Something Like Summer (29 page)

Ben wished he could feel
relief, but at this point he could only suspect the worst. Maybe
they were being driven to some mafia hideout where the professional
cleaners would make short work of them. His muscles remained tense
and his pulse throbbed until the neon hotel sign finally came into
view. The taxi pulled over before reaching the u-shaped
driveway.

“
Get out,” the driver
ordered a second time.

Ben wanted to, he really
really wanted to, but another thought had occurred to him. The
second they stepped out of the vehicle, it would drive away, taking
their luggage with it. There was something he had worked very hard
on in that luggage, and he wasn’t willing to give it up.

“
Take our bags out,” he
insisted. He wanted to look at Jace, but he didn’t dare take his
attention off the two men up front.

The driver’s brother
appeared about to snap and carve his initials all over their
bodies. The muscles in his jaw tensed as his eyes bored into Ben’s,
but the unblinking gaze that he received in return broke him down.
He stepped out of the car, slamming the door loudly behind him. He
opened the rear hatch of the van and took their luggage out,
tossing it carelessly to the side of the street. As soon as it was
out, both Ben and Jace followed suit.

“
Crazy Americans!” the
brother spat, literally this time, at Ben’s feet before reentering
the taxi and speeding away.

A cool breeze blew across
them as they watched it disappear around a corner.

“
You were amazing!” Jace
said, grinning and picking up Ben in a hug. “Jesus! You should be a
hostage negotiator!”

“
Well, that was bullshit,”
Ben said, his voice trembling. His braveness had fled along with
his adrenaline, returning the fear he had been ignoring. His legs
were feeling shaky, too. “Come on. Let’s go,” he said, removing
himself from Jace’s embrace and picking up his luggage. He just
wanted to get into the hotel where they were safe before the thugs
came back to gun them down or something.

Check-in went by in a blur.
Ben repeatedly looked out the lobby windows for any sign of
trouble. The receptionist barely blinked an eye when Jace explained
how his credit cards had been stolen. A couple of calls had to be
made to cancel the cards and to secure the reservation. Jace
switched to Italian again and must have found some way to work it
out because they got their room.

Ben sat down on the bed and
tried unsuccessfully to hide his trembling hands. Jace noticed and
kneeled before Ben, taking them in his own. “It’s okay,” he
soothed. “We’re safe now. We just got into the wrong taxi. I should
have known better and been more careful.”

“
It’s my fault,” Ben said,
refusing to let him take the blame. “No, screw that. It was theirs.
That was really fucked up.”

“
It was,” Jace agreed.
“But you shouldn’t let it ruin our trip.”

How could it not? All
Jace’s money had been taken, and relaxing in a country where you
could get robbed just by getting inside a taxi didn’t sound
possible. “I think I want to go home,” Ben blurted out.

Jace smiled sympathetically
and sat next to Ben, wrapping an arm around him. “I know you’re
shaken up. You have every right to be, but that was just bad luck.
Italy is a wonderful country, and the people are fantastic. We just
ran into a couple of bad seeds, something that could happen
anywhere. I can’t let you leave now. I won’t let you go home with a
bad impression of this place.”

Ben sighed and leaned
against him. The idea of the long flight home was almost worse than
being robbed. “Okay,” he agreed. He was starting to feel better.
Being near Jace always made him feel safe.

“
You did great with the
luggage.”

“
Well, I didn’t want to
lose your present.”

“
My present?” Jace asked.
“Sounds good, but look what else you saved.”

Jace unzipped his bag and
dug around until he found a cheap figure of a plastic cat. The toy
split in half like a Russian doll revealing a wad of cash inside.
“Never put all your eggs in one basket.”

“
How much is
that?”

“
Pretty much the whole
vacation budget,” Jace laughed. “I only had enough in my wallet for
the taxi and a meal out somewhere.

Ben smiled with relief. He
thought he had only been saving their clothes, but now he was
especially proud of his actions. Feeling more like himself again,
he dug into his own bag and brought out a small cellophane-covered
basket. He handed it over to Jace and waited nervously for his
reaction.

Jace pulled away the
plastic to reveal a basket full of fortune cookies. They were a
little misshapen but came in a variety of different
colors.

“
Wow! These look amazing,”
Jace exclaimed. “I love the colors. Look, a blue one! Where did you
get them?”

“
They’re homemade,” Ben
explained. They were a huge pain in the ass to make, but the
expression on Jace’s face was worth it.

“
No way! What about the
fortunes?”

“
Check it out.” Ben smiled
as Jace broke one open and tossed half into his mouth.

“
Mmmm, good. What’s in my
future?” He examined the scrawl on the little strip of paper and
raised an eyebrow. “
A thousand kisses will
soon cover your body.
” He raised his gaze
from the fortune to look at Ben. “Let’s see if we can make this one
come true.”

* * * * *

Before leaving for Italy,
four nights had seemed too short a visit. By the third day, Ben’s
leg muscles were shredded and his feet felt on the verge of falling
off. He couldn’t imagine his condition had they stayed for a week
or longer. There were simply too many sights to see. Ben found it
impossible to rest for very long before the urge to continue
exploring overtook him again.

Rome was a fascinating mix
of old and new. They visited the obligatory sites: the Colosseum,
the Vatican, the Pantheon, and the Circus Maximus. Ben’s favorite
had been the ancient ruins of the Forum. While there he imagined
travelling thousands of years into the past, the crumbling
buildings restored and proud again, the streets teaming with Roman
people going about their daily business. Being in the midst of the
ruins brought home the reality of this bygone era.

Modern Rome had much to offer as
well, especially for a shopaholic like Ben. They ducked into
designer fashion stores where the price for a pair of jeans was
more than what Ben paid for rent, but they also found some smaller
stores where he picked up a couple of shirts he was certain never
to see back home. The grocery stores were more humble, full of
variations of familiar Italian staples but new items as
well.

The quality of Italian
restaurants varied wildly. For the first couple of meals, Jace took
them to back streets where the menus weren’t even in English. The
food here was exquisite and gave credence to Italian cuisine’s
reputation as being among the best in the world. Once, Ben was
impatiently hungry and allowed a pushy proprietor to pull them into
a restaurant near a tourist attraction, where Ben’s pizza was
flavorless cardboard and Jace’s pasta microwaved.

Having learned his lesson,
Ben let Jace choose from then on. Today he had managed to find a
lunch café that looked like a tourist trap, but was visited almost
exclusively by locals. Jace ordered for them in Italian, loving the
opportunity to show off his language skills. Ben was more than
happy to allow him, enjoying the helpless feeling that came with
not being able to read or speak the local tongue.

“
To the bravest boyfriend
I’ve ever had,” Jace toasted once their wine had been
served.

“
You’re not still going on
about that?” Ben blushed.

“
I don’t just mean the way
you handled the taxi drivers,” Jace said. He considered the wine as
he swirled it around the glass. “How old were you when you first
came out?”

“
Fourteen,” Ben said after
a moment’s calculation.

“
I’d say that’s pretty
damn brave.”

“
Yeah, maybe in the
nineties,” Ben countered, “but kids are coming out younger and
younger these days.”

“
All right, all right.
What about that time at the Greek restaurant where the waiter
disappeared for half an hour and you marched into the
kitchen--”

“
Only to find him smoking
a joint with the chef,” Ben finished wryly.

“
At least you got us our
food. How about that guy you punched in the chest after we saw him
kick his dog?”

“
Fat lot of good it did.
His dog turned on me like I was the jerk.”

“
It was still brave,” Jace
insisted.

“
Look, I’m not trying to
go overboard with humility,” Ben said, “but I think you
misunderstand. Sometimes I get angry and do crazy things without
thinking. I don’t think that counts as bravery. Recklessness would
be a better description.”

“
Call it whatever you
like, but there’s something there.” Jace shook a breadstick at him.
“Usually you’re adorably sweet and sympathetic, but I’ve seen
glimpses of something else. There’s something stronger than
titanium inside of you.”

“
Like the
Terminator?”

“
Exactly like that.” Jace
laughed. “That bravery, recklessness, whatever you want to call it,
is one of the many things I love about you.”

They both became silent at
the mention of the “L” word. Funny that they could dive headlong
into sex, a relationship, even a trip across the ocean, but saying
those three little words was something they still balked
at.

“
So what’s next?” Ben
asked, leaving the question open for interpretation.

“
Well, it’s our final day
here and I’ve saved the best for last.”

Ben didn’t have to wait
long to find out what this meant. A few blocks from the restaurant,
in the midst of clothing stores and newspaper kiosks, was another
set of ruins. Archeologists had dug down so that an entire city
block was below street level. Jace led Ben by the hand down the
cracked and ancient stairs and into the excavated ruins where a
familiar smell greeted their nose.

“
Cats?” Ben asked, but an
answer wasn’t necessary as there were already half a dozen in
sight.

“
They’re using this area
as a sanctuary,” Jace said, stooping down to pet a three-legged cat
that was rubbing against his leg. “We have to hurry. I think the
tour is about to start.”

As it turned out, direct
access to the ruins, known as the Torre Argentina, was only
possible via one of these guided tours. Otherwise, the land that
had once belonged to Roman gods and their temples was now the
exclusive home of felines who behaved as if they were equally
divine. Every site their guide led them to was occupied by a cat,
sunbathing on ancient steps or stalking through broken columns in
search of mice.

“
And it was here, in 44
B.C., that Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by his fellow
senators,” their tour guide informed them, causing a frenzy of
picture taking.

“
Et tu
, Kitty?” Ben joked. When Jace didn’t respond, he looked back
to find his boyfriend some yards behind the tour group. He was
sitting in the dirt, two cats on his lap, another on his
shoulders.

Ben had a great respect for
animals. So much so that he usually left them alone, figuring that
they didn’t care for people constantly trying to pet them. His
experiences backed this up, and so he usually kept his distance.
Jace was different. He loved cats so much that it flowed out of him
and somehow changed the world. Even the most troubled cat willingly
gave into his affections. He was like a gay version of Snow White
with all the forest creatures flocking around him.

“
I love you,” Ben said.
He’d meant only to say it to himself, but it felt good to finally
say it aloud. Jace didn’t react, too far away to hear, so he said
it again, this time yelling it. “I love you!”

Jace looked up, surprised,
before a wild grin broke out on his face. He stood, sending the
poor cats flying and strode over to Ben. “About time you admitted
it,” he said before picking Ben up and kissing him. Behind them
came a few shocked gasps, a couple of titters, and at least one
burst of applause. “I love you, too,” Jace murmured into his
ear.

The rest of the tour was
embarrassing; most of the group kept an eye on them, waiting for a
repeat performance. Ben was relieved when the tour was over,
craving private time with Jace so they could explore this new
confession.

“
Hotel?” Ben asked as he
stuffed money into the donation box.

“
No time,” Jace responded.
“I said I saved the best for last.”

“
This wasn’t
it?”

“
No. Well, for me it was.
Especially now.” They grinned at each other before remembering they
were in the midst of a conversation. “No, I had something special
in mind for you.”

The exterior of the Teatro
dell’Opera couldn’t compete with the rest of the city’s
architecture, but the interior didn’t disappoint. Opera had never
been an interest of Ben’s, but he understood why Jace might think
he would enjoy it. Ben felt severely underdressed as they entered
the theater, but he had felt that way almost the entire trip due to
the fashion-conscious Romans. He felt thankful when he spotted a
few other couples in T-shirts and shorts, no doubt his fellow
countrymen.