Page 11 of Duke for the Summer

“Yeah,” he said. “Ok.”

“Tomorrow I can give you a tour of the castle, if you like.”

“I mean–I can explore on my own,” Nate said, too quickly. “It’s fine.”

Jacopo ran a hand through his hair, his eyes traveling over the designs on the wall, though he didn’t really seem to be seeing them. “Yes. Well. There is a modern kitchen on the ground floor, if you get hungry. I will leave you some sandwiches in there. And I can make a trip to the market tomorrow morning. And–and if you need help, or can’t find something, I am usually in the library or the outbuilding. Or you can text.” He held up his phone halfheartedly.

“Ok. Thanks.”

After Jacopo left, Nate washed his face and hands in the ensuite bathroom, relieved to find that the antique plumbing actually worked. The water from the faucet was fresh and cold, vaguely iron-tasting. He was still wearing the same rumpled button-down from yesterday, and he thought about changing, but didn’t want to bother. Instead, he sat on the bed and popped one of the bottles of prosecco.

A while later, stomach heavy and head pleasantly full of bubbles, Nate took the second bottle and his phone and went exploring. Everything was Instagram-worthly, honestly: the creepy faces that peeked out of the patterns painted onto the walls, this one peacock over an archway that seemed to be rolling its eyes, the giant bronze owl statues on either side of the fireplace in what must be some kind of greatroom. Each one hada leg raised in a distinctly sassy way.

He found the library, but the dark dusty solitude of it wasn’t what Nate wanted right now, the rows of books seeming to whisper that he didn’t belong. There was a desk in one corner that was bare of dust, papers and books piled haphazardly on it. A faint whiff of Jacopo’s smell: cigarette smoke and the lemony pomade he put on his hair.

Nate ran a finger along the spine of one of the books, face hot. It was old, in Italian, and probably none of his business. Jacopo wouldn’t want him messing with his stuff.

He followed the stairs upwards and eventually found what he had wanted all along: an entrance out onto the ramparts. The courtyard lay below, the grass-choked remains of a fountain now a napping place for cats, the remains of flower beds and toppled statues. Beyond it was the city, the afternoon sun pooling like butter in the piazza, and the red terraced hills with their stands of palm and olive and oak and other trees that Nate wasn’t sure about the name of. The ocean glittered in the distance like a carpet of opals, and the sky was bare of clouds. A hazy moon, almost full, lodged in the blue like a coin. Along the horizon, the tan curve of Sicily, barely visible.

Maybe it was the prosecco, but Nate could feel his eyes getting wet, and his chest was a jumble of emotions. Shit, where were his watercolors? He should have brought them up here, he could–no, he couldn’t, his fingers were clumsy and far away as he fumbled for his phone, and the liquid feeling in his muscles meant he was a lot drunker than he’d originally thought.

He took a picture of the view, the bottle of prosecco propped up on the rampart in the foreground, sending it to Thea with the caption,Bitch I’m a duke.

She didn’t reply, so he posted it to Instagram with the same caption and sat back to watch the notifications stream in.

They didn’t. He refreshed his feed, once, twice, fingerssweaty on the screen.

It was okay. It was only, like, 7am over there or something. No one was awake, probably.

Not that he even had any followers anyway.

Not that he even had any friends, really, besides his weird family and a few drinking buddies from the warehouse who, let’s be honest, kept him around because having a gay friend made them look like progressive, educated rednecks instead of regular old rednecks.

The prosecco was a hot slurry on his tongue as he took another drink, head pounding. It was too warm out here, but he didn’t want to go back inside.

Fuck it, he thought, closing the Instagram app. He’d always been by himself, so he could be a duke by himself, too. Nate turned the volume up on his phone as far as it could go, brought up his playlist, and leaned back against the castle wall, eyes closed.

*

Jacopo didn’t think he could do it. In America at least there had been a purpose, a mission to focus on. But now that he had gotten Nate back to the island, the next three months were staring him in the face and he couldn’t stand it.

He’d felt his posture change the second they’d gotten off the boat, his shoulders hunching, his stomach going nervous and soft. Anticipating having to be around his family again. The way everyone seemed to have given up on him. The contempt of his father, the distance that had sprung up between him and his mother, the way his siblings didn’t really know what to do with him–even Mirabella, who had once hung on his arm and asked him for advice about boys. It had taken Papà less than two hours to go in on him again, the way he always did, at the dinner table in front of everyone.Are you finally going to spend some timewith your family now? Maybe even find a girl to marry, give your mother some grandchildren? God knows she’s worried you’ll die alone up there in the castle with all your books and stray cats.

If he only knew.

Jacopo lit another cigarette, looking out across the overgrown courtyard. His phone was heavy in his pocket, and for a moment, he thought about calling Lucia. But no, it would do no good to talk to her now, and he wasn’t even sure he had the strength to. And who knew if she even wanted to hear from him, after all the years and the many times he’d failed to get back in touch. Either way, it would have to wait until this was over.

It seemed like nothing had changed in the short time he’d been gone. His apartment, a former chapel that had been converted into a groundskeeper’s hut long before Jacopo’s time there, was just as he’d left it, everything clean and in order. His books were all there, the familiar cracked spines with lurid titles. His potted plants were still healthy, although the rosemary had doubled in size. Even the cats, a feral colony descended from some long-ago duchess’s pets, had forgiven his brief absence, coming by to rub all the smells of America off his hands.

Nothing had changed, but everything had.

The sight of Nate laughing at Gracie’s elbow lingered in Jacopo’s mind, the way his sandy hair had started curling in the sea air, the lines of his tattoo peeking out from beneath his collar. He had a beautiful smile.

Jacopo couldn’t get Nate, and his smile, and his defined arms and strong, callused hands, out of his head. It was one thing to be alone with his fantasies, Jacopo was used to that. But to have someone here, in his space, to have someone’s presence rubbing up against him at all times–

Three more months. That was all. He’d been ignoring his problems for thirty-five years; three more months wouldn’tmake a difference. Jacopo stubbed out his cigarette and turned to go back in. It was late afternoon, and the glassy, exhausting heat of summer was settling over the island, making the muscles heavy. Still, Jacopo wasn’t tired, and he knew sleep would evade him tonight.

He couldn’t help glancing back up at the ramparts of the castle, wondering what Nate was up to. A sound filtered down, the faint sound of an electric guitar coming from a tinny speaker. Was he listening to music somewhere? Was he outside?

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