“You do?” Charlie asks, mouth agape, eyes alight.
“Si.” He tugs Charlie closer. “Without the noise of the others around, I hear a future with you so clearly.”
“You’re amazing, Dario.” Charlie kisses him again. Is it possible that this one is even fiercer than the last? It nearly knocks Dario sideways from a headrush of hormones and hope.
“You think so?” Dario asks.
“I know so. And my family is going to think so, too, once they get to know you. The real you.”
Wasn’t that what his mother had told him his father had said to her? Wasn’t that her advice right before she left Villa Meraviglia?
She had to have been at least partially right. The world could not be as cruel as he imagined, because the world had brought him Charlie Moore, and Charlie Moore is a miracle.
TWENTY-TWO
DARIO
Under the guidance of Dario’s therapist, they come up a with a plan of action.
Rolling out Dario’s date book, they schedule outings to places where Dario can expose himself to triggers safely. They detail escape routes and identify coping tactics to get him centered should the anxiety overwhelm him and a panic attack come on. Dario refills his as-needed anxiety medication to calm him when all else fails.
Early in the morning on Monday, they sail across Lake Trasimeno to Castiglione del Lago, the site of his proposal-gone-wrong and where the annual blues festival—a tourist attraction he would usually give a wide berth to—is already underway. The festival, where they will watch Beau perform, is the final test of Dario’s exposure. He worries a week may not be enough to overcome such debilitating fear, but for Charlie, he feels like he could move mountains, so he has to try.
The sail is smooth, and the sky is clear, which are normally good things, except today where Dario searches for any reason to turn this boat around. But Charlie smiles at him, and he doesn’tveer the helm off course. He trains his eye on the horizon and visualizes the ideal outcome.
When they dock in the bustling marina, they have no intentions of getting out. Small steps lead to bigger results. Rather than trotting around the city, they picnic beneath the sail and people-watch from a comfortable distance.
Dario eases through the worst of his panic, letting the acidic burn come and taper off with breathing and time and ample amounts of sunshine.
“Did you sail a lot with your dad?” Charlie asks, clearly hoping conversation will quell some of the fear. Some of the fearof fear. Isn’t that strange? Brains can be such fickle beasts.
“Every week we would bike down to the lake as a family and sail for hours, Emilio and I trading off roles as skippers,” Dario says.
“What was your dad like?” Charlie asks, stealing another slice of cheese from their charcuterie board.
“He was a total adventurer. I swear nothing scared him. He sailed, he drove a Vespa, he rock climbed and cliff dove. I think sometimes when you grow up as well-off as he did and have as many experiences as he did when he was young, you become addicted to chasing adrenaline,” Dario says. A memory book of his father flips fast through his mind. The unfilled pages at the end remind him that some lives get cut too short. “I don’t know if that’s true. I never got a chance to ask him. There’s a lot I never got the chance to ask him.”
“If you had the opportunity to ask him one more question,” Charlie says, “what would it be?”
“I’d ask him if he ever wanted to take over Amorina,” Dario says, eyes cast on the few white clouds charging overhead. “It was always in the background in the way I imagine princes in a monarchy are aware of the line of succession but if they think too hard about it, they might combust from the stress of what’sto come. After my dad died, my brother kept saying that he acted with such reckless abandon because he never wanted to be a corporate suit. But that’s never been what Amorina was like. I think Emilio was projecting. That couldn’t be what my dad was thinking.”
“What’s your theory?” Charlie asks curiously.
“That he was fearless for so much of my childhood because he knew that, as soon as he took over Amorina, he would love it so much he wouldn’t want to retire. Like my grandfather, he would spearhead it until he passed. I think he did it right. He did retirementbeforeclaiming his career,” Dario says, wistfully. “I know that’s extremely privileged. I’m not saying it would work for anyone else, but for him? He was just as happy captaining this boat as he was discussing business with my nonno.”
Charlie soaks this in. “Would you have done it that way, if you could have?”
Pondering the could-haves has always been hard for Dario. When his father died, he learned very young that he had to make peace with what was. There was time for grieving, and then there was a time for looking ahead. If he dwelled, he risked slipping on the banana peel of pity and never getting up again.
“Amorina is at my fingertips much earlier than I anticipated, but I have to roll with it. I would need more balance anyway,” Dario says. “All play and no work would leave me a little adrift. All work and no play…”
“I’ll make sure there’s play,” Charlie says. He raises his eyebrows suggestively while running his bare foot under the hem of Dario’s boating trousers.
“Can I hold you to that?” Dario asks, scooting closer.
“You can hold me any way you’d like, Candy Man,” Charlie says.
Dario leans in, hauls him to standing, and confidently kisses him.
