Page 36 of Duke for the Summer

“You’re allowed to do more than that.” There was an ache between his legs as he thought of that morning, and a corresponding ache in his chest. Nothing between them, and the desperate, almost wounded sound Jacopo had made as he came inside of him. Nate felt a thrill go through him. He wanted to hear Jacopo make that noise again.

“I’m dreaming.” Jacopo looked at their hands, still twined together. “I’ll wake up any minute, I think.”

“Speaking of dreaming, I can’t sleep.”

“Hm. I think I can help you with that.”

“Yeah?” Nate snapped the laptop shut, leaning over him. “What do you propose?”

Jacopo laughed a little. “Actually–I’d like to take you to the beach. Do you want to? It’s beautiful at night, when no one else is there. And it’s where I go sometimes, when I can’t get anysleep.”

It wasn’t what Nate had had in mind, but his heart fluttered in his chest as they zipped through the dark on Jacopo’s vespa, feeling like he was soaring, the cliffside indistinct and the lights of distant houses dancing in the night like fireflies. He’d thought it was creepy out here before, but now, locked to Jacopo in this little pocket of warmth, the motor humming beneath them and the air on their faces carrying the last traces of the day’s heat, it seemed like the night was theirs. The surface of the water below was crisscrossed by white veins of foam that stood out in the light of the moon, ever shifting, and the stars spilled out overhead, endless against the hazy backdrop of the Milky Way. It was a different world, a secret world of black and white, of shadows and moonlight, nobody in it but them.

The beach was a glimmering bar of silver, scrawled all over with lines from the tide, which seemed to be going out because the sand was wet when they stepped on it. Nate took his shoes off, scrunching the ground between his toes. Far away, some manmade noise came in across the water, the low horn of a fishing boat. If it hadn’t been for that, he could have believed they were the only people alive. The whisper of the ocean was soothing, rhythmic. Jacopo’s hand traced up and down his back, matching its cadence.

“Come sit with me.” Jacopo led Nate to a pile of driftwood. They sat with their backs to the island, watching the waves curl and topple over each other, the tracery of moonlight across the water’s surface.

“You weren’t kidding,” Nate said. He felt a little silly, disturbing the silence. Jacopo’s body was loose and relaxed, his arm draped casually around Nate’s waist. “It really is gorgeous out here. You know all the best spots on this island.”

“I have to, I think.” Jacopo traced lines in the sand with his fingers. “I’ve spent so many years here, trying to find placeswhere I can be alone.”

“Will you miss it?”

Jacopo tilted his head back, looking at the stars. “I don’t know,” he said. “I always wanted my world to be bigger. But I didn’t really think it was possible. I didn’t think a lot of things were possible, before I met you.” He glanced at Nate, his expression unreadable.

Nate swallowed. He wasn’t really sure what to do with that information. There was a weird squirming sensation in his stomach as he said, “Gracie told me about your dad.”

Jacopo sighed, squeezing his eyes shut. “Of course she did. She’s like Tuesday, that girl. Always in the middle of everything.”

“It’s why you want to leave, right? Because of him, because he blames you for his accident?” Nate put his hand on Jacopo’s knee. His fingers were steady, but his heart was rattling around in his chest like a stray marble. “You know it’s bullshit, right? It’s not your fault. Even if you had been here–”

“It’s not–” Jacopo looked away, across the sea. Something was blinking out there, a red light. Nate saw it caught in his eyes. “It’s not that simple. He never liked me, even before the accident. He wanted me to be more like my cousins. He was always telling me I was too sensitive, too quiet. Pushing me to play sports, to go out on the fishing boat. To–butcher a goat without crying about it.” He laughed, sheepishly and without any real humor. “I’ve never been the right kind of man for him.”

“I think you’re a perfectly good kind of man.”

“That’s nice of you to say.”

“I mean it.” Nate cupped Jacopo’s cheek, his heart still doing that weird rattly thing. “The whole machismo thing is dumb as hell. The world needs more sensitive men who like cooking and translating books and taking care of things. Plants. Stray cats.” He shrugged. “Clueless dukes.”

“Nate.” Jacopo shook his head, eyes not leaving his face. Nate still couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“You shouldn’t let anyone let you feel less than,” he insisted. “I’ve made that mistake. More than once. And I—I hardly even felt like a fucking person when I was working at that warehouse.”

“I know. You said something about that, the first night you were here.”

Nate laughed nervously, brushing sand off his hands. “Shit. I really bared my soul to you, huh?”

“No. But you did hit on me a little bit.”

“Wow. Brave of me. Score one for Drunk Nate, I guess.”

“I like Drunk Nate.” Jacopo brushed his lips against Nate’s temple.

“I don’t. He’s a messy bitch. And he always binge-eats carbs at like 3am.”

“Well, I like sober Nate, too. And the Nate who draws. All the Nates, really.” Jacopo’s thumb made idle circles on his hip, feather-light.

Nate felt heat rising in his face, and he looked away. It was too easy to get caught up in it all, the starlight and the compliments and the hushed voice of the surf, the way Jacopo’s arm felt so natural around him. He cleared his throat. “So what should we do while we’re out here? Sex on the beach?”

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