Dad gives a gruff, slow nod that’s at least better than a “no way.”
Behind the glass of the liquor store, Charlie sketches away. Italy inspired him to keep working on his craft.
Lost in a design, he barely notices his phone vibrating. He pops in one earbud and is surprised to hear Dario’s dulcet voice. “It’s two in the morning. What are you doing up?”
“I’m too excited to sleep.” Dario arrives later this week. “I did it! I spent nine hours on the jet without a single panic attack. I slept, I did paperwork, I answered calls. I got my backup prescription filled just in case. I think this is all going to work.”
Throughout the week, Charlie received updates. Photos pinged in of Dario packing a bag, driving to the tarmac and loading his luggage on the jet even though there was no pilot aboard. Dario’s therapist told him to think of it like a rehearsal. The more prepared you are, the less the unexpected can faze you.
“Proud of you, Candy Man,” Charlie says, smiling, knowing he shouldn’t be taking a call while working, but he already put in his two weeks’ notice to his boss. To say the least, he did not take it well, but Charlie couldn’t care in the slightest.
“Grazie.” He beams. “I’m proud of me, too.”
He wishes he could crush Dario’s handsome face with a kiss.
“How is your family?” Dario asks.
“My grandparents are thrilled to meet you, my dad is cagey about the whole thing, and my mom is holding the middle ground,” he says.
Things in the house on Cemetery Street have been tense. The court sent a notice of the foreclosure proceedings. They have twenty days to contest or accept. Everyone tries to act normal and prepare for Dario’s visit.
Grandma has been trying to clean. Charlie has been cleaning up after her attempts when she’s not around. Dad has been pretending it’s not happening. Mom has been inquiring afterevery one of Dario’s food preferences, so the house is well-stocked because that’s the best way she knows to show she cares.
“It is good to know what I’ll be walking into,” Dario says darkly.
“It’s some ivory tower mentality bullshit that I know he’ll get over once he meets you,” Charlie says, and then a thought pops into his head. “Do you own clothes that aren’t five-piece suits?”
“Of course… Somewhere…” On the screen, Dario peers around his bedroom.
“Just curious. Slatington is not the kind of place where formal wear is seen outside of funerals.” Charlie witnessed a lot of those as a child from the upstairs windows. Hearses were more common on his street than ice cream trucks. “But come in what makes you feel good. I want you to be comfortable.”
“You make me feel comfortable, Charlie. If jeans and boots will go over better, I’ll get Gabriele on it right away,” Dario says. “Getting there is the hard part, so once I’m there I don’t want anything standing in the way of your family getting to know me.”
A person stands in the light Charlie has been using to sketch and clears his throat. Charlie looks up from his page to see a veritable ghost from his past on the other side of the glass. Max has gotten taller. His face is rounder, and his dark brown hair is shaggier. A patchy beard takes up most of his face but there are red splotches that appear to be ingrown hairs, angry as if his face is rejecting the look.
They don’t speak. Not at first. They’re clearly both trying to figure out if they can pretend they don’t know each other.
“Dario, I’m going to have to call you back. I have a customer. Get some sleep. Sweet dreams,” he says.
“Buona notte.”
The call clicking off in his earbud sends a chill down his spine.
“Hey, there, Charlie,” Max says in a low, raspy voice that’s unrecognizable from the one he had at eighteen. Slatington is asmall town, so they’ve run into each other here and there, but they’ve always maintained a safe, unspeakable distance. “I didn’t think you worked here anymore. Didn’t I read somewhere you won a contest to stay with an Italian prince?”
“Still here and still working,” Charlie says, unbothered with correcting him about the prince thing when he’s this thrown off guard. His eyes track back down to the wedding band on Max’s hand, slowly enough that Max catches it.
“You got married?” Charlie asks.
“Oh, ha, yeah.” He waves his hand as if he forgot all about it. “Thought you might’ve seen it on Freida’s social media.”
“Was she in the wedding party?” Charlie asks. A self-consciousness he thought he once shed zips up around him. Makes him feel trapped.
Max’s face turns a shade of red that camouflages his acne scars. “Oh, no, ah, she’s my wife.”
The news that his former friend and his former secret boyfriend are married and living back in Slatington lands with a splat. “I see. Congrats. When was this?”
“A year ago?” Max says, sounding nearly uncertain.
