Chapter Thirty-One
Giles
I can do this, I think as I stare at my phone. I’m sitting on the sofa and have been in this position for ten torturous minutes, psyching myself up to do what I know will help solve more than a few of my problems.
Or maybe I don’t have to.
Yesterday was normal. Good, even. We ran nine kilometres in the end. Grabbed a quick takeaway coffee as we walked to the Tube and we shared a meaningful series of lingering smiles as we said goodbye, fist-bumping when I itched to reach out and touch so much more of his body.
But that’s what today’s for.
No. Today is not for that. Today is a sex lesson for Marcello. It’s not about me. It’s not about me. It’s not about me.
Which is why I’m going to text Tony.
Do I want to go on a date with him? No, not especially.
Do I want to sleep with him? The fact I’ve not even thought about that possibility gives me enough of an answer.
Do I think if I do, this will end whatever is happening with Marcello once and for all? Yes, absolutely I do.
I’m too honest to continue something with Marcello if I’m sleeping with Tony. It’s not only what we agreed and the very least of what I owe him, but it’s the right thing to do.
Besides, last week made me realise something that feels like a very bitter pill to swallow. The type that also gets lodged in your throat on the way down.
I can’t have a relationship with Marcello. A real relationship, where we share all of ourselves with each other, is a step too far. Last Sunday proved as much to me.
So today could be the last time I get to touch Marcello. Get to be with him. Get to make him grunt and groan and say filthy things to me. Get to hear him call me baby. Get to make him come.
I’m going to make it a day to remember.
With that new, if misplaced, sense of determination coursing through my veins, I start typing on my phone. The message is sent in less than a minute. Another minute later and two blue ticks tell me it’s been delivered, and read.
And that’s all I can cope with right now. I switch the screen off my phone and place it on my coffee table.
As if to reward me for what felt akin to doing 100 Bulgarian squats, the doorbell rings, making my nausea at the message I just sent turn to a lighter, more fluttering swirling feeling.
Oh, fuck. Butterflies. Marcello gives me fucking butterflies.
And that’s exactly why I just asked Tony for a drink.
The sooner I extricate myself from this situation, the quicker I can move past these feelings and return to the status quo.
As I get up, I adjust the stack of three coffee table books on the table in front of me, lining up the spines. I count my steps to the door in threes and when I don’t quite come to a number divisible by three, I step back and then forward again.
I buzz Marcello in and open the door. The minute or two it takes for him to finally emerge at the end of the corridor I’m staring down seem to go on forever.
I start to tell myself that it’s ridiculous.
It’s just Marcello. The guy who makes my coffee.
My training buddy. The man I’m helping get ready for a triathlon.
But then I see him and there’s no rationalising away how my body reacts to him. His face seems to be all smile and beard and sparkling brown eyes that shouldn’t be so bright and warm from so far away, especially when I know only too well how dark they can be. I think about those eyes far too often.
“Hey!” he calls out as he approaches and I see he’s got something in his hands again, just like he has the last two times. But it’s not a bottle on this occasion. It’s a box. A box wrapped in brown paper. Like a gift.
“Hi,” I say, pulling my eyes away from the box. But that’s when he becomes more than his smile and his beard. That’s when I see the wrinkles around his eyes, the pink of his lips, and something new, the stretch of his pectorals pressing against the material of his T-shirt.
“Looking good,” he says and does something that makes replying impossible. He leans forwards and kisses my cheek.
I can’t remember the last time somebody did that.
Radia and I aren’t touchy-feely, but even at the times we have been – her birthday or mine, or after one of us takes a long holiday – we would always go for a hug or a high five.
And my friends, the few of them I do have, we shake hands or fist bump with awkward side hugs, or nothing at all.
A startling thought slices through me. What if the last time somebody kissed my cheek was my dad? He used to do that a lot, even though I sometimes asked him not to. I know he did it the last time I saw him when I left to return to uni.
“You okay?” Marcello pulls back and there are two pinched lines between his thick brows.
“Yeah,” I say, still feeling stunned. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Good. And you recovered from our ridiculously long run. And don’t you dare say it wasn’t ridiculously long because my thighs, and interestingly, my toenails beg to differ.”
“You did brilliantly,” I say and I finally feel like I’m coming back to the present day and not lost in a memory I don’t always allow myself to revisit.
“Please tell me you are a bit sore. Like, just a little bit,” Marcello says pleadingly as he walks past me and toes off his shoes. “Like maybe a hair follicle in your groin over extended itself or something.”
“You know,” I close the door behind me, “my glutes have been feeling a bit tight today. They could maybe do with a massage.”
Marcello’s eyebrows shoot upwards and those lines between them have long disappeared. “Are you flirting with me, Mr Rivers?”
“I don’t know. Would you like me to flirt with you, Signore Donati?”
That gets me a reaction, a quick one, as he throws the box onto the counter, darts forward and grabs me.
One of his big hands is on the back of my head and the other is on my hip and he pulls me into his body and kisses me.
I kiss him back, matching his pressure and his strokes and his little grunts too.
We travel across the kitchen floor until my back is pressed up against the fridge.
When he finally pulls away, he’s as breathless as I am.
“Is this okay?” he asks. “Only I want to… I don’t want to talk. I mean, I do. I have to talk to you about something, something important, but can it wait? Because I can’t. I really can’t wait to have you.”
His words pique my interest, bringing with them a dash of panic, but then he dives down into my neck and kisses me over and over again. When I feel his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there one of my knees buckles.
“I can’t wait either,” I say and I don’t think truer words have ever been spoken.
“Are you… ready? For me again, I mean. To top you?” He rests his forehead against mine.
“I am,” I say.
“Thank fuck,” he exhales, “I also… I want to go down on you.”
“You do?”
His hand slips between our bodies and finds my dick. He squeezes it through the material of my cotton shorts.
“I’ll be terrible at it. Awful. Disastrous. But I want to try. When I masturbated last night, I could only come thinking about you filling my mouth.”
My other knee buckles.
“I want to know what that feels like. How much of you I can take. I want to look up and see your perfect fucking body from that angle. I want to know what you taste like.”
“Jesus, Marcello.” I squeeze his backside, pressing him up against me.
“Fuck it,” he hisses. “I’m just going to do it now.”
And he drops to his knees, with a soft thud that didn’t exactly sound comfortable.
“Porco dia!”
“You okay?”
“Yeah, just forgot I’m not twenty-one anymore. But pretend it didn’t happen.”
I slide out from between him and the fridge and go to my sofa.
Grabbing a cushion, I return as quickly as I can and hold it out to him.
I cup his face and stroke the hair of his beard.
“Marcello, we’re not twenty anymore. Our knees need a bit more support and comfort these days. Here, this will help no end.”
“But I was trying to be all hot and spontaneous.” He arranges himself on the cushion and keeps his gaze on the ground.
“You’re still very hot.” Holding the side of his face in my hand again and turning his head up so he’s looking at me.
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
“Then take your dick out and show me how much you want me.” He sits back on his heels, giving me space to do exactly what he demands.
I only fumble slightly as I pull down the waistband of my shorts and grab hold of my cock.
Squeezing it feels redundant as I’m not sure it could be more full of blood if I tried but I do it anyway and watch closely as Marcello studies it.
There’s a beat where he looks at it, his eyes widening, and I think he’s going to tell me this isn’t what he wants.
Which is totally fine with me. I honestly think I could happily forego blowjobs forever if I still had Marcello kissing me the way he just kissed me.
I don’t think I’d even miss them if I had him looking at me the way he did just before he jumped on me.
Not that I ever will have him forever. Indeed, today is almost certainly our last time together, like this.
A wave of sadness washes over me, threatening to dampen my arousal and the breathless joy of having Marcello on his knees in front of me.
But then he leans forward, replaces my hand with his and brings my dick to his mouth.
And he takes it. He takes nearly all of it. He fills his mouth with it, his lips getting closer and closer to my base until he makes a sharp choking sound and I see his whole body convulse.
He pulls back and covers his mouth. When he looks up at me, his eyes seem apologetic.
“Shit, sorry. I thought I could take it. But I was wrong. Merda, how do you do that?”
I weave my hands into his hair, pulling just a few of the strands out of his bun. “This is something that gets easier with practise,” I tell him with what I hope is an encouraging smile on my face. “Also some people have more of a gag reflex than others.”