Page 25 of Duke for the Summer

“Are you alright?”

Yes. No. Fuck. Nate licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry. “Fine,” he managed.

“Be careful,” Jacopo said. “Please.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll go slow.”

Jacopo insisted on leaving Nate in the sitting room on the second floor while he brought Thea’s luggage up. The owls on either side of the fireplace seemed to be mocking him. Nate sat, glaring at them, picking at a loose thread on the ornate sofa. His body was buzzing, pins and needles dancing along his skin.

After an interminable amount of time, Jacopo slunk back in through the doorway and stood there, not looking at Nate. He seemed unsure what to do with his hands, tucking them in his pockets and then hiding them behind his back. “Your sister wanted to change.”

“Ok,” Nate said slowly. “Should we–”

“Prosecco!” Gracie crowed, waltzing into the room with two bottles held aloft. “Jacopo, help me get more from the cellar. This is all I could carry.”

“Oh,” said Jacopo. “Yes. Prosecco.” And he darted back out into the stairwell.

*

“What’s something Italian we can do?” Thea demanded, freshly changed into a floral jumpsuit and fuzzy slippers, a cut-glass goblet in her hand. She looked like a magnificent and possibly deranged princess, curled up as she was in one of the sitting room’s overlarge armchairs, the fireplace and the tapestries looming ornately behind her.

“Scopa!” Gracie said. “I can teach you. And Nate still needs to learn.”

“I think I’ll go to bed,” Jacopo tried, but Gracie and Nate both interrupted him.

“Can’t you stay?”

“Dai, resta qui,Jacopo. It’s better with an even number. We can play teams.”

“Please,” Nate said. He tried to meet his eyes, but Jacopo looked away, at the wallpaper above his head. “I need all the help I can get.”

“One game,” Jacopo said, helping himself to the prosecco.

One game turned into two, and as the bottles emptied and their interpretation of the rules grew looser,scopaturned into slap, also known as Egyptian Rat Screw, a game at which Nate and Thea had built up a bitter, storied rivalry on Barb’s dinner table as children. The three of them scrambled for matching pairs while Jacopo drank and wondered aloud why so much American slang had to do with Egypt. Thea was shrieking and almost falling out of her chair every time she won, and Gracie was coming up with ever more creative strings of combined Italian and English swear words, and eventually even Jacopo was laughing, his hair in his eyes and his shirtsleeves rolled up to show his strong, tanned forearms. Nate gazed at him unabashedly, forgetting to play, longing to cover him in kisses.

By the time the limoncello came out, they had abandoned the cards, and Thea was lounging on the floor, one slipper already lost, eyes blurry and cheeks pink. “I want to play Truth or Dare,” she said.

“Dude, there’s no way.” Nate could think of several things he wanted to dare Jacopo to do. He snuck a glance at the other man, who was laid out in an armchair, eyes closed, cradling his forehead.

“What is it?” Gracie asked, voice slurring slightly. Shepoured another shot of limoncello. “I want to play.”

“We’re not going to,” Nate said, trying to sound stern. “Everybody’s too drunk, and I don’t want to fuck up my knee even worse doing something stupid.”

Thea rolled her eyes. “Well, if you’d ever choose truth–”

“Ok, fine. Truth.”

He immediately regretted it; Thea had her chin propped up on her fists, and she was eyeing him like a cat who had just seen a particularly delicious bird. “Alright, Nate,” she said. “Tell me the truth: do you have a crush on anybody?”

“Easy.” He swallowed, trying to keep his voice level. “Neel Batra.” Thea would recognize the name immediately. She had been talking his ear off about the Prince of Archimbault and his new fiance for the past year.

“Omigod, I didn’t say celebrity crush.” Thea threw a prosecco cork at him. “That’s cheating.”

Nate crossed his arms. “What can I say, I like bookish, competent, slightly awkward guys.” He didn’t dare look at Jacopo, to see if his eyes were open.

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t they have the most beautiful love story?” Gracie said. There was a dreamy look on her face. “I heard they’re having two weddings, one traditional western one and one Indian-style.”

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