twenty-nine
Ramin
Noah had bought them tickets for the terraces atop the Duomo as well, but a heavy rain had blown in while they were still inside, so loud they could hear it echoing all through the cathedral. It reminded Ramin of their flight from the docks in Como, of their cozy hotel room, of their morning together…
Good lord, he couldnotthink about sex in a cathedral. Just because he didn’t believe in God, that didn’t mean he was willing to risk getting smote.
They ended up making a dash across the piazza to the shelter of the Galleria on the north side. The rain continued to hammer on the huge arched glass ceiling above, and wet shoes left the tile floor slippery, but at least they could stay dry.
“Can we get gelato?” Jake asked as they passed by a gelateria with a line winding its way past several high-end clothing stores.
“Let’s get some real food first.”
All the restaurants in the Galleria seemed to be tourist-driven chains, but Jake was ecstatic with his cotoletta di pollo—a crispy fried chicken cutlet—and fries. Noah got a pizza with a huge ball of burrata in themiddle, and Ramin got a salad, because some fucked-up instinct told him that if he and Noahwereseeing each other, then thiswasa date, and he still defaulted to getting salads on dates, out of a combination of lingering body dysmorphia and hard-learned practicality.
Not that he expected to be bottoming tonight, but just in case…
“Try this,” Noah insisted, cutting an uneven wedge of pizza and trying to get it onto Ramin’s plate without all the toppings slipping off. He scooped up a big dollop of the burrata—it was slowly oozing out all over the pizza—and dropped it onto Ramin’s slice.
“Uh. Thanks.”
Noah was right, the pizzawasbetter than Ramin’s boring salad. He chided himself. He was supposed to be interesting.
“Look what I can do!” Jake said, sticking a french fry in the gap left by his missing front tooth. “I’m a narwhal!”
Ramin nearly spat out his burrata, he laughed so hard.
“Jakey does that whenever he gets a new audience,” Noah muttered. “Hey, buddy, don’t play with your food, okay?”
“Fine,” Jake said, but he didn’t look contrite. He gave Ramin a sly smile that had Ramin nearly choking on his salad. “Can we get gelato after?”
They did, in fact, get gelato after. Ramin enjoyed a lemon sorbetto, Noah went for a stracciatella, and Jake got hazelnut. They strolled and window shopped, nearly losing Jake to the lure of a chocolatier, but thankfully they were able to distract him with a big Spider-Man cutout in the window of a nearby bookstore.
The rain slackened and finally died. The sun returned. Noah got a text from Angela. Apparently she was stuck at a lawyer’s office.
“Looks like we’re on our own for dinner,” he announced.
“Guys’ night!” Jake crowed.
Noah looked at Ramin, a question in his eyes.
“I’m game if you are.”
Which is how they ended up lost in the middle of Milan, strolling slowly so that Jake could look at every single storefront they passed, sometimes running ahead, sometimes hanging back to hold Noah’s or Ramin’s hand, occasionally insisting on swinging between the two of them. Jake told stories about school, his friends, his soccer team, and even his bowling league. Ramin had no idea that was even a thing for nine-year-olds.
Ramin told Noah and Jake about the queer kickball league back home that all his friends (and his ex-boyfriend) played in. He didn’t play himself, but he went to cheer them every game. He talked about Shiraz Bistro and how much work it was and how much fun it was and how grateful he was to be part of something so important to his community.
Noah, in turn, regaled Ramin with a series of increasingly bizarre anecdotes about his work as a carpenter back home, about the weird projects he’d worked on, the unrealistic expectations of clients, the fights he’d gotten into about safety.
And of course, he told hilarious stories from Jake’s childhood—to Jake’s amusement and occasional consternation.
“It wasn’tthatfunny,” Jake grumbled as Noah reenacted the time Jake walked right into a shopping cart return because he wasn’t looking where he was going.
“You looked like a cartoon, buddy,” Noah said. “But if you had gotten hurt I wouldn’t be laughing. I hope you know that.”
“I know,” Jake muttered.
They walked for hours, stopping once for espressos and waters, another time for a bathroom break, popping into whatever stores Jake wanted to investigate. The sun was westering, and the late afternoon was warm and muggy from all the rain, when they reached Navigli, the neighborhood built around Milan’s canal system.
