naples

There's a certain flavor to Fabrizio, a bacchanalian ripeness that I haven't yet identified. I'm sure if I'd asked Theo they could have named it right away, because the same notes are in the wine we're drinking.

"Body?" they ask me.

"Full," I say, feeling its weight on my tongue, the intensity of the flavors.

"Sweetness?"

"Barely. Sort of like a—a dark fruit at first. Maybe black currant? But it's more . . . savory?"

"That's good, savory how?"

"Um." I think about it.

"No wrong answers," Theo says, "whatever comes to mind first."

"Smoke? Or . . . dirt? Peppercorn?"

"That's good, really good. Keep going, past the first things you taste. What's back there?"

"It's . . . meaty, maybe? Leathery?"

Theo clasps their hands together, pleased. "It is. And do you feel how it's sort of coating the inside of your mouth, toward the front? Like, holding on to it?"

"Yeah," I say. "That means it has a lot of tannins, right?"

"Right," Theo says. "So, this wine is called Aglianico del Taburno. It's made with Aglianico grapes, which are grown a few miles inland from here, where it's warm enough for enough of the year that a late-ripening grape like that can thrive, and so they have deeper, darker fruit flavors because of the long growing season, and grapes in hotter climates also have thicker skins, which means they let more tannins into the wine, because tannins are in the skin and seeds, so if you like tannic or savory wines or wines with dark fruit flavors you might like warm-climate wines, and— I feel like you're just staring at me now."

I shake my head, realizing I've forgotten my glass entirely. It's hard to remember anything else when I'm watching Theo light up like this. I can barely remember not to put my hand on their waist.

"No, that makes sense," I say. "Warm-climate wines. Meaty, leathery, ripe, full, but weirdly—"

"Smooth."

"Smooth. Kind of sounds like—"

As if on cue, Fabrizio swans by our corner of the table, half-open shirt billowing in the late-afternoon sun, melted-chocolate voice languid with laughter, a hot lick of breeze rippling the curls on his chest.

"—Fabrizio."

"Well," Theo says, "they are both from here."

We've finally arrived in Fabrizio's hometown of Naples, nestled along the coast at the shin of Italy's boot, and Fabrizio is in his element. He is making passionate love to his element. He's overflowing with compliments and kisses and historical morsels, continuously conjuring paper parcels of street food and reciting relevant stanzas of Neapolitan poems. He loves this city and its weathered streets with an irresistible intensity. The more we soak in his presence, the more I love Naples. And the more I love Naples, the more Fabrizio seems like her favorite child.

Naples has existed uninterrupted for nearly thirty centuries, and it exists so much. Shops and trattorias cram the ancient streets around Centro Storico, festooned with strings of flags and lights and drying laundry, ivy and satellite cables curtaining craggy stone facades. Every inch has something to look at, streaks of graffiti on yellow stucco or lintels with sculpted leaves or old bricks revealed by chipping plaster. Storefronts overflow with tables of puppets and figurines, hand-painted tambourines, paper flowers and cheap sunglasses. Yeast and oil permeate the air, carried by a million sounds all at once—scooters revving, arguments, laughter, old men coughing out cigar smoke, an accordion on the next street. It's a gritty, glorious feast of overstimulation.

Already, we've toured three separate astonishing churches and been whisked down Via dei Tribunali, where Fabrizio taught us the exacting legal requirements of Neapolitan pizza: that the dough must only be stretched by hand, the mandated temperature for fermentation, the clockwise spreading of crushed tomatoes, approved local sources for cheese. We've taken forks and knives to bloody red marinara and basil-flecked margherita with soupy middles, and we've stood at windows for pizza folded up with butcher paper, a portafoglio.

Which brings us here, to the terrazzo of a wine bar, all of us drunk on overindulgence. The muchness of Naples has caught up to us. Even Orla is boneless on her stool.

Today isn't only special for Fabrizio; it's also Orla's last day. Tomorrow we'll take the ferry to Palermo, and Orla will drive the bus back to its station in London. We're all devastated to see her go, and to thank her for hauling us around, we've coaxed her out to spend the day with us.

"What do you usually do while we're out?" Dakota asks her, tipping more wine into Orla's glass.

She shrugs. "Go hiking. Get a massage. Phone my wife. Read pornographic romance novels."

"I think I love you, Orla," Theo says. Orla raises her glass and winks.

In the thick of it all, I've barely been alone with Theo for more than a few seconds, but now that they're beside me, throwing around four-letter words and telling me how to use my mouth, I'm back on the ledge.

I could touch them. I want to touch them. Slip my hand across the back of their neck, press my knee against their thigh. They would like it, even. But everything I shouldn't say is right under the surface of my skin, and I'll sweat it out if we get too close.

I pull myself a few inches farther from Theo, tucking my hand under my thigh before I forget myself. The movement doesn't escape their notice.

"Hey," Theo says quietly. "You okay? You look like you're worried you forgot something."

Yes, my heart in California and my cock in a fifth-story apartment in Rome.

"Just—thinking we haven't had any Napoli pastry yet." I drain my glass and call out, "Fabrizio!"

Fabrizio tosses his handsome head toward me. "Sì, Professore?"

"Where can I try sfogliatelle?"

And so, Fabrizio wilds me away from Theo toward a pasticceria down the block, where I can busy myself with papery pastry layers and offload some sexual frustration onto him. It's always so easy, flirting with Fabrizio. He takes it so well and gives back even better, winks and raises his eyebrows and thumbs the edge of my jaw. I like him so much. It almost helps.

For dinner, Fabrizio takes us to a little osteria in the Spanish Quarter with walls covered in painted majolica tiles. An older woman bursts out of the kitchen to greet us in a white-collared red dress, her dark, wavy hair cropped close to her face and her eyes keen under strong, mobile brows. She is glorious, commanding the room with the brash, unflappable air of a woman who must have been mind-bendingly hot in her prime. Fabrizio lets her kiss him twice on each cheek and introduces her as his mother.

"It takes me many summers with the tour company to convince them," Fabrizio tells us, "but tonight, we dine in il ristorante di famiglia!"

The menu is a straightforward tour of Neapolitan staples: pappardelle in eight-hour ragù napoletano, pasta alla genovese, braciola, roasted squid, octopus cooked in white wine. For antipasti, Fabrizio's mother brings out plate after plate of eggplant involtini and fried nuggets of mozzarella. We devour more pasta than any human should ever eat and follow it with hunks of pork and beef stewed in the ragù. It is, unpretentiously and unassumingly, the best meal I've had in Italy.

Maybe it's the atmosphere of a traditional Neapolitan cucina. Maybe it's Fabrizio's father sweating under his heavy beard in the kitchen, stirring enormous vats of stew, communicating only by shouts through the kitchen window in the voice of a man who gets incredible deals from the local butcher. Maybe it's Fabrizio's mother, who dances in and out to deliver more parmigiana or squeeze Fabrizio's cheeks or interrogate someone on why they haven't cleared their plate. Or maybe it's how happy Theo seems to be here, nearly weeping with laughter at the photos of teenage Fabrizio and his brothers on the walls.

Just as Fabrizio's mother is beginning to nag him about the length of his hair, my phone sounds a long buzz in my pocket.

It's probably Cora, forgetting I'm in Italy and calling to chat about what she's been reading, or Maxine with a recipe question that's easier to explain over the phone. But neither of their names are on the incoming call.

I slip away from the table and out the front door.

"Paloma?" I answer.

"Bonsoir, mon petit américain," says Paloma's crisp voice over the line. "?a va? Where are you?"

"I'm good," I say. "I'm in Naples."

"Ah, Napoli." Paloma sighs. "Beautiful city. Excellent fish. Are you eating well?"

"So well," I say, rubbing my chest where I can feel the threat of impending heartburn. "Maybe too well."

"As you should," Paloma says. "And your Theo?"

I press my shoulders to the restaurant's brick wall and lean my head back.

"My Theo is as brilliant as ever."

"Have you confessed your love yet?"

I cover the phone with my hand, like somehow Theo could overhear from all the way inside.

"Paloma, not that I'm not happy to hear from you, but is there a reason you called?"

"Yes, there is," Paloma says. "You remember the patisserie under me? The one with the macarons, and the old woman?"

"I do."

"Every Thursday I bring her dinner with fresh fish, so she likes me, and she tells me her secrets. Usually it is about Fran?ois across the road—she thinks he is very handsome—but tonight it was about the patisserie. She wants to close next year."

"Oh, no," I say, still unsure why Paloma felt she needed to call with this news.

"And," she goes on, "she wants to sell it. She wants to find a young patissier who will do something nice with it and stay for a long time, the way she did. She asked if I knew anyone, and right away I thought of you."

"Oh," I say. "Oh, wow."

"And?" she prompts. "What do you think?"

It sounds like a dream. The kind of gorgeous, sugar-spun dream that is never as easy as it feels in my head. The kind of dream I was chasing when I lost Theo, the kind my kitchen in Paris wrung out of me.

"That's so kind of you, Paloma," I say, "but I have a job, remember?"

"Yes, the job you hate."

"I don't hate it."

"But you don't like it."

"That doesn't mean I can just quit."

"Why not?"

"Because I put all this time into it," I say. "It's what I worked for." It's what I lost Theo for.

Paloma laughs over the line, a short, sarcastic grunt.

"Crois-moi," she says, "?a ne veut rien dire, si cela ne te rend pas heureux." That doesn't mean anything if it doesn't make you happy.

I find myself without an answer to that.

The door of the restaurant opens, and people filter outside in knots of laughter and tipsy conversation, each flushed with the intoxicating joy of a good, simple meal prepared by someone who loves what they're cooking. I can hear Fabrizio's parents inside, making jokes with the cooks and foisting boxes of leftovers on the last guests. It seems like a good life. A messy and abundant life, possible because they share it with each other.

"Think about it," Paloma says.

Theo finds me as they exit, all curious eyebrows and Aglianico lips, and I rush out a goodbye to Paloma and hang up.

"Who was that?" Theo asks.

"Just Cora." I shove my phone into my pocket. "Where's everyone going now?"

"Different places," Theo says, "but wait until you hear where I got us invited."

"Where?" I ask. At first they just raise their eyebrows and lower their eyelids in that way of theirs that suggests something either very good or mildly illegal, which is usually also good. "Where, Theo?"

"Fabrizio wants to know," they say, "if we'd like to see his apartment."

I wait for the punch line, but it seems there isn't one.

"Are you teasing me?"

"Dead serious," they say. "He lives a ten-minute walk from here. Said he's looking forward to sleeping in his own bed tonight and asked if we wanted to share a bottle of wine."

"We?"

"We."

I stare. For all our flirting and big talk about making sensual tantric love to Fabrizio, I never actually thought our tour guide would proposition us. But I think of his warm touch on the side of my face, how he chose us specially to ride with him in Rome, how he watched us work on the engine of the bus.

"Is . . . is this it?" I ask. "Do you think he wants to—?"

"There was a strong vibe, yes. At least one of us. Maybe both. It seems like he considers us a package deal."

"Oh my God, because we let him think we're together?"

"I don't think it's not because of that."

"Well." I put my knuckles to my mouth. "Do we—do we want to?"

"I mean," Theo says. "It's Fabrizio."

"It's Fabrizio."

"How can we not? Unless . . . you can think of a reason we shouldn't."

"No, it—it would be hot, if it's both of us."

"And if it's just one of us?"

The image flashes into my mind. Theo as seen from the foot of the bed, broad hands on their hips as they pant into a pillow. Or Theo reclined on a chair, learning that I've trained away my gag reflex. Heat coils in my gut.

"Then . . ." I say. "Winner takes all?"

It takes a beat for Theo to catch on, and then they're pink with indignance.

"What, after I smoked you in almost every city? No way. If it's just you, you can count him for double, because. You know."

"It's Fabrizio."

Theo nods, biting their lip. "It's Fabrizio. But if it's both of us, Monaco rules. It cancels out. Deal?"

"Deal."

"It's not that difficult," Theo says. "Just pick one."

"It is, actually." I scan the illuminated rows of different-colored boxes through the glass. "I don't know what half of these words mean."

"We don't have time for this!"

"Then help me, Theo," I say, feeling more than a little lightheaded. "You're the one who actually knows some Italian."

"Yeah, weirdly, my job at a restaurant did not teach me the word for condoms."

We're in an alley a few blocks from Fabrizio's apartment, bathed in the glow of a Durex vending machine. Our hotel is on the other side of Centro Storico, and there's no time to run there for our own provisions. Instead, I'm squinting at boxes that say things like PERFORMA and PLEASUREMAX and, mysteriously, JEANS, trying to decipher which will bring the lowest element of surprise to group sex with the person I love and our sexy tour guide. We're already ten minutes later than we said we would be, and the German tourists behind us are getting impatient.

"I'm pretty confident the condoms are the ones that say PROFILATTICI," Theo says.

"Yes, like prophylactics, I guessed that, but the rest of the words? Which ones are the normal ones, without any flavors or tingling or anything? And which one is lube, Theo? Which one is lube?"

"The ones at the bottom!"

They point to the last row of the machine, which is filled with brightly colored plastic tubes of liquid with pictures of fruits on them. They're all marked LUbrIFICANTE.

"The ones that look like the sour squeeze candy we used to get from 7-Eleven when we were ten? I'm not using that."

Theo squats down to examine it.

"I don't think this vending machine sells artisanal fair-trade lube for delicate Parisian buttholes, Kit."

"How do you know it'll be for me?"

They look up at me with a perfectly flat, knowing expression and change the subject.

"Don't you think Fabrizio has condoms at his place?"

"We can't show up empty-handed, that's inconsiderate," I say. "And what if he doesn't? Who knows the last time he was home."

"Okay, okay." They take out their phone. "That box says ‘Settebello Classico,' which means . . ." Typing, typing. "‘Seven beauties classic'? What?"

"Just—get the natural lube." I sigh. "The one with the leaves on the tube."

"What if that means it's pesto flavored or something?"

"I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take," I say as Theo punches the buttons.

We determine that the Jeans condoms are so named because they're designed to fit discreetly in a pocket, so I buy a box and shove two in my shirt pocket, passing the remaining four off to the Germans for their patience. Then we continue along the route Fabrizio described to Theo, through the edge of the Spanish Quarter and uphill into a neighborhood whose buildings resemble the colorful stacked palazzos of Cinque Terre. Fabrizio lives close to Castel Sant'Elmo, on the third floor of a skinny, pink-red villa with yellow shutters and white iron balconies.

"So," Theo says, hand hovering over the buzzer. "We're doing this?"

Something wrinkles their face—not hesitation, but gentle concern, maybe. A possible out if I need it, and I'm afraid to lend weight to whatever is making them worry I might.

"We are," I say, reaching past them to hit the buzzer.

The whole way up the stairs, as I watch Theo's boots hit each step, I tell myself this isn't a bad idea, the way I did with émile in Monaco. It'll be hot, and easy, and lovely, the way that sex should be, and I'll make sure everyone feels good. Like the times we had sex with a third person when we were together—just, without Theo's reassuring hand in mine, or the calm certainty that we'll come home to each other afterward, or the love.

Theo knocks, and Fabrizio—is not the person who answers.

"Hello!" says perhaps the most beautiful woman on the continent. "Welcome!"

We both stand dumbstruck on the doormat before this unexpected apparition of Venus with a dark, blunt-banged bob and plum-painted lips, a thin housedress falling midway down her thigh. She pulls the door wider, revealing Fabrizio in a fresh T-shirt and sweats, beaming.

"My friends! You are here! Benvenuti, come in!"

I have to nudge Theo in the shoulder to get them moving.

"Amore, questo è Kit, e quello è Theo," Fabrizio says to the woman before turning to us. "Friends, this is Valentina, my wife!"

"Your—" I clear my throat. "Your wife!"

Theo's eyes are as wide as mine. An entire conversation passes between us in the span of half a second.

I didn't know he was married! Did you know he was married?

Of course I didn't fucking know he was married, Kit, or I wouldn't have assumed he was inviting us over for sex!

Did he ever mention having a wife?

I don't think so? Is that weird? That's weird, right?

She's really hot.

She is insanely fucking hot.

"Ciao, piacere!" Theo says, leaning in to air-kiss Valentina and smoothly elbowing me in the ribs.

"So nice to meet you!" Valentina says in lightly accented English. "Fabrizio speaks of you so warmly!"

I accept an air-kiss of my own, casting about for something to say. The apartment is small and cozy, filled with soft pastels and well-loved wicker furniture and dangling wind chimes. Candles burn on the low coffee table, and through the open balcony doors, I can see Mount Vesuvius in twilight on the horizon.

"This place is incredible," I tell Valentina. "Thank you for having us."

Valentina smiles, brushing hair from my eyes. I consider the possibility that this is some kind of partner-sharing situation—I could probably get on board after enough wine—until Fabrizio calls out, "Orla! Our friends are here!"

Theo's eyes are the size and shape of an arancini.

"Orla?"

"Yes, did I not say? We always have Orla for drinks on her last day of the tour. This is why I invite you!"

"You—didn't say, no, but—hi, Orla!"

Orla comes around the corner holding a bottle of wine. Her shoes are off, and her socks are patterned with little koalas. I should have recognized her hiking boots by the door.

"Evening, darlings! Valentina, love, where did you say the opener was?"

Valentina floats off to show her, and Fabrizio says, "Come, sit, we have room in the kitchen for everyone."

Theo and I exchange another look.

This is cool?

This is cool.

"We're coming!" I say, stepping out of my shoes.

"Not how we thought we'd be," Theo mumbles, "but yeah."

And so we find ourselves around Fabrizio and Valentina's table in an adorable kitchen with sea views and yellow countertops and shelves of antique teapots filled with seashells. Orla opens the wine, Fabrizio pours, and Valentina sets out dishes of marinated olives and crusty bread. Above the toaster oven hangs a framed photo of the two of them laughing in tiny swimsuits, up to their perfect thighs in crystal clear water off a white sand beach. Mon Dieu. He really has been married this whole time.

"So, Valentina," Theo says, already recovering their charm by sheer brute force, "what has Fabrizio told you about us?"

"Oh, I have heard that you are an expert on wine," Valentina says, "so I hope you like this one. I took it from the cellar at his parents' restaurant, though I do not always know if his mother has good taste."

Fabrizio gasps theatrically and fires off a string of Italian; Valentina ignores him.

"It's perfect," Theo says, amused.

"And I hear that you are a patissier in Paris, very impressive," she goes on, smiling at me. "And that you are star-crossed lovers who fell back in love on Fabrizio's tour!"

My face, previously warm from the balmy night and Valentina's compliments, goes cold.

"Oh, we're not—" Theo begins.

"We're just friends," I say before I have to endure the rest of Theo's sentence. "We split up years ago, that's true, and the tour did bring us back together."

I turn to find Theo's eyes sharp and searching.

"Right," they say. "But . . . as friends."

"Ah, I see," Fabrizio says, sounding disappointed. "Colpa mia."

I set my attention upon the olives in front of me, studiously avoiding Orla's sympathetic gaze.

"Well, even so," Orla says, "you're friends again, and that's lovely. Some of my best friends in the world are my ex-girlfriends. I've got one in Copenhagen who lets the wife and I borrow her flat when we're in the mood for herring."

"Oh, I hear Copenhagen is so cozy," Valentina says. "Can we come next time?"

"Fabs, you haven't taken this girl on the Scandi tour yet?"

"I tell the company to never send me on the Scandinavia tour," Fabrizio says. "Too cold. Not enough sun."

"Oh wise up, that's when you let your lady keep you warm. Valentina, love, I'll take you."

Theo laughs, and I laugh, and it's okay.

We talk for an hour while the sun sets. Orla and Fabrizio tell stories of their wildest tour happenings, and Theo and I talk about the strangest people we've encountered at our jobs. Valentina tells us that she was working in Rome as an English tutor when she met a Vespa guide who wanted to learn English to travel the world, how they kissed for the first time on Rome's oldest bridge because he wanted to join her to history. Orla tells us how she met her wife as schoolmates in Derry and waited fifteen years to confess how she felt. It's simple and warm, the kind of magical human thing that happens in transit when like brushes against like.

"My mother, she would tell me to hold the bottle like this"—Fabrizio holds the wine by its bottom, palm to base with his arm fully extended—"and when I am big enough to hold it this way and touch it to my lips, I am old enough to drink it."

"And what age was that?" Theo asks.

"Eleven!" And we fall apart laughing again.

Everything is going well until I lean over to refill Theo's wine, and a condom falls out of my shirt pocket and into the olives.

"Oh God," Theo whispers.

I try to intercept before anyone notices, but the foil wrapper is now coated in olive oil and shoots out from between my fingers. It lands with a small, wet plop beside Fabrizio's glass.

The table goes silent.

"So sorry about that," I say. "That's—that's really a design flaw, isn't it? If anything should be easy to grab when it's covered in oil—"

Fabrizio claps his hands together with delight.

"So, you are together again!"

"What?" Theo says.

"Yes, of course, when two lovers are reunited, the sex is better than ever. All you want to do is make love, day and night." He takes Valentina's hand, glowing with the romance of a poet, and plants a kiss on the inside of her wrist. "When I return home from a tour, Valentina and I—"

"Fabs, darling," Orla says. "Spare them."

"We're not—" Theo says.

"That's not what it's for," I say.

Fabrizio pauses halfway up Valentina's arm.

"It is for something else, then?"

And it's been such a long day with so much to process that I can't think of a single excuse.

A twinkle appears in Fabrizio's eye.

"Ohhh. You think I invite you here for—ah, I forget the word in English." He turns to his wife. "The sex with three people?"

Valentina helpfully supplies, "Threesome, amore."

"Threesomamore."

"No, amore. Threesome."

"Ah, yes. Threesome."

Theo and I lock eyes.

Do we tell him?

Of course we don't fucking tell him.

"We—" I start.

"We weren't—"

"I wouldn't say we—"

"I mean, I may have gotten the impression—"

"We just—we—" I'm losing the plot. "Maybe we—"

Theo glances at me, eyes huge. "I guess we might have . . ."

"We . . ." Fuck it. "Did. Yes, we did think you wanted to have sex with us."

After a beat, Theo adds, "Respectfully."

Orla sits back and takes a hearty swig of wine.

"And we're so sorry for presuming," I say. "And to you, Valentina."

"Oh, no need for that," Valentina says. "This happens sometimes when he tries to make friends." She takes Fabrizio's face in her hands and wobbles it side to side. "Look at this man, who could resist you?"

"I keep telling him he's got to flirt less with the guests," Orla says to us, "but I don't think he knows how to stop."

"I cannot help that I am so full of love," Fabrizio says earnestly, "and also so very good-looking. It is my cross to bear."

"You wouldn't believe how many people finish this tour thinking they could have slept with Fabrizio if they'd had the opportunity," Orla goes on. "I reckon we could sell T-shirts. Nearly Fucked Fabs: The European Tour."

"I am providing memorable customer experiences!"

Orla snorts and says, "Love, it's alright to like the attention. You'd wear a ring if you didn't."

"Yeah, to be fair, I had no idea you were married," Theo chimes in. "Sorry, again, Valentina."

"That is my idea, actually," Valentina says, releasing her husband. "Once, not long after we were married, he forgot his ring at home and came home from the tour with twice as much in tips, so now I tell him to leave it with me. People tip more when they think he is available."

"Especially the Americans," Orla adds.

"Oh my God." I bury my face in my hands. "I'm Americans."

"Professore, no!" Fabrizio says. "With you, it is not just for tips."

When I lift my head, Fabrizio is looking at Theo and me with pure, bare sincerity.

"Every tour I enjoy the people, but on some tours, I meet people I think could be my friends," Fabrizio says. "And I want to bring you to my home and introduce you to my wife because I hope that after this trip is over, we can stay in touch, if you like. I hope we do not become strangers when we leave Palermo."

There's something so admirable about his directness. I like you. Stay in my life. It's perfectly simple, when he says it like that.

I turn to Theo and find them smiling.

"We'd love that," Theo says.

"Che bella!" Fabrizio says, raising his glass. "Then, let us drink to that! To friendship!"

Valentina adds, "And to love!"

"I have a question for you," Fabrizio says to me after we've finished the wine.

We're alone in the kitchen. Theo's out on the balcony with Orla and Valentina, their laughter occasionally drifting like sea breeze through the half-open door. All the olive brine made us crave something sweet, so I volunteered to make dessert from whatever's on hand, and now Fabrizio is playing sous while I improvise a gateau au yaourt—French yogurt cake, the first thing I ever learned how to bake.

I'm wrist-deep in a big mixing bowl, white and sky-blue porcelain passed down from Fabrizio's parents' honeymoon in Siena. A delightfully weird sea monster is glazed into its bottom. Fabrizio says it's supposed to be a dolphin, the symbol of one of Siena's seventeen contrade, but it has scales, and eyebrows. God bless medieval zoology.

As I massage lemon zest into sugar with my fingertips, I realize I haven't once stopped to think of the next step. I'm going by heart, making best guesses and dreaming of finishing it with Valentina's homemade apricot marmalade instead of the traditional lemon glaze. This might be the most fun I've had baking since my first week on the job.

"What's your question?" I ask Fabrizio.

"You are in love with Theo, no?"

I nearly tip the bowl.

"Fabrizio."

"Oh, they cannot hear," Fabrizio reassures me with a wave of his whisk. I've put him in charge of the dry ingredients. "Too much noise from the street."

I sigh.

"Is it that obvious?"

"If I am honest, yes. But I hear from Orla."

"Orla." This is what I get for assuming all women in safari hats can be trusted.

"You must know we talk about everything. The tour is the same every time, but the people are different. The guests are our entertainment."

Satisfied with the sugar, I reach for the little glass pot of yogurt Valentina took from the refrigerator and add it in.

"Well, I hope we've given you a good show," I say, genuinely meaning it.

"I think right now it is a tragedy. Tell me, why are you not together? You do not tell Theo how you feel?" He reads my face, then puts down his whisk in despair. "Why, Professore?"

"Because I don't know if I deserve to."

I crack the eggs and add vanilla and, as I whisk it together, tell Fabrizio the most simplified version of our story. Our lives together, the Paris mistake, the breakup, my father, how I never let Theo go, what I almost did last night in Rome before I caught myself. When I'm done, I have Fabrizio sprinkle the flour and baking powder and salt into my bowl while I go on mixing.

"I understand," Fabrizio says. "You love Theo. You do not want for Theo a selfish lover who takes away choices."

"Yes."

"And so, you take away the choice to be with you."

"I—" My hand falters on the whisk. "No, that's not—"

"This is what it sounds like to me."

"I—I just want to do the right thing for Theo."

"Sì, and only you know what this is?" He's at the pantry, searching for the last ingredient, a neutral-flavored oil. His tone is casual, as if he delivers axis-shifting insights to all his houseguests. "Ah, it is as I fear. Only olive oil. Okay?"

"Uh—sure," I say, barely hearing him.

He sets the oil beside his mother's mixing bowl and takes in my expression, then reaches out with easy affection to stroke my cheek.

"When I met Valentina," he says, "there was another man who loved her. He was the son of a rich man, with a good job close to home, and her mother liked him very much and me not at all, so I believed she will be happier with him. So, when he tells her he loves her, she says to me, ‘Fabrizio, what should I say?' And I tell her, ‘I want you to be happy.' And when he asks her to marry him, she says to me, ‘Fabrizio, what should I say?' And again I tell her, ‘I want you to be happy.' And the night before her wedding, she comes to my door, and she says to me, ‘Fabrizio, what should I do?' And I tell her again, ‘I want you to be happy.' And she says to me, ‘Fabrizio, idiota, all I ever want is to be happy with you.'"

The oven dings, preheated.

"What I mean is, if I say how I feel sooner, Valentina's father does not have to tell the priest why his daughter is not coming to her wedding," Fabrizio says with a grin. "It was not for me to protect her from my heart. It was only for me to let her see it and decide if she will keep it."

He glugs oil into the bowl and takes the whisk from my hand, replacing it with a well-seasoned wooden spoon. I should start folding if I want the batter to come together. But I'm frozen on the spot, overpowered by the plain truth. Maybe it's not a matter of whether I deserve to tell them. Maybe it's that they deserve to know.

From the balcony, laughter grows. The door slides open.

"I will say one more thing," Fabrizio adds in a low voice. "How Valentina looked at me the night before her wedding—this is how Theo looks at you."

Near midnight, full of wine and olives and cake, Theo and I call a cab back to the hostel. We make it two blocks before we dissolve into long-delayed, incredulous laughter.

"I can't believe that just happened," Theo says, wiping their eyes.

"I think we might be friends for life? With Fabrizio? Somehow?"

"What the fuck." They smooth a hand down their face. "God, this whole competition was so . . . stupid. We're being stupid, aren't we?"

"It definitely hasn't been my finest work," I say. "Sexually, yes, but not intellectually."

"It's stupid," Theo concludes. "And it's immature. We're adults."

"That's what I keep hearing."

Theo shakes their head. "But when I first saw you in London, it was like I was an insecure twenty-two-year-old again."

Ever since they crashed in that first day, I've wondered what they felt when they saw me. I didn't want it to be that, but it's nice to be reminded that they never hated me. They still thought enough of me to care what I thought of them.

"When I saw you, I thought I was dreaming," I confess. "I couldn't possibly get that lucky."

Theo frowns like they don't understand.

"Lucky?"

"I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to make things right," I say. Afraid of giving myself too much credit, I add, "And I don't know if I have, but—"

"I think so," Theo cuts me off with a small smile. "I mean, it's a process, or whatever. But I'm not mad at you anymore. It wasn't one person's fault."

"That's good," I say, warmth pooling in my chest. I wish I could dip their fingers inside me and let them feel it. I settle for confessing something else, pouring a little out. "The competition . . . when you suggested it, I said yes because it was an excuse to keep talking to you. That was all I really wanted. Although I did enjoy the sex."

"I . . . I didn't understand it when we started, but I think I wanted to prove I was over you," Theo says. "To you, and to myself. And maybe I wanted to make you jealous."

"Why?"

"Because of this thing I have where I need to win the breakup, which I've realized is meaningless," Theo admits. "It doesn't leave room for me to care about you as a person. I don't want to not care. I want you to be happy."

I watch the traffic lights change in the reflection of Theo's eyes and think of Fabrizio's story. All I ever want is to be happy with you.

"I'm happy right now," I say.

Theo nods. "I'm happy you're happy."

I feel it in the pit of my stomach: Fabrizio is right. I have to say it. Theo should know they have a choice.

I love them. I should tell them. I'll tell them in Palermo.

"So, should we call it off?" I ask. "The competition?"

"Yeah." Theo nods. "Cut it loose."

"Okay." I make a sweeping, pinching gesture in front of my face like I'm pulling some invisible mask away from it, and cast it off into the air. "Done."

Theo's brows draw in realization.

"Was that the thing from Face/Off?"

I smile. I knew they'd like it. "That was the thing from Face/Off."

"God," they groan, grinning, throwing their head against the headrest. "One of the greats."

"As we've learned, I can eat a peach for hours."

"Speaking of, let the record to show that I was in the lead and would have won."

"It's done, Theo."

"I'm just! Saying!"