Page 39 of Duke for the Summer

“Oh my God.” Nate let out a surprised laugh. “See? It’s not fair. You know a bunch of American slang. How do you say ‘no shit’ in Italian?”

Jacopo thought for a moment, tapping his lips with one finger. Nate loved when his face got serious like this, his eyebrows stark and expressive. “I think,grazie al cazzo. It’s about the same. And it’s a little bit rude. Translated literally, it means ‘thanks to the dick.’”

“Thanks to the dick?” Nate sputtered. “I can think of a lot of reasons to say that, but not–”

“We have a lot of slang about dicks,” Jacopo said. “And asses, too, I think.”

“Wow, very homoerotic slang,” Nate said. “Thanks, Romans. So what’s, like, the worst dick-related insult you can say?”

“Oh, the worst thing you can say isn’t about body parts. To really swear in Italian, you’d have to start talking about Santa Maria or the baby Jesus. But you are trying to distract me.” Jacopo’s lips were pressed together, but his eyes were sparkling with amusement. “Get back to work on your grammar.”

“No way, I’m done for the day. I can’t focus anyway.” His hand was still on Jacopo’s thigh, and he dug his fingers in, scooting forward in his chair until their noses were brushing. “Have you ever wanted to do it in a library?”

They did it in the library, getting each other off like teenagers under the forbidding gaze of the portraits on the walls. They tried out the claw-foot tub in Nate’s bathroom, and got carried away while Jacopo was cooking, the pasta water boilingover, Nate bracing himself against the counter. Nate almost felt like he was high, or on a bender. He knew he would have to come up for air at some point, but he didn’t want to, and he stopped paying attention to the date on his phone, stopped paying attention to his phone at all, because it made his stomach grow cold and his palms sweat.

There wasn’t enough time, and there was too much. Not enough time with Jacopo, and too much time to think. During the sleepy, hot lull of midday when Jacopo usually took a nap, Nate was itchy with unspent energy, worries ping-ponging around in his head. He couldn’t focus well enough to draw, or type up Jacopo’s translations–and typing up the translations was its own kind of distress, poring over the polished loops and curves of Jacopo’s handwriting and trying not to think about how soon these papers would be the only trace of him left on the island. How was Nate supposed to give a shit about Sebastiano and Augusto’s ill-fated love affair when he was living out one of his own?

He had been expressly forbidden from going on any more runs, and watching TV did nothing to muffle the soundtrack in his head, so finally, begrudgingly, he laid out a towel in the courtyard, desperate enough to try yoga.

That was how Jacopo found him, bored and sweaty, ass up in the air and Gnocchi threading himself back and forth beneath Nate’s downward-facing dog like a troll under a bridge.

“What’s this?” Even upside-down, Jacopo’s bemused expression was clear.

“Don’t get excited,” Nate grunted, face growing even redder than it already was. “It’s just yoga.” He dropped to his knees, giving up on the pose.

“Isn’t yoga supposed to be relaxing?” Jacopo leaned down, picking up Nate’s phone. “What are you listening to? This isn’t very peaceful music.” He laughed a little, reading the titleof the song on the screen. “American Attraction? Is this about you?”

“Ha, ha,” Nate said, leaning back on his heels and trying to catch his breath. “No. It’s about, like, the evils of American society.”

“I like my version better,” Jacopo said, sitting down next to him. He thumbed the volume down on the phone and handed it back to Nate. There was a drop of sweat running down Nate’s cheek, and Jacopo wiped it away. “You must be very bored, to do yoga out here with the cats.”

“This is nothing.” Nate grinned at him. “You should see Dave hosting a goat yoga retreat. That’s some real wacky New-Age shit.”

“Goat. Yoga?” Jacopo sounded it out as if he were expecting the words to magically mean something else.

“Yeah. You do yoga, and the goats help. Well, they don’t really help. They just kind of mill around and sniff you and try to take bites of your clothes. But people swear by it as a mindfulness exercise.”

“This is another one of your jokes.”

“No, it’s real,” Nate said. “I can show you pictures.”

Jacopo sighed, the look on his face equal parts fond and exasperated. He stroked Nate’s knee. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand American culture.”

Nate looked down at Jacopo’s hand, the long, fine, fingers and sharp knuckles, the blue-green tracery of veins under the skin. “I wish you’d had more time in the US,” he said. “I could have showed you around.”

“New York?”

Nate laughed. “I was thinking closer to home. Just–it would have been cool to show you more of Oregon. I would have made you hike. No, you’d like it, I promise,” he added, to the grimace Jacopo made. “It’s beautiful there.” He had neverreally introduced a boyfriend to his old stomping grounds, had felt small and embarrassed about showing off the meager landmarks of his childhood. Nate pictured Jacopo wandering along the McKenzie River, imagined pointing things out to him: this swimming hole where he’d caught frogs, this tree where there had once been a rope swing, the covered bridge that he’d always gone tearing across on his bike at top speed. None of it was a Roman villa, but somehow Nate knew that Jacopo would react with the same quiet, earnest curiosity that he had about everything.

“There’s a fair every summer,” he continued, taking Jacopo’s hand in his. He didn’t look at him, just ran his thumb over the fortune lines on his palm, as if trying to figure out what was written there. “With rides, and livestock, and, like, baking contests. Very small-town Americana. And there’s another fair where people get naked and listen to Bluegrass, if you’re into that. And it doesn’t really snow in the winter, not down in the valley, but you can go up to the mountain and go skiing, or inner tubing.” Nate swallowed.

“It sounds wonderful,” Jacopo said. His voice sounded strange. “I’ve never seen snow.”

“Well.” Nate squeezed his hand. “Maybe you’ll get a chance to visit sometime.”

Jacopo freed himself, standing up. “You must be hungry, after all that yoga. Are you ready for dinner?”

“Oh.” He wasn’t, really; his stomach felt tight and uneasy. “Sure.”

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