The Italian Word for Kisses

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “Well, you’re right—but you reacted like shit, kid. You’re a good swimmer. Best butterfly stroke I’ve seen in years. Between you and me, your name’s on more than a few lists to swim for the county, Jensen. Could do with some discipline work, but when you want that win, you get it every time. And I’m not backward enough to ignore that kind of skill because you’re writ-up a bit different, f’you know what I mean. But same time, Jack’s a teenager and he’s got, ah, some personal shit going on that you lot have no business knowing. It’s normal for other lads to be a bit twitchy. He gets aggressive with you and tells you to quit, you let me know, you don’t go attacking him in public where little kids can see. You got me?”

  “Yes, Coach.”

  “I don’t want more trouble between the two of you. You’re both damn good, and I don’t want to have to let one of you go because you can’t keep your heads focused on what’s important.”

  “No, Coach,” Luca said meekly. “I’ll ignore him next time, Coach. I…overreacted, you know? He hit a nerve. I’ll ignore him if he does it again.”

  “Good lad. Now get in the water.” Coach surged to his feet, and Luca barely covered his ears in time. “Five widths with each stroke, boys! You’re getting lazy! Just because the summer’s over doesn’t mean you get to mess around like you’re still in Tadpoles!”

  Luca slid across the tiles again. The rest of the team were already in the water, though he couldn’t pick out Jack’s shaved pate. He rolled his shoulders, tucked his toes together at the lapping edge, and bent at the waist to skim his knuckles behind his ankles, tensing every muscle from hip to foot, and—

  Hesitated.

  Hesitated.

  The blood pooled dizzily in his face for a brief second, and the scar on his forehead throbbed. It had been right here. He couldn’t remember, but—he remembered the hospital, and wanting Mamma. He remembered the look of fear on Tav’s face, and the way everyone had been fussing. His lungs had hurt, and his ribs had felt bruised, presumably from Jack and CPR, and—

  “In the water, Jensen, you’re not going to do widths by starin’ at it!”

  On instinct, trained by years of swimming club to do as Coach demanded, Luca sprang. The water snapped shut over his body with a clap; his flurry of movement slowed in the thick, warm depths of the pool, and—

  The uncertainty vanished, popping like a bubble, and Luca struck out, his body taking over from his brain.

  He swam—and he came home.

  * * * *

  Tav had been grounded. And he’d been sulking, truth be told, because he felt it was bitterly wrong to ground him for teaching that shit-for-brains Collins a lesson about sounding off about Tav’s boyfriend.

  But, really, he ought to have known it wouldn’t stop Luca. Because one minute Tav was playing Age of Mythology on his computer, and the next his bedroom door was open and Luca Jensen was throwing his swimming bag onto Tav’s bed.

  “The fuck?” Tav said, and raised his eyebrows when Luca shoved his chair back from the desk and sat in Tav’s lap. “How’d you get in? Everyone’s out.”

  “Your mam left the kitchen window unlocked.”

  “Burglar.”

  “Not stealing nothing,” Luca protested, rubbing his nose along Tav’s cheek. “Leave your stupid game. I’ve not seen you since you slugged Jack in the face.”

  “Er. Yeah?” Tav said warily, but paused the game. Luca was heavy, warm, and slightly damp from swimming club. Which was a weird turn-on seeing as how they were both still, you know, in their clothes.

  “So I might have slugged him today, too.”

  Tav laughed.

  “With my bike helmet.”

  “Dirty savage,” Tav said, pinching Luca’s thigh. Luca snorted, and kissed Tav’s ear.

  “Whatever. I’m frustrated.”

  “What?”

  “I need a shag, Tav, get with the program.”

  “Oh,” Tav said, and clicked out of the game entirely. “Okay. Barricade the door, mind, I’m grounded. Includes not having you over.”

  “For how long?”

  “A fortnight.”

  “Bugger that,” Luca said brusquely. “Anyway, your mam’ll give up after about twenty minutes of trying to handle you and Becky and Amy all at once.”

  Tav laughed again, and let Luca slide off his lap and tow him towards the bed by the hands. Swimming riled Luca like anger riled Tav. It didn’t always predict how he wanted it, but a hard training session meant Luca brought a bit of hardness back, you know?

  They crashed onto the bed in a flurry of activity, Tav burying both hands in Luca’s damp curls and kissing him so hard it felt like consuming him. He felt a shadow of anger again, at Collins and at Luca for tangling with the little shit, but also a stronger streak of pride and amusement. Tav might be a thug, but he believed at least a bit in fair play. Don’t kick a bloke in the balls, that kind of thing. But Luca fought dirty—hitting someone with a cycling helmet was so him.

  “Did you smash up what’s left of his face?”

  “Yeah,” Luca said breathlessly, hands fumbling at Tav’s jeans. “Didn’t break his nose, though.”

  “Pity,” Tav said into Luca’s neck. “You should’ve. What’d you fight about?”

  “He told me to quit.”

  Tav paused. “Eh?”

  “He told me to quit swimming,” Luca said, his voice a little breathless, and Tav pushed himself up on his hands to stare.

  “He told you to quit?”

  “Uh-huh. Said he didn’t want to get naked near a gayboy,” Luca said, and frowned. “Tav? C’mon. Don’t stop.”

  “What’d you say to that?”

  “I hit him, what d’you think?” Luca said, and rocked his hips up. Tav caught them in both hands, steadying himself.

  “But you didn’t actually quit, right?”

  “You fall out of the idiot tree this morning? First I have to spell out why I’m here, now this?” Tav huffed and chuckled. “I’m serious!” Luca whined. “You’re acting right daft. Now c’mon. Stop talking about Jack Collins when I’m trying to get laid, it’s off-putting.”

  Tav dragged both hands right back through Luca’s curls. It was a hopeless thing; they were too short and tight, and sprang back into place the minute Tav let them go. Luca stretched into the attention for a moment, eyes sliding shut, but then squirmed deliberately and started tugging on Tav’s jeans again.

  “C’mon,” he coaxed. “I’m all tense, man, you gotta help me out. Hos before bros.”

  Tav was distracted when one of those hands found its way into his pants. “You calling me a ho?”

  “Ch’yeah,” Luca said. “I said shag, and here we are. Hey, hey—lemme…”

  Tav allowed Luca to turn them over, and then Luca was pushing up his T-shirt and kissing his way down Tav’s chest in an intent sort of fashion, and—

  Tav buried both hands in Luca’s hair, curling his lower body up into his hands and mouth when they got there, and groaned at the ceiling. Fuck Jack Collins. Fuck ‘em all—this was what Tav had, and this was what he was bloody well going to keep. They’d come too far, overcome too many fears—mainly Luca’s, but some of Tav’s, too—to get to this good place, and Tav would be damned if Jack fucking Collins was going to bugger it all up at the last hurdle. Him and Luc, they were a forever type thing, much as Mam’d laugh at it, and Jack didn’t get to screw with it.

  Tav made a vow to the ceiling.

  If Jack Collins decided to mess with Luca, then Tav was going to mess Jack Collins up. And properly this time.

  Chapter 9: “They don’t take your heart out when you become an adult, you know.”

  It—didn’t happen.

  Whatever had gone down between Jack and Luca at the leisure centre, there was no sign of it when Mam caved in under the pressure of Tav feeding his youngest sister Amy packets of sweets and letting her bounce off the walls. By the time he was released—both from Mam and from endless lunchtime and after-school detentions at school,
it was early December, and Jack Collins was apparently steering well clear of either of them.

  Good decision, far as Tav was concerned.

  Sure, Jack glared across corridors and classrooms if they did see him, but he didn’t approach, and Luca’s good mood just kept getting better as Christmas approached. He liked Christmas—that little-kid glee hadn’t worn off, Tav reckoned—and Jack wasn’t a shadow on Luca’s horizon as winter set in proper and Christmas lights started going up on houses in the street. The school tree went up, came down under the power of some of the Year Eights, and went up again after a stern lecture in assembly from Mr. Arsin’-All. Mam started having arguments on the phone with Tav’s old man again, shouting at him and saying he wasn’t welcome to see his son for Christmas. And Tav hid in his room, sometimes alone and sometimes with Luca, and blocked it all out with Christmas quests on his online games.

  The odd thing happened. Luca’s phone was nicked out of the leisure centre changing rooms about a week after the fight. His locker got trashed twice more, though nothing was written on it. Tav knew it was Jack, but he was treading a fine line at school and home, and Luca just told him to stay out of things.

  “Just ignore him, he’ll fuck off soon enough.”

  Mam’s warning was more serious than Luca’s, though. She didn’t like Christmas. Tav’s dad—his real one, Ben Tavistock—had walked out at Christmas with that slapper he’d taken up with. And every Christmas he’d call and ask to see Tav, even though Tav hadn’t seen him since he was, like, seven, and he didn’t want to see him either. Ben Tavistock had been a nasty, stupid son of a bitch who’d thought it was cool to hit Mam when they’d argued, and had once hit Tav with his belt for breaking a plate.

  But he started up every December, ringing Mam and threatening her with court because she wouldn’t let him see his only son—only, sure, as far as they knew—and calling up the social and making up lies about Ian hitting the girls and how Ben was just worried about them.

  It got Mam tetchy, and Tav tried to make things easier for her at Christmas and keep a lid on his temper better. He couldn’t afford to get into another fight with Jack, not after that tackle in the corridor, and Mam would completely lose her shit. Plus, you know, if he got suspended and Ben had been making up crap to social again, they might actually visit.

  So Tav watched Jack, and knew it was him when Luca had to get a new phone and report the damage to his locker again, but didn’t do anything. For Mam’s sake, you know? Anyway, he could always beat the crap out of Jack in the spring, when it had all blown over, yeah?

  It was easier to not think about it all if he went round Luca’s, mind. Mamma Alessandra was big on Christmas—the house always got decorated with mismatched tinsel and random collections of baubles all over the place, and her sons following her around taking the mistletoe down right after she put it up.

  “It’s gross,” Luca had told Tav one year, maybe that Christmas they’d got together. “She sticks it up and then Dad keeps catching her under it and they play tongue hockey. It’s minging, man, they’re parents. They’re old!”

  More than that, though, Luca got it. Tav didn’t know if Mr. and Mrs. Jensen knew about why the run-up to Christmas kind of sucked in his family, but Luca did. And Luca’s response had just been to casually say, “Wow, man, I figured you inherited the resting bitchface from your mam, but it was your dad!” and tow Tav around in his enthusiastic wake for most of December.

  Tav kept one eye on Jack Collins while doing nothing, and the other on Luca Jensen while doing everything. Up to and including cycling up to the big Asda in Handsworth the first Saturday in December with Mamma Alessandra’s shopping list, and struggling back with, like, a hundred plastic bags on each handlebar, because the family car had jacked it in.

  “Mamma’s adopting you,” Luca had warned that Saturday, and Tav had just smirked at him.

  “That’d make you and me, like, incest, so hope not.”

  “Ew, gross!”

  “You said it!”

  To Tav’s surprise, Luca had taken his hand and squeezed it in the middle of Asda, without their winter coats and hats doing a damn thing to disguise the fact they were both boys, and said, “She just worries about you. She knows your old man makes Christmas awkward.”

  Tav shrugged and locked their fingers together more tightly.

  “Is he being particularly bad this year?”

  “Nah,” Tav said. “No worse than usual. Just, you know, I’m on thin ice at school ‘cause of Jack, and Mam’ll disown me if I get expelled, so—I dunno, man. Just toughing it out until Christmas.”

  “You’ll do fine,” Luca’d said, and kissed him on the cheek, holding his hand, in the middle of a busy supermarket, on a Saturday morning.

  Tav had nearly believed him.

  * * * *

  “Luca!”

  Luca groaned and put his magazine over his face. Tav, sprawled out on the sofa playing Grand Theft Auto—whatever version, the one with the mouthiest hookers—with Tomas, sniggered.

  “Busted,” he said.

  “Shut up,” Luca grumbled.

  “Busted!” Tomas echoed cheerfully, not taking his eyes off the TV.

  “Luca!”

  “Coming, Mamma!” Luca called, heaving himself off the sofa. It was a Monday evening. Tav had been—as was usual in December—hiding out at theirs for the last week or so, but he wasn’t being such a moody shit as normal, and it was kind of nice just hanging out with Tomas or Paolo sometimes. Luca dropped the magazine into Tomas’ lap, ruffled Tav’s gingery-blond hair obnoxiously as he passed them, and meandered into the kitchen.

  “Lightbulb,” Mamma trilled, pointing a long finger up at the dark overhead light without turning from the bubbling pans on the stove. Luca wasn’t fooled, though; she’d shut the door behind him.

  “‘Kay,” he said anyway, and climbed up on the table to reach.

  “Your swimming coach called today.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “He said you’ve been having some trouble with one of the other boys.”

  Luca grimaced as he unscrewed the dead bulb. The filament was burned right through, the glass blackened at the base. “It’s nothing, Mamma.”

  “Derek Cooper doesn’t call over nothing,” Mamma scolded lightly. “He said you had a fight with this boy.”

  “Might have done,” Luca said uselessly, stretching up to twist the new bulb in. “It was like a week and a half ago though, Mamma. It wasn’t―”

  “Luca.”

  He groaned. “Mamma.”

  “I am not the least bit concerned about you fighting, Luca, you’ve always had better reasons than Antonio and Angelo—but Derek Cooper was worried about you.” And finally Mamma turned from her pots to put her hands on her hips and peer up at Luca. “Come down from there and tell me, eh?”

  Luca blinked. “Coach was worried about me?”

  “Is that so hard to imagine?”

  “Yes, actually!”

  Mamma huffed, but the ghost of a smile was playing around her mouth. “Honestly, you boys. They don’t take your heart out when you become an adult, you know. Now, why would he be worried, eh, Luca?”

  Luca sighed, screwing the bulb in tightly. “Try it now.”

  Mamma sighed, and flicked the switch. It lit up instantly, and she switched it off again. “Talk to me, Luca. What happened with this boy?”

  “He was just being a dick,” Luca said. “He’s uncomfortable with me because of me and Tav.”

  “Christopher?” Chreestopher. Her accent never sounded stronger than when she said Tav’s name—and she always said it, because she didn’t like his nickname. “Was Christopher there?”

  “No, but it was about him,” Luca said. “Jack—Jack doesn’t like that I’m…you know, with Tav.”

  It still felt slightly uncomfortable to say ‘gay’ in front of his mamma. She didn’t care. Neither of his parents did—they’d been amazing, actually, and Luca knew he was, like, the luckiest queer ki
d in Yorkshire, but still. It just felt a bit weird to say it out loud to them sometimes. They knew what Tav was to Luca, why’d he need to say his sexual orientation out loud, too?

  “I see,” Mamma said.

  Luca sighed. “Jack told me to quit swimming.”

  Mamma scowled. She was a slight woman, looked ten years younger than she actually was, and had a lot of thick black hair piled up on the top of her head. Her dark brows knitted together, and she beckoned Luca down from the table silently. When he stepped down, she hugged him—not unusual, exactly, but not common these days either.

  “Mamma?”

  “My boys,” Mamma said firmly, stepping back and cupping his face in both hands, “do not listen to the likes of that silly little child.”

  “No, Mamma.”

  “If I hear one word of you quitting the swimming club, Luca―”

  “I’m not quitting!”

  “―then there will be trouble, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Mamma.”

  She patted his cheek, and her face softened. “My Luca,” she said softly, and lapsed into gentle Italian. “I can’t believe how old you’re getting.”

  “Mamma!” A heat was rising in his face. “M’only seventeen!”

  “You carry yourself as though you’re twenty, dear,” she said in English, and kissed both cheeks before propelling him towards the kitchen door with her hands. “Go on, go on. And if this boy—this Jake—”

  “Jack.”

  “Jack,” she amended. “If he bothers you about the swimming club again, you tell your mamma, or you tell the coach―” More likely, Luca thought, he’d hit Jack again and maybe tell Tav. “―and we’ll sort it out, alright? Family.”

  “Family,” Luca echoed faintly, then smiled. “Thanks, Mamma, but Jack’s not a problem.”

  “If you’re sure, dear.”

  Luca snorted, and laughed. “C’mon, Mamma, I survived Antonio! Like Jack Collins is ever gonna be any worse.”

  She clucked and shooed him out—but by the relief in her face, Luca decided that even if Jack did turn out to be trickier to shake than he suspected, he wouldn’t be telling Mamma. She was too prone to fuss and worry.