ROBERTO
And it was done. Now that I had brought the sauce and the eggplants Mom had prepared to Grandma, I was very much ready to start enjoying my day. Since I had left home to go live in Milan, I had started to appreciate more all the habits and rituals that characterized my parents’ lives in the small town. As a kid I hated running errands for Mom or going fishing with Dad, but now I felt like it all had a different, deeper meaning; those activities that were once boring were now precious memories of my family that I’d hold on to during my long days in Milan.
Grandpa looked good, maybe just a little shorter than the last time I saw him. I couldn’t say the same for grandma, whose condition had worsened considerably. For a moment, I wondered how much time we still had together.
“I think your grandpa thinks I’m your boyfriend,” James told me, saving me from the dark path my thoughts were going down.
“Don’t mind him. He thinks that about every friend I bring over.” Even though this time I didn’t feel like telling Grandpa he was wrong. Partly because Grandpa hadn’t been so enthusiastic when he had met Luca and I didn’t want to disappoint him, and partly because I hadn’t been too enthusiastic when I brought Luca over either. Not that Luca ever did anything wrong, but James had been so respectful, sweet and adorable with Grandpa that I felt pretty damn proud of having him by my side.
I might kiss him by the end of the day.
I mentally slapped myself for thinking that, and then I said, “To thank you for sticking with me today, I’ll bring you to one of the coolest places I know.”
James’ blue eyes were shining as much as his golden curls in the sun. “Where?” he asked me with a huge smile.
“Surprise,” I told him and led the way down from the other side of the square. We rode our bikes through the tiny streets of the old town, but before taking the main road back to the residential area, I turned left and cut through the trees. James followed me, staring in amazement at the landscape around us. He looked surprised when I stopped, apparently in the middle of nowhere, and told him we had to leave the bikes there to continue on foot. We descended down a rocky cliff to a tiny beach, and reached what my friends and I called “the Rock,” like the wrestler. It was a pointed rock hidden from the shore where I went with my friends as a kid to do some tame cliff diving. The only reason behind the name is that we were dumb.
James’s mouth was half open as he looked down the Rock into the water.
“So you were planning to kill me after all,” he muttered.
“What? Come on, we can start with a cannonball,” I said, losing my shirt and doing some stretching.
He shook his head. “I’m not throwing myself off this thing.”
“There are no rocks below us, so it’s safe. The water’s really deep.”
“Yes, well, it’s not a matter of theoretical safety. I don’t do diving.”
“Why?”
He remained speechless for a little while. “Because… I have never done it before.”
I scoffed. “That’s not a proper reason.”
“What is a proper reason?”
“Something like, ‘I can’t swim’, or ‘I’m afraid of heights’, or ‘I have an ear condition that doesn’t allow me to’. Being just a little scared is not a proper reason.”
He looked down again. “How high is this thing?”
“It isn’t that high. Must be three or four meters.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
I took my phone out of my pocket and made a quick google search. “About thirteen feet.”
“Oh, God.”
“Hey.” I got closer and tilted his chin up to make him look at me. He was biting his lip again. “If you really don’t want to, it’s okay. I’m not forcing you.”
He stared at me intensely and finally nodded his head. “Yes, okay. I can… I can do this.” He took off his t-shirt and stretched his back, arms and legs. “I might not look it, but I learned how to swim in a river.” I must have showed my amusement on my face, because he added, “My grandfather owns a farm. I’ve done all kinds of outdoor activities in my life, okay? I’m not scared of… throwing myself into the sea.” A sigh followed. “What do I do?” He asked me, his breath a little ragged.
“Just jump and don’t go flat on your face.”
“Not flat on my face. Perfect.”
I extended my hand to him. “I’ll do it with you. And I don’t want to hear you say that your hand is sweaty.”
James took my hand, after a moment in which he looked at it as if it was a poisonous snake. Then he squeezed it gently and chuckled. I could feel all the tension he had in him dissolve slowly.
“What?” I asked him. Being with James was fun. I could never guess what was going through his head.
“You jump, I jump.”
A hearty laugher escaped my lips. “Are you quoting Titanic?”
“I knew you’d get that. Classic Millennial.” He started running toward the edge of the cliff and I had to run with him to keep holding his hand.
“You brat!” I screamed as we jumped off the cliff.
During the fall, I lost him. I swam back to the surface and I saw him emerge from the sea, laughing. His laughter was hearty and deep, with his beautiful voice echoing throughout the bay. And then I was laughing too, like I couldn’t help it, like I was where I was meant to be, with the only person who was meant to be there with me. I swam to him, or maybe he swam to me – I don’t know who started it and who reached the other first – and he was in my arms. I secured my hands on his waist and pulled him up, his palms settled on my shoulders and he looked down at me, dripping salty water all over my face. His red lips were curved into the most honest smile and I felt my chest burning at the bare thought that it was addressed to me and me alone.
“I have to do it again now,” he said with his eyes lingering on his hands on my shoulders, as if he had just now realized where they were.
“It’s never felt so good to say, ‘I told you so,’” I remarked, lacing my arms around him and pulling him closer. His arms slid around my neck and one of his hands settled in my hair. My face was so close to his neck that I was tempted to lean in and suck hickeys all over his collarbone. His stomach was now pressed tightly against my chest and his crotch against my stomach. I could feel on my skin every tiny movement of his ribcage. He breathed slow and deep breaths and I wanted to feel them more, on my face and in my arms. I tightened the grip of my arms and he gasped. His fingers yanked my hair as he dropped his head forward, his nose now pressing right above my ear. And, probably just because I was so close to his pretty mouth, I could hear it: a soft, muffled moan coming off his lips.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered breathlessly. “Let me go.”
In a moment, it was all crystal clear. His ragged breath, his body growing tense, the tight feeling of the hard length pressing against my stomach. I thought it was all adrenaline and momentary, playful excitement like my own, but James was incredibly close to his peak instead. I damned myself for not noticing sooner and loosened the hug gently, but as his body slid down against mine into the water, he swore between his teeth as an inevitable, strong tremor made him go very rigid against me.