“Not possible! We’ve just had breakfast!”
“Sex burns a lot of energy.”
Dídac laughed, his eyes shining. “Well, OK, we should get you stoked up.”
They walked arm in arm back down to the house. Dragon followed them like a mildly obedient dog, at times trotting at their heels, at others making forays into the long grass beside the trail. At the house, they shut Dragon inside, and walked around the back of the house to where Dídac’s car was parked. As he’d said, there was a tar-sealed road that came right up beside Ca n’Amat.
Agreeing not to worry about Kim’s rental car for the moment, they headed straight to the restaurant. It was a forty-minute drive, up another of those narrow roads winding through the hills. The slopes on either side of the road were thick with holm oaks, cork oaks, and Aleppo pines. Then they came to what looked like a residentialmasia, a slightly rundown, slate-roofed, stone building several hundred years old. Only a faded sign beside the road advertised it as a restaurant. They parked on the verge of the road, leaving just enough space for cars to pass by on the road, in single file.
Instead of heading into themasia, Dídac led them around on the lush lawn to the side. At the back, there was an expanse of grass dotted with mismatched tables and chairs. A few couples and one family of sixwere seated there, dining. But the most impressive aspect was beyond. The lawn dropped sharply away in a cliff, and then the huge sweep of a lush green valley stretched for miles, with the far ranks of the Pyrenee Mountains closing the view in the distance.
“Wow! What a view!” Kim breathed.
“I told you,” Dídac smiled. “But the food’s even better.”
“Dídac!”
They turned to see a plump middle-aged woman bustling out of themasia, her arms loaded in plates.
“Give me a sec and I’ll be with you,” she called, heading toward the family, who had all turned toward the newcomers at her cry.
As he felt them become the center of attention, Dídac’s face fell.
“Damn, I should have expected this.”
Every single person sitting at that rural restaurant was now watching them, most of them surreptitiously, but the three kids at the family table were pointing and whispering none too quietly. Kim turned toward him and grabbed him by the shoulders.
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Didi, do you hear me? Absolutely nothing,” Kim said.
“Yeah, but the—”
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
“I said ‘Kiss me’.”
“Here? There are people… kids…”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Claim your life, Didi. Claim who you are. Kiss me.”
Dídac looked into Kim’s eyes. Kim was looking at him more seriously than he ever had in the time they had known each other. He felt tears pricking his eyes and definitely didn’t want to start crying in front of allthese people, whose living rooms he entered every afternoon through the TV as their heterosexual leading man. That would be a really bad look. It was either cry or kiss. He chose the kiss. Kim’s lips were as soft as ever, and his arms strong around him. He could have disappeared inside his lover’s embrace. Were it not for a wolf whistle that cut the silence: the family’s surly fifteen-year-old adolescent. But then the boy’s father raised an “Olé!”and suddenly everybody was clapping, among more whistles and cheers. And Dídac was crying anyway.
“I love you, Dídac,” Kim said.
And that was the final straw. Now Dídac was sobbing so heavily, he could barely articulate his own“I love you too!”back again. So any attempt to keep things DL, or even discreet, was now out the door.
He laughed through his tears, wiping them away. “This much applause—better than my last curtain call! Should we give a bow, or would that be too much?”
“I think a bow is totally apt,” Kim chuckled. So they did, to the fifteen or so people gathered on that lawn. “You see? People love you: gay, straight, or… non-binary. Your career’s not over by a long shot, Didi. Think about that while we eat.” Kim put his arm around Dídac’s shoulders. “And now can we eat? All this public performance really burns up my energy!”
The woman who had greeted them earlier came forward.
“Oh Dídac, it’s so good to see you back here! Are you up here with your family? I was really angered by that horrible article they published about you! All that for a silly kiss! Such a fuss! So unnecessary. Can’t they just leave people alone to live their lives?”
Despite all of her questions, the woman kept up a constant monologue, almost a stream of consciousness. It was all Dídac could do to introduce her to Kim as Marta.
“Now here are your places,” she went on. “This is the best table with the best view, for my darling Dídac, of course. Do you remember the first time you came here? Four years old you would have been. You threw up all over the table, do you remember?” She laughed heartily. “Didn’t like the goat’s cheese. Everything we do here uses goat’s cheese. It’s a specialty of the house. We have our own herd, which we milk each morning. Now here are your menus. I recommend the goat’s cheese salad, and the honey-glazed kid, but you choose what you want. Gee, it’s so good to see you again, Dídac. You don’t come up here enough! Tell your mum I want to see her around here more as well. It’s not good for anyone to spend so much time in Barcelona. Too much dirt and traffic fumes. I’ll leave you alone now, but I’ll be back in five minutes to take your order.”
