The Italian Word for Kisses Read online

  “Yeah, well, now you do.” Tav hunched his shoulders and swallowed. “It was fucking horrible, Luca.”

  “I’m sorry,” Luca said, and opened and closed his hand so fast it clapped. “Hey. C’mere. You said you needed a hug, right?”

  Tav swallowed, then took the hand and perched on the very edge of the bed to gingerly slide his arms around Luca’s shoulders. He was slightly too cool, and Tav was too afraid to grip hard, but…but it was a hug all the time, one of Luca’s hands gripping the back of Tav’s neck tightly. He had stopped breathing, but he was breathing now, and Tav closed his eyes and felt the rise and fall.

  “M’okay.”

  “Yeah,” Tav mumbled, and twisted his face to kiss the hospital gown over Luca’s shoulder.

  “Can I get that on my face?”

  “Your massively bruised face?”

  “My massively bruised face that got molested by Jack Collins,” Luca pointed out. “I mean, I like the guy and all, he’s pretty cool, and it sounds like I seriously owe him one, but he’s not someone I would pick to suck face with, you know?”

  Tav laughed—too high and breathy—but sat back all the same and gingerly cupped Luca’s jaw in both hands to kiss him. It was probably the most chaste kiss they’d ever had, but when it ended, Tav stayed right where he was, eyes closed and nose brushing Luca’s cheek. He could feel the heat in Luca’s skin. He could feel Luca breathing.

  “You scared me.”

  “M’sorry.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you actually told anyone at swimming I’m not dead?”

  “I’ll text Aaron later,” Tav promised.

  “And my bag’s still in my locker.”

  “Aaron’s got your stuff. Shut up, Luca.”

  Luca kissed him again and shut up, sighing lightly against Tav’s cheek and twisting his fingers into Tav’s T-shirt.

  “I don’t want to stay overnight.”

  “Tough shit.”

  He wasn’t going fucking anywhere.

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

  Luca and Tav lived directly across the street from each other in a street of redbrick terraced houses in south-west Sheffield, and had ever since they were seven years old.

  That wasn’t quite how it had begun. Tav’s mam had managed to keep him at his old primary school, so the move and new baby Becky wouldn’t unsettle him too much, so he had been peripherally aware of Luca and the noisy, half-Italian family across the street, but he hadn’t known Luca proper.

  Then they had been eleven years old and ended up in the same secondary school. They’d started walking to school together with Luca’s best friend Aaron Kowalski from the nice houses on Psalter Lane, and then when Aaron met Emily Stubbs and started walking her to school instead, it had been just them.

  They’d been thirteen years old. And that was how it had begun—as friends, before boyfriends.

  They were seventeen now, and nearly three years into this whole boyfriends thing, and it meant Tav was hyperaware of people coming and going from the house directly across the street. When the car door slammed at half past ten in the morning, he was up out of bed in a heartbeat. When he looked out and saw Luca’s dad hefting a bag out of the boot, and Luca being helped in through the front door by Antonio, Tav left the bed entirely and bolted into the bathroom.

  Luca was home. And Tav had had the worst’s night sleep ever.

  * * * *

  Luca felt fine.

  Well, no, he didn’t, he felt like someone had parked a lorry on his chest and slapped him in the face with a Mini Cooper. But he felt pretty good apart from that. No, you know, not-breathing stuff or lung infection crap or anything. He kind of just wanted some snacks and a video game or three. Some peace and quiet, you know?

  Only that was totally hard to get in this house. Luca was the third of five boys, and he swore blind ever since the youngest, Angelo, had discovered girls, the door-slamming was making the house structurally unsound.

  “Fucking shut up!” he bellowed at the boom of Angelo’s door as Antonio pushed him into his room.

  “What’s up with him?”

  Antonio had moved into his girlfriend’s flat last year, and Luca envied him. Maybe he ought to move into Tav’s house. Mamma Laura wouldn’t mind. Hell, his own mamma probably wouldn’t mind as long as he came back for meals. She wouldn’t even notice!

  “Girl issues.”

  “Ah,” Antonio said wisely, and stripped back the duvet. “Right, get your arse in bed and stay there. You nearly gave Mamma a coronary. You do know if you get an infection, she’s banning you from the swimming team?”

  “Like hell,” Luca said, but dropped his jeans and obediently crawled into bed. He did feel kind of tired.

  “So what’s Angelo’s girl issues?”

  “I gave up. It was Ellie over the summer, Rochelle by the start of term, Lucy last month, Ellie again on his birthday, and I think it was Melissa on Thursday afternoon,” Luca recited tiredly. “Can you set up Rogue Spear or something for me? I feel like going old school.”

  “Sure.” Antonio sat on the end of the bed to set up the TV and consoles, and Luca eyed his eldest brother speculatively. He and Antonio had fought a lot when they were younger, and Luca wasn’t sure who’d mellowed.

  “How’re you and Katie?”

  “Like you actually care,” Antonio sniggered. “What about you and your Tav?”

  “See your own answer,” Luca sniped. “Are you staying?”

  “Today? Yeah.”

  “Tav’ll come over. Make Mamma let him come up? He was really freaked out yesterday.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. He’ll be even more freaked out today. Your face looks like a fucking volcano gobbed up on it.”

  “Oh, thanks. Dickbag.”

  “That’d be you, gayboy. I am a cunt-master, thank you very much.”

  Luca snorted. “You’re a womanising tosser. Katie’d do better to chase other birds.”

  “You shut your filthy, arse-kissing mouth,” Antonio retorted, then clicked the console into life and handed over the controllers. “Be more careful at the pool next time, yeah, Luca? Wasn’t just Tav you freaked out.”

  Luca half-smiled and let Antonio ruffle his hair. “Wasn’t my fault David jumped on my head.”

  “You said it was an accident.”

  “It was.”

  “You being straight with me?”

  Luca raised his eyebrows.

  “Straight as gayboys get,” Antonio amended.

  “I’m telling the truth,” Luca said finally. Antonio eyed him a little longer with those blue eyes. It was weird—Antonio was his half-brother, the reason Mamma, then eighteen and unmarried, had fled Tuscany in the first place—but he had the bluest eyes. The only full-blooded Italian amongst them, and he had eyes like a Cornish summer sky. And they could look right through you.

  And see when you were lying, because Antonio nodded and got up off the bed. “Usual junk food?”

  “Uh-huh. The marshmallows are under the sink in a plastic bag, Tomas keeps nicking them. Don’t let him see, or if he does, bring the whole bag.”

  “The whole bag? Are you kidding? Mamma’s having you on healthy food for a week, and I’m not interfering with Mamma’s wrath.”

  Fair enough. Luca nodded and slid further down into the bed, clicking into the game menu and trying to ignore the dull ache in his chest from where his lungs were still protesting, and the much sharper pain in his head from being smacked between David’s heels and a swimming pool floor.

  And if Luca’s sense of Tav-time was any indication…

  The kitchen door banged.

  * * * *

  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 gar
den 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 shit 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.

  Chapter 4: “Don’t mention it again.”

  Luca knocked on the Prettys’ front door, and—because it was like half past eight and he was bang on time—Tav opened it. And called him crazy.

  “What?”

  “I said you must be out of your fucking tree,” Tav repeated. “Go home!”

  Tav looked like a twat in school uniform. He looked about twenty in his jeans and T-shirt, with his ruffled whatever-colour hair and angular, kissable face. But the school blazer made him look like a massively oversized fourteen-year-old, and Luca wrinkled his nose at it in distaste. Bring on leaving school and never having to wear that ugly thing again.

  “Didn’t you hear me? I said go home, Luca!”

  “Heard you fine, distracted,” Luca said honestly, and grinned. Tav rolled his eyes and didn’t offer the usual kiss. “Come on, then, we going or not?”

  “I’m going. You’re going home.”

  “Nope,” Luca said. “Going crazy, just lying in bed all day and waking up to random boys sneaking in there.” Tav didn’t even bother to blush. “I need to get out for a bit. Anyway, it’s all maths and history and shit today, what’s the difference between lying in bed and sitting in a chair?”

  Tav scowled. Luca just grinned and rocked forward on his toes to kiss Tav’s cheek. Tav had a thin, sharp face and if he was dark-haired, he’d look angry or threatening all the time. As it was, people with blond-ginger-brown-whatever hair apparently couldn’t do anything more than vaguely irritated. Mrs. Pretty did the same thing.

  “Come on, then.”

  “Does your mam know?”

  “Tav, Mamma’s already done her nut, and Dad. C’mon. I’m bored.”