The Italian Word for Kisses

Chapter 3: “I need to stay here for a bit, you know?”-3

Tav hadn’t rung the doorbell at the Jensen house for years, but…just walking in seemed wrong after last night, and he dithered on the threshold for nearly five minutes before making up his mind and heading down the gated alley that ran down between the house and its neighbour. Both the communal iron gate and the private garden gate were open, and the kitchen door was ajar.

Tav hesitated, then banged on the frame. “Um. Hello?”

A curly head appeared around the living room doorway. “Oh.” Tomas, Luca’s sixteen-year-old yeti of a brother. He had more body hair than your average chimp, apparently. “He’s in his room.”

“Is he, um…”

“He’s driving Mamma nuts,” Tomas said helpfully, and Tav swallowed before toeing off his shoes, shutting the kitchen door with a bang, and padding across the tiles. He could hear Mamma Alessandra upstairs, actually, and she was singing. She didn’t sound nuts.

“Mamma Alessandra?” he called as he headed upstairs, feeling like a stranger in his own—well, not his own, but still—home.

“Christopher!” Chreestopher. Her accent still drawled it wrong. “I was wondering when you would arrive.”

“Um, is Luca…”

“He’s fine, dear, just tired.” She patted his elbow with an elegant hand. “But he’s strictly on bed rest—no funny business, no getting out of bed, and when he gets hungry, you call me, yes?”

“Yes,” Tav agreed, and eyed the closed bedroom door. It was never closed if he wasn’t in it. “Is he asleep?”

Mamma Alessandra snorted. “I doubt it. Boys! Go on, shoo. Angelo! Angelo, you get out here and clean this pigsty of a bathroom you’ve left behind you! I’ve seen governments leave things in a tidier state, young man!”

Tav knocked gingerly on the bedroom door before cracking it open and—as it was the attic room—heading up the narrow flight of stairs. He was immediately greeted by the music—something slow and soulful, kind of Coldplay-but-not-Coldplay—and, because Luca was weird, gunfire.

“Hey!”

A lump formed instantly in Tav’s throat at that wide, beautiful smile, and the dark bruises smeared across that broad forehead and diamond cheekbone. The whole of the side of Luca’s face was bruised, the eye swollen closed, and just the sight of him was simultaneously heartwarming and horrifying.

And the smile faltered. “Tav?”

Tav swallowed. “Sorry. Um. Are you―?”

“C’mere, you tit,” Luca said, and paused his game, shoving the controller off the bed and onto the floor. He opened his arms, wiggling those pale fingers, and Tav caught a hand and squeezed it. “No, here. I said c’mere, not come to that spot on the carpet. And close the door. Mamma’s doing housework.”

Tav backed up to pop back down the stairs and push the door shut, before obeying Luca’s command and perching on the mattress by his hip.

“Well?”

“Well what?” Tav whispered, eyes tracing those bruises. He couldn’t shake the image of Jack giving Luca the kiss of life on the cold tiles. Of Luca’s nails being blue when Tav had held his hand.

“Where’s my baci?”

Tav opened his mouth, and his lip started to twitch uncontrollably.

“Oh, Tav, c’mere.”

The tears came in a hot rush, and Luca’s hands were warm as they slid around Tav’s back and clung. His chest was warm, too, and moving like it should move. He was in his favourite sleep shirt, the one that he’d inherited from Antonio and was about three sizes too big. It smelled of them, of him and Luca, and Tav buried his face into the top of Luca’s cotton-clad shoulder and breathed through the tears.

“Hey,” Luca crooned, rocking them gently. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m bloody sore and my chest feels like someone did jumping jacks on me, but I’m okay. They got me all restarted, didn’t they?”

Tav just clung wordlessly.

“Ssh, it’s alright.” Luca’s fingers were heavy through his hair, and Tav shifted to press his face into that long neck and feel the gentle shiver of his voice. “Hey, come on, don’t cry. Don’t cry, Tav. I’m alright. I’m just fine.”

Tav inhaled deeply and pulled away to scrub his hands over his face. Luca’s hands lingered on his shoulders. “What…what did the doctor say this morning?”

“I have to take a course of antibiotics,” Luca said. “Make sure I don’t get a lung infection. And to stay in bed all day today, and lounge around tomorrow. Otherwise, just wait for the bruises to heal. He said my lungs are totally fine, nothing happened during the night whatsoever.”

Tav’s gaze flicked to the pitch-black shadows on Luca’s face, and that gorgeous smile disturbed them.

“Hey. C’mere.”

The kiss was gentle and chaste, almost as hesitant as their first, but with the trust and certainty of their second, and Tav squeezed Luca’s hands tightly before pulling away.

“You scared the s**t out of me.”

“Wasn’t my fault David jumped on my head.”

Tav laughed, his throat harsh, and rubbed away the last of the tears. “Maybe not. Which side is less bruised?”

“Left.”

Tav returned the abandoned controller and found the spare before crawling over the bed and tucking himself into the sheets on Luca’s left side, dropping his head to kiss a shoulder as Luca exited the game and opted for the multiplayer scenario.

“I had to watch them give you CPR,” he whispered faintly, and Luca hooked a foot over Tav’s under the covers.

“I’m okay,” he repeated.

“It was…it was horrible.”

“I’m okay, Tav.”

“I know,” Tav mumbled. “I just…I need to stay here for a bit, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Tav shot a passing soldier on the too-small TV screen, and shifted sideways to rest his head on top of Luca’s shoulder, so when he breathed, they both moved.

Something downstairs banged. Mamma Alessandra shrieked, and Tav didn’t so much as twitch. Everything on the other side of the door could wait.

And everything on this side was okay.

* * * *

When the clock on the DVD player ticked over to quarter past midnight, Tav decided he’d had enough, and threw back the sheets. Screw this. He needed to be over the road. He needed Luca, because he couldn’t get the sight of bright red blood in a clear pool out of his head. Couldn’t shake off the still body Jack had dragged up from the bottom.

He threw on a jacket and shoes and snuck downstairs, dodging expertly around Amy’s toys on the stairs, and let himself out as quietly and painstakingly slowly as possible, muffling the front door’s weight by easing it slowly into the frame. The street was dark, sickly orange circles of light pooling on the pavement. A fox scuttled away from a bin as Tav crossed the road.

He didn’t head for the front door, though. That was always firmly locked and bolted from the inside. No, the way into the Jensen house at night was round the back, which meant through the alley between the Jensen house and their grumpy neighbours. The private gate was locked, but Tav climbed over it with practised ease onto the shed roof—and from there, it was a simple enough job to haul himself into the apple tree and crawl along the branch towards Luca’s window.

Luca’s bedroom window, the lock on which Tav had broken the first time he’d done this, two years ago.

It creaked and stuck in the frame, but it eventually popped open, and Tav clambered carefully into the dark room. He shed his jacket at the windowsill and his shoes by the bed, and squatted down for a minute to fold his arms on the mattress and peer through the gloom at the knot of dark curls and ethereally white face on the pillow.

“Luca?” he whispered.

Nothing. A slit of moonlight was gleaming across Luca’s jaw, and Tav reverently tracked it with one finger, stroking down stubble-rough skin. He snatched his hand back when Luca mumbled and frowned, but nothing happened and Tav licked his lips.

“Luc?”

Still nothing. Slowly, Tav tiptoed around the bed and peeled up the duvet, sliding into a cocoon of intense, inviting heat. Luca practically pulsed heat; he was made of warmth, and Tav slid an arm reverently over bare ribs and hollow stomach, palm open and flat to let his calluses just graze against the skin. Luca sighed, and lolled back into Tav’s chest when Tav pulled lightly.

And just like that, everything was fine again. The pool vanished. The blood disappeared. The scream from the girl by the steps echoed and died, because Luca’s fingers were curling around Tav’s on his stomach, strong even in his sleep, and he was hot and home. Not shivering on the tiles with blue-tinged lips and covered in blood.

Tav squeezed and drew up his knees to tuck behind Luca’s thighs. He pressed his nose into those thick curls and breathed in.

When he exhaled, the fear went with it.