Mac almost spit out his beer.
Everyone grinned at that, no man as much as Romeo. The girl had been attempting to express how much he stuck to her thoughts by comparing him to a sexually transmitted disease.
Brando’s shoulders shook from across the pier. It was as if he was baking in the sun, his skin turning even darker before my eyes. We were all baking, even those of us who were standing underneath cover.
“This woman,” Papà said, sitting up some. “She was not skilled at the metaphors, ah? Tell me you cured her of that with a dose of romance, son.”
All of us grinned. Her metaphors had needed resuscitation.
Conversation seemed to flow as easily as the wind around us, the music as well. Papà even complimented Romeo’s playlist. He puffed up as if he were a proud fucking peacock at the compliment. He was so busy fluffing his feathers that he did not notice me coming at his hot neck with my cold bottle ofbirra.
“Whaaaa,” he whispered, turning around as if something he did not like touched him, slapping at his neck.
He had not expected it from me. We grinned at each other when he realized.
Our grins lingered as Niccolo started to sing “Night Moves.”
Brando came to stand next to us, a bottle ofbirrain his hand. “Waste of time to try to fish now,” he said, finishing his drink. “Too many bodies in the water.” He stretched his shoulders, setting his bottle in a custom holder along the deck and, becoming a creature much sneakier than even a shark, dove into the water without so much as a splash.
Cruising under the surface as if he were a part of it, he popped up minutes later behind Matteo and dunked his head under the surface, all his sons laughing. My sons watched this, then glanced at me.
It hit me straight in the chest.
The longing in their eyes.
I remembered it well.
The watching.
The craving.
The emptiness of not having.
No rules, Amora’s sweet voice echoed in my ears. We were still Faustis. We were just living in our own private space.
Finishing the rest of my beer, I handed the bottle to Mac, then dove in as my brother had. The water instantly made my skin pucker from the coolness of it. It felt like sweet relief after a stint in hell. My sons’ bodies were rocking with the strong hand of the sea, and I could barely make out voices as I swam underneath Amadeo and pulled his trunks down.
I broke the surface to find him looking around, almost scandalized. “Papà!”
“Guard your sausage,” I said, laughing at the look on his face. It was probably the same look I wore on mine when Romeo had stuck that fucking hook hat on my head. “Fish enjoy nibbling on meat.”
“Brando will not need bait,” Romeo said, cracking up, his laughter raspy.
At first, Amadeo looked lost, and then he started to laugh, along with Ludovico, who swam away from me when I went after his trunks.
Most of the men roared with laughter, even if Papà only grinned. He watched us in the water until he decided to jump in himself, his brothers following him in. At one point, all the men were in the water, and even though I did not want my sons to feel it, I missed my Massimo. He should have been with us, teaching his son how to swim, his wife enjoying time with the women.
If Tiziano (who had been named after my grandfather, Marzio, but had been stripped of the title when he went after Matteo’s wife with a snake) had not dishonored me, I would have felt the absence of his presence as well. I had raised him as my own. But he had dishonored me, and it was not something I could overlook.
Allowing the water to carry me in its cool embrace, I leaned back, face up to the sun, closing my eyes to it.
I was a second too late to react when it happened.
Brando pulled my pants down.
He was the only one sneaky enough to do it.
“Guard your sausage, Papà!” Amadeo shouted my way. “The fish in these waters are nasty nibblers!”
