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Ethan
It takes me half the day to get back to the hotel, not counting getting lost for an hour. By the time I climb the front steps of the Regale, my feet hurt and I’m dripping with a miserable combination of sweat and warm rain. Most of all, I’m furious that Victor would rather waste an entire quarter of the time we have left together than cooperate with me even a little.
Like a fucking reflex, like I can’t help myself, I immediately start searching for him. I tell myself that I just want to yell at him, but it’s only partly true.
After trying the room, the pool, the breakfast nook, and the front steps, the last and most unlikely place I check is the empty dining room. Just as I’m about to leave, a waiter wiping off tables calls out to me. “You are looking for your, ah, partner?”
“Si.”
Smiling a little, he gestures for me to follow him into the kitchen. Five or six chefs are bustling between large, gleaming prep stations, trimming thick cuts of beef and peeling potatoes bigger than two of my fists put together. At the back of the kitchen, he points me down a small passageway of red brick full of shoes and buckets and empty boxes set aside for recycling. The savory air of the kitchen wafts through into a clean, quiet alleyway.
Victor is sitting on the back step, playing with a puppy.
I’ve heard girls joke that a man with a dog makes their ovaries explode. I don’t have ovaries, but if I did, Victor and a fluffy white puppy with crooked ears would just about do the job.
The cooks must have given him the handful of fatty meat trimmings he’s using to coax the dog to spin in circles and hop up on its hind feet. “Look at you,” he croons under his breath. “You’re so smart. Smartest fucking dog in Italy, yeah?”
It shies away when he reaches for its head, so he offers another piece of meat and scratches it gently on the back until its nub of a tail wags so fast it almost knocks itself over.
My foot scuffs the threshold and Victor turns sharply, eyes wary. The puppy backs up and yaps at me, bristling. It's scruffy and thin enough that I’m certain it’s a stray.
I hesitate, caught between having too much to say and not enough, between anger and how good it feels to see him like this.
“Dude, you’re fucking scaring him. Sit down.” He taps the clay-tiled step next to him and I settle down, our shoulders not quite touching. Victor drops a slimy bit of raw meat in my palm and I hold it out, but the dog won’t come. It swivels its back end around until it’s pressed against Victor’s knee, glaring at me.
A huge, goofy grin stretches his face. “That’s right, buddy. He’s mean; don’t play with him.” I catch myself staring at his profile as he tickles behind its ears and lets it chew on his knuckles. He looks softer from this angle, the curve of his cheek, less hardened against the world.
“What’s his name?”
He purses his lips, looking troubled. “I’ve never named anything before. Have you?”
“Did you never have a pet?”
He sits very still for a moment, then reaches over gingerly and lifts the puppy into his lap. It squirms against his chest, but doesn’t struggle. “Someone gave me a dog once.” I can barely hear his voice. “But I was bad, so they took it away again.”
“You were ‘bad’?” I ask incredulously.
He presses his lips together. His face relaxes a little when the puppy nips at his chin.
“There’s no secret to naming,” I say. “Just pick whatever you want.”
“Can I call it Rio?” His ears flush pink at the tips. “That’s what I wanted to name the other dog. I know it’s stupid.”
“Hi, Rio,” I say to the dog. “Can I be your friend, too? Or just him?”
“Just me.” Victor buries his face in Rio’s fur. “I don’t share.”
“Did the test results come—”
“No.” He cuts me off, still not looking at me, and all the frustration of that long walk back flares in me.
“Would you even tell me if they did?”
His shoulders tighten. “You don’t trust me?”
“Not really.” I flex my hands in my lap. They want to hurt him every way, to punch out his lights but also torment him until he’s crying under me.
He puts Rio down and throws the last scrap of meat, watching the dog tear away after it. “I’ll tell you about the test when you tell me what the hell you talked about with that internet stalker.”
