The Italian Word for Kisses

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “I will deal with it!” Luca shouted, turning on him again. “Stay out of it, Tav! We only got into it ‘cause you tried to gouge his eyes out in the corridor, now back off and let me handle things, okay? I’m not a fucking girl!”

  “For fuck’s sake, Luca, take your head out your arse and see we’re only trying to he―”

  “You’re trying to fucking protect me—and I don’t fucking need you to!” Luca raged. “I’ll deal with it, Tav! Now fuck off—all of you fuck off and leave me alone!”

  He stormed into the house, slamming the graffitied door behind him, and then Mamma was shouting at Antonio again, and Mr. Jensen was pinching the bridge of his nose and groaning quietly to himself—

  UR DED FAG.

  Tav couldn’t take his eyes off the door.

  * * * *

  The leisure centre was open until three on Christmas Eve, so swimming had been moved forward. And yet Luca set off early, and without his kit.

  He was so angry—and mostly not even at Jack. At his dad, at his mamma, at his brother, at his boyfriend. Why was everyone freaking out so bad about it? It was just a shithead with a spray can! What the fuck did they think Jack was even capable of? He was just a mouthy git playing the hard man—and Luca, barrelling down Ecclesall Road on his bike, was going to fucking show him.

  He screeched up outside the leisure centre with such a heavy red mist over his vision that his hands shook and he fumbled to lock the bike to the railings. Luca was going to kill him. It had been fucking embarrassing, and then Tav and Tonio acting like Luca was some prissy girl that needed fucking defending—

  “Alright, Luca!”

  Luca ignored the shout, and stormed into the centre. The thump of hot, humid air in the face made him inexplicably angrier, and Aaron’s confused call did nothing to stop him. Luca’s heart was beating double-time now, and his hands curling into furious fists at his sides. Fuck him. Fuck-him-fuck-him-fuck―

  He banged into the changing rooms. Only three or four of the team were there, but Luca ignored the other boys and seized Jack by the back of the shirt, flinging him backwards into the lockers.

  “You fucking cunt!”

  “What the―!”

  “Jeez, Jensen, what’s got into you?!”

  “Hey!”

  “You fucking cunt!” Luca repeated at the top of his voice. He seized Jack by the neck of the shirt and shook him, shivering with rage. “You stay away from my house, you bastard! You stay away from my family or I’ll fucking rip your balls off and shove them up your arse, you understand me?!”

  “Fuck off,” Jack sneered, shoving back, but Luca didn’t let go.

  “You ever come near me or my house again, I’ll fucking kill you,” Luca hissed, leaning in close enough to kiss him. “You hear me, you little bastard? You think Tav fucking hit you, I’ll tear your face right off your skull, you get me?”

  “Get your dirty hands off me,” Jack snarled back.

  Tav would have punched him. Luca was simultaneously less violent, and more savage. His heart was in his throat. His head was pounding. His hands were stiff and unwieldy, and the sheer rage that consumed every part of his brain was absently terrifying.

  But the desire to wipe that disgusting smirk off Jack’s face wasn’t.

  So Luca seized the open locker door by Jack’s head, and slammed it into his nose.

  “One more thing,” Luca snarled, as Jack groaned and swore at him, “and I’ll kill you. You get me?”

  “You can fucking tr―”

  Luca slammed the door open again, then unclenched his fists, and stormed back out. Fuck Jack Collins. Fuck swimming. Fuck everything—Luca was going to go home, bury himself in bed, and play video games.

  But—first…

  He fumbled his phone out of his pocket with numb fingers as he jogged up the stairs.

  “Luca! You not joining us, kid!”

  He ignored Coach Cooper’s shout from the reception desk, and kept walking.

  To: Tav

  Message: sorry about this morning :( come over @ 6 2 watch archer? x

  Luca stepped out into the cold, and rolled his shoulders before retrieving his abandoned bike. Fuck it all. Jack ever came near him again, Luca’d deal with it—even if it involved smashing that ugly nose right off the little bastard’s face.

  Chapter 12: “Don’t let this Jack kid get to you.”

  “Chrissy-Chrissy-Chrissy-Chrissy!”

  “Fu—Amy! Gerroff!”

  She whined when Tav pulled the duvet up over his head, and then tiny six-year-old feet were in his ribs. “But Chrissy! It’s Christmas Day! It’s Christmas!”

  “So?” Tav demanded grumpily.

  “But Santa’s been!”

  For a fleeting moment, Tav thought about breaking the bad news to her, but then he woke up a fraction more and grunted, shoving the pillows over his head to block her out. “So go tell Ian. Jesus, Amy, it’s too early.”

  “Daddy’s asleep!”

  Lucky fucking Daddy. “So go wake him up. You know there’s no presents until Mam’s made breakfast.”

  She gasped, with more theatrical aplomb than Luca in a sarcastic rant, and tore back out of his room in a flurry of blonde hair and pink pyjamas. Tav groaned and untangled himself long enough to sit up and peer through the curtains across the street. It was gloomy and raining, and the Jensen house was silent and still, the paper that had been plastered over the graffiti a dull brown in the early light. Mr. Jensen’s car was missing. So they were still at the early morning Mass, which meant it wasn’t even eight yet.

  With a groan, Tav reburied himself. After a moment of peaceful, warm darkness, he heard the soft pad of footsteps, and his bedsheets moved. Bang on time.

  “Merry Christmas, Becky,” he mumbled as his ten-year-old sister fell into her usual Christmas morning routine, and clambered into bed with him, dark hair all over the place, tartan pyjamas too big for her, and a stuffed dragon under her arm that she resolutely denied still owning.

  “M’Christmas…”

  He dropped an arm over her, pulled the duvet back into place, and dozed to the dulcet tones of Amy screaming at Ian to get up and start Christmas ‘properly.’

  * * * *

  Christmas Day had a routine. Mass at six—the only time of the year they ever went to church at all—and then back to bed until ten, when Mamma would start bullying them out of bed and into the living room for breakfast, presents, and family time. Which for Mamma meant paying attention to everyone in turn, and being petted and hugged and generally made a fuss of for half an hour or so before she moved on to the next victim. If she paid more attention to Luca this time than usual, nobody mentioned it, and Luca indulged her a bit more than he had the last couple of years.

  When he was little, Mamma’s affirmations had been nice. It wasn’t easy to get some attention in this family—too many people milling around all the time—so when he was small, it had been Luca’s favourite thing about Christmas. Getting to sit on Mamma’s lap and have a big fuss made of you, it had been great. Almost as good as a birthday. But then he’d grown out of needing a fuss made of him, so now he lounged on the floor playing fire trucks with his baby niece, and narrowly avoiding getting kicked by Antonio every time the great lump went from kitchen to sofa. The adults were talking. Angelo and Tomas were breaking in the new game Antonio had gifted to the family Xbox, and Paolo…well, God knew where Paolo had vanished to.

  “Surprised you’re still here,” Antonio said on his fifth kitchen-to-sofa trip. “Your boyfriend gone away for the day?” Things were a bit tense since yesterday, but at least Antonio was trying to be nice. He’d nearly been arrested, and Dad was still angry with him. Luca didn’t want to rock that boat any more than it already had been.

  “Nah,” Luca said, sticking his tongue out at the baby. She giggled and made a grab for it. He propped his chin on both hands and pulled a grotesque face. “Mamma doesn’t like me going before one.”

  “Too right,” Mamma said loftil
y. “Christmas is for family.”

  “Tav’s family is like family, too,” Luca said absently, crossing his eyes. Baby Vicky shrieked and seized his nose. “Oi! Cheeky cow.”

  “Don’t call my kid a cow.”

  “Why not? Her daddy’s a berk. Isn’t he, Vicky? Isn’t your daddy a berk?”

  “Twat,” Antonio said, but Luca knew, playing with Vicky, that he was safe from the kick in the back he’d otherwise get.

  “Give her here, Luca, and Antonio, you watch your language. My granddaughter’s first word will not be a foul one!” Mamma chided, taking Vicky from Luca with a low croon in Italian. Luca stretched and rolled onto his back in time to avoid the swift kick Antonio aimed at his ribs.

  “Nice try, tosser. Mamma? Can I go yet?”

  “Oh, if you must. But your father wants to talk to you first, so pop into the kitchen.”

  “Busted,” Antonio said, smirking.

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know, darling.”

  “It’s your man-talk,” Antonio said.

  “You what?”

  “Luca, if you want to go to Christopher’s, you’ll have to talk to your father first. If not, stop baiting your brother.”

  Luca heaved himself off the floor, pausing long enough to respond to Vicky’s enthusiastic bye-bye wave and let his mother stroke his hair and kiss his cheek before wandering into the kitchen. Dad wanting a word wasn’t a request, it was a command. “Eyup, Dad. Mamma said you wanted a word?”

  “Mm.” He was boxing up Mamma’s biscuits and cakes. She always made a stupid amount of treats on Christmas Eve. “You off over the road?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dad grunted, and banged the box lid into place before straightening and eyeing Luca, wiping his hands off on a teatowel. Everyone assumed Luca looked like Mamma, but in reality he looked like Dad. Dad shaved his head, like Antonio did, but he’d had the same crop of tight, black curls, and the same pale, narrow face. He was much taller than Luca would ever be, and broad in a way that Luca’s wiry frame didn’t allow for, but…otherwise, yeah, Luca looked like Dad.

  Which meant he’d have to watch his gut when he reached his fifties. Dad had a proper beer-baby going on there.

  “I got a phone call last night from your swimming coach.”

  Luca’s gut clenched. “Oh.”

  “Said you got into a barney with another lad. Again.”

  “Was just yelling,” Luca lied.

  “Uh-huh. Sure. Anything to do with our front door?”

  Luca shrugged awkwardly. “Only that he probably did it.”

  Dad leaned on one of the chairs, hands curling around the fake wood. It creaked under his weight. “What’s going on.” It wasn’t a question.

  “You already heard.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fine. Jack at swimming has a problem with me being gay.”

  The words felt heavy and awkward over his tongue. He had talked to his dad exactly once about his sexuality, and it hadn’t been Luca’s choice. Dad had walked in on him and Tav kissing. They had never talked about Luca’s preferences again, and to even say the g-word in front of Dad felt stupidly weird, even though Dad knew full well he was gay, knew exactly why he went over to Tav’s for Christmas Day, and had even laughed at Mamma when she’d been outraged over the discovery Luca had condoms in his bedside drawer.

  He just, you know. He was Dad. Luca didn’t want to talk about being gay in front of his dad. It was weird.

  “Jack Collins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’d you yell at him about?”

  “About whether he did our front door,” Luca said. He tipped his chin back and held his father’s eye contact. “He’s a prick and he can take his opinion and shove it. He doesn’t get to shove me out of swimming because he doesn’t want to change in the same room as a queer. And he doesn’t get to plaster it on our front door neither. But I don’t need the police to sort him out, I can do that fine.”

  Dad snorted, and straightened up. He folded his arms over his chest, and Luca swallowed, unsure if he was in trouble or not.

  “I didn’t hit him,” he tried. Technically. The locker door hit him. Kind of like the bike helmet before that.

  “Maybe you should’ve done. Teach the little shit a lesson,” Dad rumbled, and Luca relaxed. “How much crap is he giving you? Door aside.”

  Luca shrugged. “He’s just a gobshite.”

  “You handling it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Dad nodded. “Sure?”

  “I’m sure, Dad.”

  “Okay then.” The arms unfolded, and Dad’s mouth twitched up at the side in a smirk. “Just don’t pick fights with him where your teachers can see you. Last thing your mother and I need is calling into the school to collect one of you rowdy little bastards again.”

  “Hey! You’ve never had to collect me from school for fighting.”

  “Angelo is making up for you, trust me,” Dad muttered, then reached out and squeezed Luca’s shoulder hard. “I don’t say it often, kid, but I’m proud of you.”

  Luca felt his face heating up, and squirmed.

  “Your mother and I worried about you after you told us the truth about you and Chris Pretty.”

  “Tavistock,” Luca corrected on autopilot, and Dad rolled his eyes.

  “Whatever. My point is, we were worried how you were going to cope with other people finding out. And he’s a nice lad, your boyfriend, but he’s not the best at keeping a lid on things, is he?”

  Luca snorted. “Ye-eah, no.” That was how they got caught in the first place, Tav being shitty at secret-keeping.

  “But I’m proud of how you’ve handled yourself. And if this Jack kid takes more than a good smack in the gob to see off, you let your family know. Despite yesterday’s scene, you do have our support. Antonio could use the practice—he’s gonna need it when that little lady grows up and the boys start noticing her.”

  “Not if she inherits Antonio’s ugly mug.”

  Dad snorted and smirked wickedly, and Luca grinned.

  “Less of the cheek, you little sod. And don’t let this Jack kid get to you. Bigger crap to worry about in the world than whether some jumped-up little toerag doesn’t like what you like to do after dark.”

  “Uh-huh,” Luca said. “Can I go yet? It’s, like…quarter past one already.”

  “Piss off, then,” Dad said, ruffling Luca’s hair with an enormous hand. “Tell Laura we’ll be round about five-ish. And take that with you,” he added, shoving one of the boxes into Luca’s chest.

  “Yeah, yeah. See you later. Bye, Mamma!” Luca shouted as he headed into the hall. He shoved his feet into his shoes and decided to screw the coat. It was only over the road.

  The cold cooled the flush on his face from Dad’s weird emotional support thingy, but not the warmth in his chest.

  * * * *

  The doorbell rang at twenty past one, and Tav hauled himself out of the beanbag, edged around the mountain of toys Amy had gotten from a suspiciously Ian Pretty-esque Santa, and escaped into the hall. It was still raining outside, and ball-numbingly cold, but when Tav opened the door, he was immediately given an icy kiss and a box.

  “Merry Christmas!”

  Luca had his backpack, but no jacket, and Tav rolled his eyes before pulling him inside, shutting the door, and shoving the box and bag onto the hall table.

  “Idiot,” he said, then cupped that chilly face and kissed him again. “Merry Christmas. You’re late. The film’s about to start. You in?”

  “What is it?”

  “Muppets again.”

  “I’m in,” Luca agreed, and slid his hands around Tav’s waist. They were cold, too, and Tav dropped his hands to hug Luca properly and press his mouth to Luca’s cheek. “In a minute.”

  “Yeah,” Tav echoed quietly, deciding to enjoy this tiny moment to themselves. Christmas was always busy, and Tav was never sure if he liked it or not. Boxing Day was better, when Luca got fe
d up with all his brothers and Mam got fed up with the girls and made Ian take them to feed the ducks at the park all day, and Tav and Luca could hide up in his room. Christmas was a bit more variable—especially after yesterday.

  Luca had texted in the afternoon, and Tav had gone round to lounge on Luca’s bed and watch one of Luca’s favourite webseries, but they hadn’t really talked much and it had been a bit awkward. Luca didn’t usually blow up in Tav’s face like that, and it had rankled. Neither of them had quite let it go.

  But this hug was more genuine, more relaxed, and Tav tucked his nose into Luca’s neck and inhaled the lingering smell of gingerbread and weed.

  “You’re clingy.”

  Tav smirked. “You smell nice, and I want a hug. Deal with it.”

  “Okay. Dealing with it,” Luca said, rubbing his fingers at the small of Tav’s back. He was warming up, and smelled, under the gingerbread-weed combo, of baking and that odd candle-incense-whatever smell from church. But more than that, under the mixture of aromas clinging to his clothes and hair, he smelled familiar and soothing. It was like the smell of raw hug, if such a thing were possible. “Aaron texted me this morning, by the way. Says there’s a rehearsal just after New Year so I have to save some kisses for him.”

  Tav tensed. He hadn’t expected Luca to bring up the play, and it caught him so unawares that his mind switched straight to their kiss in the community centre, and all his muscles locked for a brief moment. Then he forcibly relaxed, and mentally groaned. But Luca was sharper than that.

  “Tav?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Are you―”

  “It’s fine, I’m being stupid,” Tav interrupted, and pressed his nose against Luca’s cheek again. His eyelashes dragged and caught when they brushed Luca’s skin. “I know it’s stupid. I know it means nothing and it’s just a play and you wouldn’t do that to me, and Aaron’s not the kind of guy to go for guys with boyfriends even if he was the type to go for guys in the first place…”

  “Rambling.”

  “Oh shut up,” Tav murmured, and nudged his face back into Luca’s for another one of those fleeting kisses, the soft brushing ones that Luca always gave out when he was being hugged. Tav loved those kisses. He loved the plundering kisses the best, but these ones were always so quiet and understated. The little things you had to appreciate. He let go to cup Luca’s neck in both hands, and tried to deepen it, but Luca only laughed and pushed him off. “Film. You said it was nearly starting, and we’ve been standing here doing bugger all for at least ten minutes.”