AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“An old politician,” Donvino replied and poured me some wine, his eyes moving to my face as he passed the glass of blood red wine to me. A TV could be heard in the kitchen, a man and a woman having a heated discussion about microwaves? No, surely not. No one would get that het-up over a microwave. “This place is old. Everything in Italy is old.” He sighed and emptied the bottle into his glass, his sight moving from me to the man on the banner. “Sometimes I wish to run from this country. From the church. From the people who judge me for who I sleep with.”
His voice rose as he spoke. The old man with the clams gave us a dour look, his bushy brows knitting.
“How many bottles have you had?” I asked softly.
“Two or three. Oh, here he comes with our dinners.” Donvino waved a younger man over, chattering away to him as he placed two large dishes heaped with Alfredo atop some angel hair pasta. A basket of bread came next, oil and vinegar as always, and another bottle of wine.
“Grazie,” I said while Donvino slopped some wine into his glass, uncaring that his elbow had grazed his plate of pasta. The young man moved back to the kitchen, leaving us and the old clam man to hold down the fort. “Donvino, you should eat instead of drinking. Wine won’t help a thing.”
“No truth,” he replied vocally. I picked up my fork to begin twirling some pasta, unsure of how best to handle things. “Untruth for wine is helping big. Wine helps me forget that my cousin is a fuck wit bastard who runs to my grandmother with accusations on his tongue. Wine dulls the things that were said to me. Things that were not kind to you, Arlo. Things that were unkind to me and my true me. Wine is making that all forgetful.”
“No,” I whispered as I laid my fork down. “All the wine is doing is making you loud. You need to sober up so we can talk about what Giada said.”
He swung his arm in the air, sloshing wine onto the tablecloth as well as the floor. “We talk about what she says? I say what she says. She says my cousin hints that I stick up for homosexuals because I am one.”
I shot a glance at the old gent not ten feet away. He was focused on his food, or so it seemed.
“Donvino, we should get this to go,” I said, not sure where we could go once we left but sensed this was not the place to air all of our gay little secrets.
“Okay,” he said, rose, and weaved his way to the door, the bottle of wine held in his arms like a baby.
“Shit.” I jumped up, threw some cash on the table, and rushed back out into the blazing sun to find Donvino making his way down a little footpath to the river. I ran after him, eager to avoid him going ass over merlot down into the river and drowning. Sure, it might be low, but a person could drown in a teaspoonful of water, or so Nanny Ingrid used to tell me. Which led to a year of me being terrified of teaspoons. Gods I so disliked that woman. “Would you please slow down?”
“I will wait for always for you, my beloved Arlo,” he called over his shoulder, tipping his head back to take a slug of wine and falling ass over merlot—called it—into the fucking river. Yelping in fright, I skittered down the rocky path, red dust kicking up as I skidded downward to Donvino lying in a pool of lethargic water. He rolled to his back, sat up, and frowned at the bottle, which was now empty of wine but filled with brackish water. “Well fuck.”
He chucked the wine bottle to the bank and then laid down, the current so slow it was barely moving. The water curled around his ears as I stood on the bank panting, my hand over my heart, as the cypress trees lining the waterway shimmied on the river’s reflective surface.
“Are you okay?” I asked, hunkering down to place my hand on his thick thigh. His clothes were soaked, but he seemed uninjured. My heart was thudding madly in my breast.
“No, Arlo, not so fine. Will you sit with me?”
“In the water?! This vest is a Donald Rey Amigo original from last year’s Paris line and—” He made a sloppy swipe to grab me, but I scooted back, just far enough that his long arms couldn’t reach me, pulled out my silk hankie, and placed it over a dusty, flat rock. “I’ll sit here.”
“That is good,” he murmured, moving to sit up. Water streamed out of his thick hair, rivulets sliding along his nose to tickle his lips. “Sometimes I wish the water would carry me away. Far away. I’m not happy with my life here other than you.” He shook his head like a dog. Water peppered my face and vest. The droplets might stain my vest, but I said nothing. Nor did I utter a word when he placed his sodden hand on my thigh. “You are all the good for me.”
“I am not all the good,” I softly corrected. Then, because I was a softie and I loved this sweet, suffering man, I unbuttoned my vest, laid it carefully under the bough of a desperately thirsty cypress tree, and took off my shoes. Leather loafers did not go into the…well, whatever river this was. I took my time stepping gently into the water, surprised at how warm it was, much like a bathtub but with little fish darting about and checking out my bare toes. I deposited myself on his lap, legs tucked along his thighs, and let the water soak through my trousers. “I am part of the good, but you have so many people who love you.” I put my hands on his shoulders and leaned in to kiss him. His lips tasted of river water, earthy and a little metallic, but not unpleasant.
“People on the bridge will see,” he whispered when I sat back.
“Who cares? Let them look down on us and see two men sitting in a river and kissing. Let them write sonnets about great passion! Is that not what courses through the veins of all Italians? Love, romance, and passion?”
“I wish I could be like you. My grandmother and family are thinking you and I are getting together in bed.”
“We are, darling,” I whispered, moving my hands from his shoulders to push his wet hair from his face. My gods those eyes, those cheekbones, and those soft lips. Such a stunning man. “And there is no shame in that.”
“I know, but I feel the shame of them. Can you teach me to be shameless?”
“That, my love, I am an expert in. But we warned once you go full gay, you can never go back.” I threaded my fingers into his wet hair.
“I think I am tired of going back.”
“Then we’ll go into the future as a couple, yes?”
He glanced up, nodded, and plastered his mouth over mine as he flipped us over. I yelped even though the water was tepid, which made Donvino smile into the kiss. Even with brackish water filling my ears, kissing this man was like a religious experience.
Chapter Nineteen
Climbing out of the river an hour later, hand-in-hand, we met several locals who proceeded to grin at us and then offered us food. Maybe they thought we were hungry, given how we had been attacking each other’s faces. Maybe they just had extra bottles of water, dishes of what I had to assume were Bonetti olives and prosciutto-wrapped melon slices lying about. Donvino was shy, uneasy with the joking taking place. I held his hand, firmly but gently, and joshed back and forth with the folks of Valle Sicuro as we sat in the sun with our treats.
