florence

There is perhaps nothing as true, as enduring, as fitting a tribute to the Renaissance as being so horny you could die on the streets of Florence.

Filippo Lippi was a Carmelite monk when he fell for the nun who sat for his paintings of the Madonna. Botticelli yearned so passionately for his muse, Simonetta, that he painted her as Venus ten years after her death. Donatello was almost certainly unlacing his doppietto for Brunelleschi. Da Vinci wanted to hate-fuck Michelangelo, while Michelangelo was so obsessed with the young Tommaso Cavalieri that he sculpted himself in submission between the nude lord's legs and called it Victory. Raphael essentially died of exhaustion from too much painting and fucking.

And I, I am standing on the black stones outside a caffetteria, watching Theo eat pastry.

They're wearing those tan work pants, the ones that make them look like they spend all day working a steam-powered letterpress. Their shirt tugs at the broadest points of their shoulders and nips in at the waist. As they bite off the corner of a cornetto, their brows go down and then up, from investigative to pleased.

We're traveling with a third now: the mutual understanding that sex will happen again. That I get to choose when, and how. Every moment is syrup-sticky with intent and anticipation, sitting heavy on my palate, tasting like the moment.

I have a plan, though. I was up late in my little Florentine hostel bed designing the right moment, picking the right place, and we won't reach it for another two hours, so I have to wait. Theo deserves it.

I force myself to stare at the paper cups of coffee Theo put in my hands. Both are dark, one black, the other a shade lighter. Theo finishes shoving euros into their hip pack and takes the darker coffee from me, cornetto flakes swirling through the hot morning air.

As we set off through a narrow alley toward the Duomo, I ask, "You take your coffee black now?"

"Ever since I started having coffee with my somm every day," Theo says. "This is how he takes it. I have a theory it's the source of all his power."

"The Somm . . . is it still the same guy? The one with the ponytail and the tattoo of a rat smoking a cigar, and the—"

"The leather dusters, yeah."

"Same pastry chef as well?" I ask. I liked the old one.

"Nah, there's a new guy, but he's not as good," Theo says. "Your order's still the same, right? Little cream big sugar?"

I smile. It's an old joke, something I mumbled once when I was too tired for English, the kind of thing that sticks.

"Little cream big sugar," I confirm. Theo's mouth angles into a satisfied smirk. They take another bite of cornetto, revealing an orange jam at its buttery center. "What's the filling?"

"Albicocca," they say in a muffled Super Mario Italian accent. They swallow and translate, "Apricot."

"Black coffee and they know Italian? Wow, the Bourdainification of Theo Flowerday," I say, failing to pretend this doesn't turn me on. I would fuck Anthony Bourdain at any stage of his life and we both know it.

"Yes, like Tony I've picked up all the food words and swears from working in fine dining. Vaffanculo!" A passing Italian teenager whips around. "Not you! Scusa!"

We turn onto another tight street, buildings with the same golden-brown walls and green shutters as the last one and the ones before that. Tourists and taxis and men on scooters crowd the road and the high, cobbly sidewalks, but what dominates the view is the massive structure looming ahead at the street's opening, the side of a cathedral so broad and tall it eclipses the world beyond. A sliver of brick dome peeks out like a red crescent moon.

Theo holds up their pastry, matching its crescent shape to the dome.

"What's the difference between this and a croissant?"

"A cornetto has eggs in the dough," I say. "Croissant dough is all about the butter. That's why croissants are flakier, and a cornetto's texture is more like—"

"A brioche," Theo notes.

"Right," I say, smiling. Maxine did say they'd been un bon étudiant. "Can I try? I've heard apricots are sweeter in Italy."

Theo passes the cornetto to me, and I taste, letting the compote touch every part of my tongue.

"They are sweeter," I say. Theo's looking at me with amusement. "What?"

They untuck their sunglasses from their shirt pocket and slide them on.

"You remember what you were doing in that dream I told you about?"

The dream about me eating them out on a restaurant table in Barcelona? I'd sooner forget how to make a baguette.

"Yes."

"Well, in my dream, you ate an apricot too."

Theo grins and takes off running toward the piazza.

When I've pulled myself together enough to catch up, they're standing before the cathedral with their head craned back. Their grin has spread into the silent, incredulous laugh usually reserved for a particularly good stunt in a Fast a bronze Perseus with the severed head of Medusa so difficult to cast that the goldsmith desperately threw his own kitchen chairs and pans into the furnace for fuel. We learn about Cosimo's slutty son Francesco in the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio, frescoed with Austrian landscapes when he married Joanna, archduchess of Austria—something to keep her company while her husband fucked the mistress he'd installed in a palace nearby.

Past the Uffizi Gallery, we cross the Arno via Ponte Vecchio, where men of the Renaissance furtively fucked in back rooms of butcher shops. We visit the palace of Bianca Cappello, the mistress Francesco loved so much he would've had his Austrian bride murdered, only for his brother to (allegedly) poison them both. Inside Palazzo Pitti, where most of the Medici family's art collection still hangs, we see paintings by Lippi and Raphael, and Fabrizio tells us how insatiable desire ruined them both.

It's all so rich, so warm, so flavorful, that when tour ends at the Boboli Gardens, I feel glutted on Florence. I'm sweating, barely keeping ahold of myself. Theo is pink and shining in the heat. We're nearly to the place I planned for us. This, finally, is the moment.

"Well," Theo says. Fabrizio has dismissed us for the afternoon, leaving us beside a leafy pond with a nude statue of the sea god at its center. "Right back where we started. Sexy Neptune."

I can't wait any longer.

"Can I show you something?"

I take us away through winding tunnels of holm oak to a place tucked in the shadow of the palace at the garden's north corner. It's quiet and empty, so far out of the way that no other tourists have bothered to find it.

"Holy shit," Theo says as we draw close, taking off their sunglasses. "What is that?"

"The Buontalenti Grotto."

It's a strange, fantastical piece of architecture, its facade half pillared marble and half dripping, flowering concrete stalactites. If a villa could be swallowed whole by enchanted seaweed, or the earth could come alive and take back its sediment, it might look like this.

"I read about it once," I say. "Francesco Medici commissioned this one."

"No way, Bianca Cappello's slutty boyfriend?" Theo says. "The original nepo baby?"

"The very slut," I say, laughing. "Come on."

I pull them through the unlatched gate and into the first chamber, where the walls are sculpted like a natural cave, spongy coral and stalagmites and flowering branches bubbling toward the vaulted ceiling. Frescos of nature flow from the open skylight into a second, deeper room with a statue of Paris and Helen in the throes.

"Did Francesco ever sneak Bianca in here to fool around?" Theo asks.

"Oh, almost definitely."

The third and deepest room of the grotto is round, with painted birds flitting through vines and roses and irises. Its centerpiece is a marble fountain of Venus bathing, sculpted by Giambologna. Like all his women, this Venus was chiseled with pure rapture, the curves of her body fluid and sensuous. If Francesco and Bianca fucked in any of these rooms, it was here.

Theo drifts away to begin a loop around the room's perimeter, examining the leaves on the walls.

"You know," they say, "I've gotten the impression that the Florentines fuck severely."

I move in the opposite direction, slipping past Theo near one of the mosaic niches.

"That's my favorite thing about Renaissance art," I say. "It's really about sex."

"Even when it's about Jesus?"

"Especially when it's about Jesus. What better excuse to hang pictures of naked men around your palazzo?" I say. "I think the Renaissance came out of Florence because of sex. Everyone was having it, or wanting it, or trying not to want it so they could be a friar, and it was soaking into everything. It's the perfect environment for an artistic awakening. Sex is in every beautiful thing that's ever happened, and every beautiful thing can become sex."

Theo laughs. "You ever wonder if maybe you take sex too seriously?"

"Honestly, no, I have never wondered if I'm wrong to accept the miracle of tender humanity into my heart," I say, only half joking.

"The fucking Kierkegaard of cock over here," Theo replies.

We circle each other around the room, edging closer to the fountain with each pass.

"What is sex to you, then?" I ask.

"It's . . . physical," Theo says, eyes tracing Venus's breasts. "It's about being in your body, and strength, and stamina, and instinct, and, well, it's kind of about winning."

"You just described sports," I point out, amused.

"Okay, fine, it's more than that. It's like . . . eating a great meal. Short-term pleasure. It's fun and exciting, one of the best ways to spend an hour, maybe you try something new and find out if you like it, and one day you look back and remember how good it tasted. But it doesn't have to be anything deeper."

We pass each other again, face-to-face for a moment.

"Is that really what you think?"

Sweat gleams in the hollow of their throat, and I want them so much, I'd gather it on my fingers and let them watch me suck it off. I would lap it up like a dog.

"Well—" Theo says, moving, swallowing. "Maybe it's more like cooking a good meal. Curiosity, creativity."

"Patience."

"Sometimes."

"All the time."

We're almost to Venus, the space between us nearly closed.

"Sometimes it's just butter and a hot pan," Theo says, voice hushed. "Or a—a peach and a really sharp knife."

They face me at the fountain's pedestal, turning their back on the goddess of love.

"I don't know," I say. "What good is a knife if the peach isn't ripe?"

"What is that, a poem?"

"Sure. It's about impatience."

"I told you—"

"You told me you would show me," I say. Without looking away from Theo's face, I take hold of their wrists at their sides. "So, show me."

My grip is light enough that they could break away if they chose. I wait for them to demonstrate they want this—to lean forward, to part their lips. Then, I pull gently away.

They watch, brow pinched in confusion, as I lift one of their wrists to my mouth and deliberately, slowly press a soft kiss to the inside. For a moment, they go still, their eyes widening. And then they're laughing and pushing forward, grasping for my cheek with their fingertips, reaching out with their other hand. Still, I don't let them touch me.

I don't want to rush. I want to take care, to touch them how they deserve to be touched.

I direct their hands behind their back, onto the rim of the fountain. Like this, holding their palms down against the marble, my body brackets theirs. Another inch and our chests would be flush, our hips aligned, so I make sure to let neither happen when I kiss their neck. Theo sucks in a sharp breath and releases it as another laugh.

They keep laughing as I drag kisses up their neck and across their jaw, to their cheek and temple. Their skin is warm and salty under my lips, tinged with that essentially Theo scent of bitter orange leaves and spice. Soon, they're not laughing anymore.

"Come on." Their body strains forward, but I hold myself back, even when they try stomping on my foot.

"Patience," I remind them.

Theo groans, but they don't stomp on my foot again.

I switch to the other side of their neck and treat it the same way, and Theo's grunts and huffs of frustration begin to melt into sighs. I kiss and tease and swipe my tongue until their body goes slack, until I realize they've stopped making any sounds at all.

When I pull back to look at them, there's tension in their brow and the corners of their mouth, the kind I know from trying not to let my own face show what I feel. That's how it looks to be overwhelmed by the enormity of a feeling, afraid it's going to burst out before it's meant to.

My eyes speak for me. What are you hiding?

Theirs respond, Please don't ask.

Part of me wants to keep teasing until they crack. But so much more of me wants to be sweet. I'd want them to show mercy to me.

"Same rules?" I ask, with my voice this time.

Theo nods. "Same rules."

"Tell me if anything is too much."

I tug on their wrist to turn them around and set their hands on the fountain again, their back to me, their face turned toward Venus so I can't see it. At last, I press my body flush with theirs, chest to back, hips to ass, legs tangling. I nose under their collar and bite at their shoulder until they moan and tilt their hips back and spread their knees apart. My hands skim their forearms, the muscles flexing as they grip the marble, then their stomach, the softness and hardness there.

With my hand on their belt buckle, I ask again, "Same rules?"

"Same fucking rules," Theo snaps, struggling heroically to keep their hips still.

Finally arriving at the end of my own patience, I wrench their belt loose and push my hand down the front of their pants until the flat of my hand finds the warm, soft swell between their legs.

The first contact hits us both hard. Theo chokes out a low, desperate sound. I've been inside someone's mouth this week, slid my tongue over the cleft of a stranger's ass, and still, holding Theo in my palm over their underwear—not even going deeper, not even being touched myself—feels more intense, more intimate.

They're wearing the same kind of silky boy shorts they wore in Barcelona, thin enough to let sensation through, loose enough to allow movement. I delve deeper, trace my middle finger over the contours of the split at their center, the suggestion of a parting. Theo responds with a desperate whine, the treads of their boots scuffling on the stone floor as they widen their stance.

My free hand floats to their throat, not squeezing, just holding with loose, splayed fingers, feeling the quick rise and fall of their breath. I tip their chin to the side, scrape my teeth gently against the hinge of their jaw and then, lower, their pulse. Its thrum is faster now, and I could dissolve with gratitude at being close enough for long enough to measure and compare.

"Have I been patient enough yet?" they beg.

I nod into their hair, smiling at the irascible edge to their voice, and finally give them what they ask.

My fingers easily find their destination, swollen and obvious even through the barrier of dampening cloth, confirmed with Theo's short, shocked cry. It's simple to adjust my wrist and find the correct angle, like navigating my apartment with the lights off, not needing to see to know where things are in my own home.

I touch them how I remember they like, strong and steady and unrelenting, and they meet every movement, making too much noise as they get closer. My hand moves from their throat to their mouth; they bite into the meat.

When they finally come, it's with a sharp jerk of their hips and a furious growl. I hold them through it, until they spit out my hand with a faint, panting laugh.

"Fuck," they exhale. "I didn't know I could come from that."

"See?" I say, kissing them behind the ear. "Patience."

"Fuck off." They release their grip on the fountain and turn to me, their face flushed and sated, rippled by a half smile. "Do you want me to—?"

They glance down. I'm halfway hard, more than a little aching, but I can't have what I want most. Not here, not now.

"It'll be fine," I tell them. "This was just for you."

An emotion complicates their expression, tightening the corners of their eyes. This time, they smooth it away before I can read it.

"Fine, then," they say. "I'll buy lunch. Are you hungry?"

With them, I always am.

"Focaccia," Theo says the next day.

"Schiacciata."

"Focaccia?"

"That's schiacciata."

"I really don't see the difference."

I point over the heads of the dozen other tourists crammed into All'Antico Vinaio with us, to the stack of flat, golden-brown schiacciata atop the glass case of sandwich toppings.

"You don't see how that bread is thinner than what we ate in Cinque Terre?"

"No," Theo says. "Explain it again."

Their eyes are bright in the midday light through the open front of the sandwich shop, and I know they see the difference. They just want to find out how many times I'll repeat myself. Nothing gets Theo going like an endurance test.

"So, even though they look similar, focaccia and schiacciata have completely different textures. Focaccia should be pillowy and light, almost spongy. Schiacciata gets a longer knead and a shorter rise, so it's flatter and chewier."

"Hmm." Theo taps their chin, visibly fighting a laugh. "I don't know if I believe you."

An old baker emerges from the back and piles a dozen more crusty rectangles of schiacciata on the prep bar. He's sweating and laughing, dusted with flour up to his elbows, and I smile. I know this type of baker well. The kind who thrives on the reliable routine of a simple kitchen run by somebody else, content to keep mixing and kneading and baking the same well-worn recipe every day. They're always the happiest bakers. I envy him.

"Next!"

I order mortadella and stracciatella with crema di pistachio, Theo gets salame toscana with artichoke and spiced eggplant. The line stretches all the way down the alley beside Palazzo Vecchio, past a pharmacy vending machine full of condoms and cock rings, almost to the Uffizi Gallery steps, but when I see my sandwich, I finally understand why Theo insisted on the wait. It's nearly the size of my head.

For the afternoon, we split up: me to the Uffizi Gallery, for the Botticellis, Theo to Fabrizio's guided tour of Michelangelo's David. I hang back near a statue of Lorenzo the Magnificent to finish my sandwich, letting the others from the tour slip ahead. I genuinely cherish the Swedes, but I've been waiting my entire life to see the paintings in this museum, and I want to do it alone. I want to make a thing of it. Maxine says I'm "overly precious," but I simply love a perfect moment.

When the clouds are right and the aftertaste of pistachio settles on my tongue and a hot breeze whips up from the Arno, I let the crowd scoop me up and into the museum.

Art is the reason I'm alive. Not even in the figurative sense, although that's probably true too, but in the literal, biological sense.

My dad was thirty-one when he decided to study in Paris. He met my uncle Thierry through grad school classmates while poring over French Romantic poetry on a student visa, and it was at one of Thierry's hazy artist parties in the pied-à-terre that he noticed the watercolor paintings in the kitchen. He was transfixed. As it turned out, the artist was my mother, and Thierry was planning a trip home to Pérouges if my dad wanted to join.

My parents swore it was love at first sight. My mother was ten years younger, living and painting in my grandparents' upstairs bedroom three doors down from the house I'd grow up in. They spent all night walking the village, just talking. At sunrise, they kissed, and by the next sunset, he had told his old roommate in Ohio to sell his things because he was never coming back.

When I was small, I'd sit with my mother while she painted flowers in the garden—or, after we moved, the greenhouse. She'd tell me about her favorite French artists, pull down books from the shelves and show me what they'd painted. Manet, Monet, Van Gogh. She loved Cézanne the most. I always think of her whenever I see a quince in a painting.

After she was gone, I'd sit in her place in the garden and paint watercolors so her easel wouldn't be empty. I'd paint cherry and blackberry juices into tart crusts the way she'd shown me when we learned to bake together. As a teenager in New York, I spent hours wandering museums, looking for quinces. And when I had the choice to go anywhere to study anything, I chose art history to be close to her and Santa Barbara to be close to Theo.

I finished my degree full of curiosity and inspiration and found it was only good for working at a museum, doing the same things every day and looking at the same handful of pieces. I wanted to keep discovering, to make things. That was what brought me back to pastry, and now I get to make things every day. I spend every day at the same station in one of the finest kitchens in Paris, repeating the steps of recipes someone else wrote with absolutely no deviations. And I'm great at it, which I've heard should make it fulfilling.

All to say, I can't wait to see what the Uffizi will give me.

I wander through long, coffered corridors bursting with hand-painted flowers and cherubs, trying my best to savor it all. The golden panels, Lippi's Madonna, the Duchess and Duke of Urbino diptych. I skip the rooms with Botticelli's paintings, deciding to save them for last. Then it's Da Vinci's Annunciation, the frescoed maps on the upstairs terrace, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, and Venus of Urbino. When I'm satisfied, I turn back, past oil portraits of dukes and duchesses lining the halls, and into the Botticelli rooms.

Here, I take my time with each individual painting. I bring out my sketchbook, but there's no way to capture how ethereal each piece is, the luminance, how Botticelli's brush could capture every flower petal with scientific accuracy and still imbue everything with the gauzy grace of a dream. Twenty minutes pass while I stare at Primavera, astounded by the gossamer ripples of the Graces' veils, the blooms spilling from the nymph's mouth to become the flowers adorning the goddess's gown, the proud, serene, gently smiling face of Flora herself.

My phone buzzes with a text from Theo: a grainy, zoomed-in photo of the David's cock and balls.

Nice, I reply. I send back a photo of Calumny of Apelles, a dramatic painting of hot people in billowing robes fighting one another in an ornate throne room. This is how I picture Númenor. Theo replies, nerd, and, <3, and then sends a photo of the David's ass.

Finally, when the crowd thins out, I reverently approach The Birth of Venus.

As I take my first, long-awaited look at her windswept hair, that iconic, brassy shade of blond, I realize I've seen the color before. Three times, actually, on Sloane, Este, and Theo.

Venus is a Flowerday strawberry blond.

It feels strange to see something of Theo in a depiction of the divine feminine. I've never really seen any woman in Theo (here, Theo would say well, technically, and mention one of the times we brought a girl home together), but I have occasionally seen something else. Some eternal, ineffable quality present in this painting. I see Theo in the way Venus leans her weight to one side and juts her hip out in the contrapposto stance, Theo's jaw and chin in Venus's face, Theo's subtle smirk in the shape of Venus's mouth, Theo's laughing vitality in the way Venus's hair flies.

The longer I stare at her, though, the more I begin to see bits of myself too. Her gaze, the fluidity of her body, the way her fingers lay on her breast. If Theo were here, would they recognize me the way I recognize them? Would they wonder, the way I'm wondering, how it can be that we've met here in a Botticelli, curling out of the sea-foam?

I picture them a few streets away beneath David, that monument to masculine beauty, finding us in him like I've found us in Venus. Comparing their thighs to his thighs, my lips to his lips, their knees, their shoulders, my waist, our collarbones. I hope Theo looks at that lovingly honed marble and sees the places where their own body holds as much of the divine masculine as he does. I hope it makes them feel known.

I stay there with Venus until two minutes before aperitivo, unwilling to look away. She fills me with dreams of Theo and me on a beach strewn with petals, fills my mouth with the taste of sea salt and rose water and citrus blossoms. An idea for a pastry comes to me unprompted: a featherlight, shell-shaped madeleine infused with rose water and lightly salted, kissed with lemon crémeux and flecked with candied primrose. I write it down, though I don't know what I'd ever use it for.

In France, we take an apéro before dinner. In my family, it was kir in a juice glass with a splash of Lillet Blanc. Crème de cassis, white wine, a hint of orange peel and honey. Maman said an apéritif should be sweet to ease you into your meal gently, though I suspected she just liked the taste of Lillet.

In Italy, an aperitivo should be bitter. Vermouth, Campari, Aperol. The philosophy is that bitter herbs prime the palate by shocking it into a blank slate for whatever flavors come next. This is what Fabrizio tells us outside a café near the Duomo, where we meet to sip bitter, orange-red Campari spritzes at flimsy café tables that wobble on the piazza's stones.

Evening sun lights Theo from behind as they lean back in their chair. I watch them laugh at Dakota, who discovers that a spritz is the only way to get a full glass of ice in Italy and orders three more in rapid succession. They take notes on flavors, push their fingers through their hair, recline into their typical legs-akimbo Theo posture, take out a bandana and tie it around their neck. When I first moved to the US, I thought Theo might have been one of those cowboys from the American books my dad bought me.

Cowboys, flowers. David, Venus, Theo.

I don't know how I didn't guess it sooner. I certainly felt it long before Theo put a word to it. How could Theo not have always had everything I want? Everything I'm most attracted to, every aspect of masculine and feminine I like best. I don't know if I love Theo because I'm queer or if I'm queer because I love Theo, but I know there's nothing I need that Theo doesn't have. If I'm a man in constant pursuit of decadence, Theo is the ultimate. The most of everything.

I wonder, if Theo had never been on their own, would they have ever discovered this? Or did safety and familiarity keep them smaller? Would there have always been a limit to how much they would know of themself, how much of them I would get to know?

What tragedy that would have been, a comfortable, diminishing love.

I've always agreed with the French that a meal should begin with sweetness, but I'm beginning to wonder if the Italians have it right—if, sometimes, discovery wants bitterness first.

"Theeee-oh, Theeee-oh, Theee-oh!"

It was the Calums that got the chant started, but our entire table has joined in, banging their fists until plates rattle. Theo stands, flushed but clearly pleased with the attention.

"Fine, I'll do it!"

Fabrizio passes down three empty glasses, and Theo turns away while I pour a different red wine into each. When I'm finished, they sit back down, and everyone leans in to watch.

Theo picks up the first glass and swirls the wine.

"Oh, baby. Deep ruby in color, fading to a garnet rim. Brilliant in the light. Already thinking Sangiovese is the main grape here, and like, duh, Tuscany." They bring the glass to their nose and take a whiff. "Whew. Okay, off the rip, lots of dark fruit. Black cherry for sure. Blackberry, maybe pomegranate. Hold on." They tip the glass to their lips and close their eyes to taste. "Mm. She's got a lot going on. Full-bodied and intense, and those fruits are preserved. Bit of balsamic, bit of oregano, bit of leather. A lot of tannins, but they're gentle, like they've had a long time to think about it. Long finish. Sort of like making out with a sexy nun. Gotta be Brunello, Riserva. Around ten years. Slightly candied, actually, which makes it a warm vintage, and 2014 was a cooler year, so maybe 2015?"

"2016," I read off the bottle, jaw slack in astonishment. "But yes, you got it."

Montana gasps delightedly, and our table cheers. Ginger Calum puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles. Theo takes a silly little bow.

They taste the other two and correctly identify a Chianti Classico and a Carmignano, each time to riotous applause. A ridiculous balloon of pride swells in me. I spent so long wanting Theo to throw themself into something the way I knew they could, and here they are, being great.

I once read a line in Mrs. Dalloway that stuck with me because of how well it described Theo's place in my life. Clarissa sees Sally in her pink dinner frock and, after listing every other visitor and activity in the house, thinks, All this was only a background for Sally. To me, Theo is the eternal foreground. I put them at the center of every room. It's gratifying when the room agrees.

Trattoria Sostanza is ours for the night, booked out for an endless Italian dinner. The restaurant barely fits our entire tour group, but that only adds to the experience. Bottles of wine and water flow from hand to hand, plates of oil and herbs from table to table, baskets of bread passed around like the collection at Sunday mass. My back is pressed to Stig's back like we're two travelers from the north crammed into the same carriage on a Grand Tour. Fabrizio is leaning over to the next table, shouting to be heard as he explains the courses of an Italian meal. "That is the beauty, in Italy you do not have to choose pasta or meat! You have pasta for primi, meat for secondi!"

For primi, we have hand-pinched tortellini simmered in butter and rough-cut pasta in a perfectly simple meat sauce, and then comes secondi, when we truly feast. Fabrizio expounds on the subtleties of traditional Tuscan cookery that make a country dish like bistecca alla fiorentina taste so complex: how the charcoal embers must be stoked to the exact right temperature, hot enough to achieve a fragrant crust when the beef is laid close to it for a few short minutes, but not so hot that it cooks out the marbled, ruby-red center. Meanwhile, a skillet of breaded chicken fried in a centimeter of pure, golden butter requires no explanation—it's just fucking delicious.

But as our plates are cleared for dolci, I think the dish that has surprised me most is the tortino di carciofi—eggs swirled in a pan around a cluster of fried artichokes to make a puffy, perfectly round omelet.

"Fabrizio," I say, "do you know the story of Caravaggio and the artichokes?"

He doesn't, so I tell him how Caravaggio, a hotheaded young bisexual street brawler and one of the most masterful Italian painters in history, went to dinner with friends at an osteria in Rome. The waiter brought him a dish of artichokes, some cooked in oil and some in butter, and when Caravaggio asked which was which, the waiter told him to sniff them and find out.

"And so Caravaggio—"

A hand slides into my lap, and my thoughts skid to a halt.

Beside me, Theo innocently sips their wine, as if their other hand isn't on the inseam of my shorts under the tablecloth.

"Go on," Fabrizio says, "what does Caravaggio do?"

"Yeah, Kit," Theo says, smiling. Their hand slips higher. "Go on."

I shoot Theo a pleading look, undermined by the way my legs reflexively spread under the table.

"So Caravaggio's furious, and he grabs the artichokes, and hhh—" The word evaporates as Theo fully palms me through my shorts. I play it off as a cough, reach for my glass. "He throws the whole dish at the waiter's face."

"No!" Fabrizio gasps.

"Hits him right in the mustache."

"Not the mustache," Theo says.

"Non i baffi!" Fabrizio agrees. "And then?"

"And then—" Theo gives me a maddeningly brief squeeze before taking their hand away, leaving me wanting. I forget the end of the story. "And then he jumps up, steals a sword off the guy at the next table, and tries to attack the waiter, and that's when he gets arrested."

Fabrizio, delighted, thanks me for a new story to use in Rome. As soon as he's pulled into another conversation, I lean in to Theo's ear.

"What are you doing?"

Theo smiles angelically. "Telling you my plans for the night."

"Oh." I nod. "Good to know."

After that, I expect us to sneak off when dinner ends, but we each get the arm of a Calum flung over our shoulders, and before we can protest, we're whisked into the streets of Florence. Stig is with us too, and Fabrizio, and Montana and Dakota and a few more of the younger people from the tour group. We wind up in a small, dark bar with glittering glass mosaics and red leather booths and a swordfish on the wall. Fabrizio has Theo order for us, and the bartender uncorks two bottles of young Brunello.

After so many days together, conversation flows easily. Theo and Stig compare notes on backpacking through the Rockies versus Jotunheim. Fabrizio and the Calums discuss their favorite New Zealand beaches. I prop my elbows on the bar and beg Dakota and Montana to tell me more about their work trip to Tokyo, where they dropped acid with a Moroccan prince. Theo insists on buying two more bottles for the group, this time a softer, fruitier Morellino di Scansano.

By round three, Stig and Fabrizio are shouting about the last World Cup, and Dakota and Montana are bending their heads together at one end of the bar, whispering behind their hands. At the other end, the Calums unconvincingly pretend to study the cocktail menu instead of eavesdropping. I watch Theo accept a glass from a handsome bartender who eyes them with interest, but they're already turning their body toward mine, bumping our knees together.

"I have a question," I say.

Theo raises their eyebrows as they drink. Go on.

"Is our competition still on?"

They swallow. "Yeah, why? You want to call it before you lose?"

"No, I was just wondering how you'll find time to maintain your lead if you're hooking up with me."

A moment goes by. Fabrizio continues talking shit about the Portuguese national team. Dakota makes a move toward the Calums.

"Yeah, about that," Theo says. "I have a confession. My numbers may be . . . slightly inflated."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't hook up with the fruit-stand girl in Saint-Jean-de-Luz."

"But—" I can still see the intent in their gaze when they told me how well they could get Juliette off, feel the hot twist in my gut. "I saw you kissing her."

"Yeah, we kissed, but then—I kind of got curved. I didn't want to tell you because I was a little jealous of you and Paloma. So, it's not six to four, it's five to four."

I shake my head.

"Five to three."

It's Theo's turn to frown. "What?"

"I didn't sleep with Paloma either."

Theo puts their glass down with force.

"What? You left with her!"

But it's true. As soon as she broke the kiss, she patted me on the cheek like a lost dog and said, "I think I would rather be your friend." And then she invited me over out of charity, and I sat in her kitchen and told her about my job and asked how she knew she didn't want to do what I do.

"Yes," I say. "We made crepes and talked about culinary school. That was all."

I may have also tearfully confided in her how much I still love Theo while Great-Uncle Mikel made me a cup of tea.

"You—but you said—"

"I never technically said I slept with her," I point out. "I just didn't contradict you."

"So, to be clear," Theo says, laying their hands flat on the bar, "neither of us got laid in Saint-Jean-de-Luz."

"No, we didn't."

"Damn." They sit back, laughing in disbelief. "Well, this is embarrassing for us both."

"Is it?" I ask, smiling. "Maybe the only thing better than sex is having friends on the C?te d'Argent."

"A wholesome sentiment from the Sex God of école Desjardins."

The—quoi?

"The what?"

"Oh, don't be coy." They roll their eyes. "Maxine told me all about it."

Oh, no. That could mean anything.

"What exactly did Maxine tell you?"

Theo shrugs. "Essentially, that you sucked and fucked your way through pastry school, and everyone was in love with you."

"In love with me?" I repeat, stunned. "Theo, did—did you ever think my best friend might have been exaggerating to make me look good to my ex?"

"Well—" Theo blinks. "I thought she was your girlfriend at the time."

"Oh, God. Oh, Theo, no." I rub a hand across my face. We can't keep doing this. "Do you want the honest truth?"

Theo hesitates for only a second.

"Yes."

"It's true that in patisserie school I had . . . a lot of sex," I say. Theo's mouth forms a thin line, as if I'm just showing off. "And I'm sure some of them had feelings for me, because I—I was kind of raw for a while. Kind of pouring out a lot of love in a lot of directions, trying to, I don't know, get it all out of me. Because you were gone so fast and so completely, and I couldn't shut it off."

Theo's gaze drops from my face to a cocktail napkin, their mouth softening.

"But, while that may be an excellent way to get someone into bed, it's a terrible way to get them to stay," I go on. "I was a mess. No one could put up with me for more than a week. I had to learn to be better at picking people up so I wouldn't have to sleep alone in the apartment that was supposed to be ours. That's all. Maxine is a saint, but she's also protective to a fault. She would've told you anything to make it sound better for me."

A pause, only the bar noise around us. Theo seems to be chewing on this information. I thumb the base of my glass, hoping they don't find it too pathetic.

Finally, their voice almost too low to be heard, they ask, "So, it was hard for you? When I . . . ?"

It shouldn't shock me to learn Theo thought their exit from my life was easy for me. As long as we've known each other, Theo's great misconception has been that people don't miss them. It's hard for them to believe that they have so much to offer, that people want them around and think of them fondly when they're gone. They don't expect anyone to care if they leave. It's affected us before, and often—when I moved to New York, when they dropped out of school, when we'd have a tense conversation and they'd avoid me for days. Under pressure, they would vanish, and they loved themself so little they were surprised when it hurt me.

In my memory, I see a small Theo outside my old house in the Valley, dropped off by the family driver with an overstuffed suitcase.

Adult-sized Theo continues: "I kind of figured you didn't think of me once you got to Paris. I thought you found better things to care about, and I was, you know. Backstory."

We've come so far from who we were when we met, but some things hold out.

"Theo, you could never be backstory," I say. "I thought about you every single day. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, and you had disappeared. And it seemed so . . . clean. Like you didn't even hesitate. And that killed me."

After a pause, Theo says, "For what it's worth, it killed me too."

As much as it hurts to think of Theo in pain, it is worth something. It helps, in some strange, sad way, to know they were as fucked up as me. That I was alone with it not because they didn't feel it, but because they never told me.

"Can I ask why you did it, then?" I say. "I know why we broke up, and I know you thought I left you, but I still don't understand why you didn't just call me when you got home."

I wait for them to harden, to answer with You didn't call either, but they rest their fingertips on the stem of their glass and look thoughtful.

"I think I was always waiting for you to outgrow me," they say. "And it seemed like you finally had. I was humiliated, and angry—I was so angry—and part of me just needed a win. Cutting you off felt like doing something, like—like taking control of what was happening to me. But, Kit, it wasn't easy for me either. It never could be."

I try to absorb this, wishing for the words to make Theo understand they're not someone I could ever outgrow. I settle for making them smile.

"So, like," I say in the most American strain of my accent, leaning against the bar. "How bad was it?"

Theo smiles.

"Dude, it was so bad," they say, laughing like they're talking about a longboarding accident. "Those first six months, the only time I didn't think about you was when I was working on the bus, so I had, like, blisters in places I never imagined. My stomach was way fucked up, my back hurt all the time, I slept like shit. It was fucking hell, bro."

I nod gravely. "I feel that, bro."

"And even after the worst was over, I couldn't call. I just knew you'd be doing well, and I'd realize I'd been right, that I'd held you back."

I slide my hand across the bar until our smallest fingers meet.

"You never held me back," I tell them. "I hope you know that now."

"I'm working on actually believing it," they say with a brisk shrug. "But this helps. And it helps to see you doing well and know it doesn't have to change how much I like myself."

A twinge in my chest.

"I like you too," I say.

"Thanks! I like you!" Theo declares, grinning. "Look at us, sitting here in Italy talking about our lives, and it doesn't even bother me that you're happy and successful in Paris! I'm happy that you're happy. That's growth!"

"Yeah," I say. Happy and successful—I am, aren't I? "I'm happy for you too."

We stay there, drinking and talking and liking each other. The rest of our group trickles out, and new faces replace them. We look on with rapt attention as Dakota leaves with a Calum on each arm, and then delighted confusion as Montana pulls Stig after them by one of his enormous hands.

We should leave too, if only we could find the end of our conversation.

"Fuck," Theo says as they search their pockets to pay for another Negroni. "I'm out of euros."

I'm sure I have some coins rattling around the bottom of my bag—except, I don't. I come up empty.

"Should we call it a night?"

"We . . . could," Theo says, toying with a plain gold ring on their index finger. They take it off and hold it in the palm of their hand. "Or there's always the San Francisco Gambit."

The mischievous gleam in their eye lights up the memory: Theo and I, so in love we didn't even have to try to sell a faux proposal. Anyone could see we were in it for life.

"You won't," I say, half because I'm afraid they'll do it, half knowing this is the best way to make sure they do.

"I will."

"I don't believe you."

Theo stands up, banging a spoon against a glass to draw attention. When enough people are looking, they drop to one knee on the floor of the bar and gaze up at me, looking like some handsome young wanderer come to take me away from this provincial life.

"Kit Fairfield," Theo says, presenting me with their ring, "you are the best-looking person in this bar. And you smell so nice all the time. And I like you, and I really missed you. Will you do me the honor of spending the rest of your life with me?"

I'd give absolutely anything for them to mean it.

I put on an easy smile and say, "My love, I thought you'd never ask."

As the crowd begins to cheer, I stand and pull Theo to their feet. They slide the ring onto my left hand, and it fits. The inside is still warm from their skin. We're laughing together, swept up in the moment, clutching each other's hands while the bartender pops a bottle of champagne and someone chants, "Bacio, bacio, bacio!"

"They want us to kiss!" Theo shouts.

I tell them, "Sell it, then."

So Theo takes me in their arms and dips me low. For one dizzy second, all I see is their face, close and complicated with feeling, and I try to tell them with my eyes to just do it. Kiss me, haunt me, handle me recklessly.

They slip their hand between our mouths and kiss the back of their own fingers. Drinkers applaud; the bartender clangs a bell. We know how to make it convincing.

On the walk to the hostel, we stumble into an alley, my back against a yellow stucco wall and Theo's mouth on my neck. We're loose and hazy from hours of steady drinking, tired and reaching for each other with a desire like returning to an abandoned cup of coffee. It was hot and strong before, but now the sugar has settled at the bottom.

I open my eyes to see dark green shutters across from us, a cat lounging on the sill behind them. It's one of those small details that reminds me these places are real and belong to people we'll rarely meet while passing through, that Florence will forget us even if we remember it for the rest of our lives. I find it terribly romantic, the evanescence.

I rut lazily into the warm press of their thighs. They kiss my neck, my jaw. We're moving slowly—so slowly it's hard to know when we stop trying to fuck and start simply holding each other.

My arms circle tightly around Theo's waist. Theo's hand cradles the back of my head, their fingers clenched in my hair. It's been so long since anyone has held me like this. It's been so long without them. I could cry with relief.

We stay there, not speaking and not letting go, until the cat in the window yells at us and Theo breaks off laughing. They make a joke in a shaky, too-loud voice and stagger away.

But I felt their breath catch against me, and I see the strange brightness in their eyes when they pass through the glow of a convenience store window. When I return their ring, they slip it into their pocket without looking at it. They smile like it's nothing. I don't know if I believe it.