Chapter Two
Rory
Rory made sure to look out the window on the way from the airport to the venue. They were in Italy for long enough to photograph the wedding, and no more. They wouldn’t have time to sightsee. While it was disappointing to get on an airplane for so long and then not get to enjoy the destination, he was using it as preliminary research for a future trip to Italy where he could see the sights, eat the food, and maybe even set foot outside of Florence. Not bad for a work trip, though.
“Did, uh, Sam tell you about the accommodations?” Nash asked as they got closer to the resort. Rory could see it in the distance, recognizing it from the link Sam had sent him. It looked like a castle.
“He said we were staying on-site at the resort.”
“Is that all he mentioned?”
“Yeah,” Rory said, suddenly nervous. Nash’s whole body was rigid. Rory was surprised he could move his tongue enough to talk.
Nash sighed. “We had two options. The first was to stay on-site. The second was to stay about twenty minutes away at a different location, and have to find a ride to and from several days in a row.”
“Staying on-site makes more sense,” Rory said, trying to get at what Nash was saying.
“Yeah. Sam and I both thought that. The caveat, however, was that there was only one room left on-site. If we stayed off-site, we could have had separate rooms. For Sam and I, sharing a room wasn’t an issue.”
Rory heard the impliedbut obviously it’s an issue for us.
“I can talk to the wedding planner if you want and see if we have options, or if it’s too late.”
“It’s fine,” Rory said. He pictured a hotel room in his mind. Two queen-size beds facing a TV that came directly from 2014. Stiff curtains, bad art above the beds, an air-conditioning unit that would either barely work, or work way too well. A bathroom that got too humid if you so much as washed your hands. He knew coming on this trip with Nash would be complicated, and he knew he was up for navigating it anyway. He had to be. This job meant so much to Sam. Rory could step up.
Did part of him wonder if getting to be alone with Nash would make sparks fly again? If they just needed a bit of time to figure out how to tell Sam about the two of them? Sure. Part of him wondered. It was clear now, however, that there would be no more sparks, and Rory would be in a strange country, photographing a wedding of people he’d never met before, with a man who at one point had gushed about the perfection of his mouth, but now wanted nothing to do with him.
And that was fine.
“Fuck,” Rory said, as they made it up the stairs and down the hall from the front desk. He should have known from the rustic-but-chic lobby, the general vibe of the property, and the amountof money he assumed the bride and groom were spending on their special day, that their accommodations wouldn’t look like a Marriot.
The furniture in the room was unique, the wallpaper luxe, the active fire in the fireplace a feature he’d never see at a Hilton Garden Inn. The shape of the room made it clear that this building had been something else before it had been turned into a hotel (did that word even apply to a building like this?) and had been reworked to suit the needs of guests.
He should have known that there would only be one bed.
It was a king, and Rory was confident that he and Nash could sleep next to each other in it without having to touch each other one single time.
But it did complicate things.
“I can sleep on the floor,” Nash volunteered. Rory looked down at the knotty hardwood. He would have to be pretty drunk to fall asleep on that. At twenty-eight, Rory’s body was already well past the age where he could sleep on the floor and be okay the next day. Nash was two years older than him, and if Sam’s complaints about his own body were any indication, he wouldn’t be any better off than Rory.
“That’s dumb as shit,” Rory said, rolling his carry-on over to the side of the bed he was claiming. The far side, by the wall. He tossed his backpack on the bed. “Get over yourself. We’ll be fine.”
The tension in Nash’s face hadn’t let up since the moment Rory spotted him in the airport. He’d had a flannel over a t-shirt, but once they left the airport, he’d lost his outer layer and was in a soft black t-shirt that reminded Rory why he’d let Nash talk him into going to his hotel room that night nearly a year ago. Rory’s own physique leaned heavily on the length of his limbs. He was a little gangly, and unless he got obsessed with lifting weights, his chest and shoulders would never look like Nash’s.
Nash unzipped his hardcase carry-on and opened it on the floor, kneeling in front of it to take stock of his equipment and make sure everything made it over safely. Given that it hadn’t left his sight, Rory would wager everything was fine, but it reminded him of what he’d carried over in his own backpack.
“I brought a fuckton of 35mm film,” Rory said, pulling the film camera bag out of his backpack, and upending his pack onto the bedspread. Sam had given him ten rolls of Ilford HP5 black & white to bring to Italy, with careful instructions to not let it go through the X-ray machine. Like he needed telling. “Sam said as penance he’d pull some prints of especially good images for the couple.”
“I brought a film camera,” Nash said, holding up a silver-and-black camera body nearly identical to the Canon in Rory’s hands. Internally, he sighed. Externally, he decided to put on a happy face and do whatever Nash needed, so they could get this weekend over as soon as possible.
“Great,” Rory said, tucking his camera back into his backpack.
