. The views in Italy were divine .
Nash yawned again and Rory caught it, feeling the yawn in his bones. They were on the homestretch now, where everything here on out was downhill. They’d done the hard stuff. Now they just had to make it home. Rory wouldn’t even have to do any editing, which he was grateful for. He was only there to hold cameras.
“Fuck,” Nash said, pulling the sheets back and climbing into bed. Rory followed after him, knowing his hair was going to be a mess in the morning because he slept on it wet. He didn’t have time to wait for it to dry. They were naked, skin to skin, and Nash pressed him into the mattress, capturing his lips in a slow, languid kiss. It was sexy, but there was no bite to it. No heat. Rory was sharing a bed with Nash for the first time in nearly a year, and he was too tired to get it up .
Rory sighed, feeling the exhaustion in his own bones. Nash trailed kisses down Rory's neck until he was nuzzled in, their bodies flush and warm together under the sheets. And Rory realized, as he pet through Nash's still-damp hair, that he was out cold.