A sense of peace washes over me instantly, and I kiss his cheek, allowing myself this brief moment of respite. It can’t last. Soon, emergency services will start arriving to assess what happened, and by that time, both of us will need to be far away.
I pull Victor’s hand to my lips and kiss it. “Let’s see where the current takes us.”
Epilogue
Victor
Threeyearslater
“I was told that three paintings got sold,” I whisper to Seva with my heart in my throat.
I can hardly believe it. After all those years, my paintings hang on the walls of a gallery, and people are walking around, drinking wine and eating tiny sausages on sticks while assessing my artwork.
It’s nothing major, a small gallery in Taormina, but they’re getting seen.
I’m wearing a designer sweater, Seva is in a tailored suit, and for years now, no one has hunted us down. The destruction of his old house remains a mystery with many questions about the identities of the bodies found. A few surviving, half-burned paintings have sold for eye-watering amounts, which have sadly not reached our pockets, but we have more than enough to live on.
“I swear, Seva, if it turns outyoubought them to make me happy, I will kill you.”
He frowns, cocking his head as our eyes meet in front of the largest work on show—a stylized oil portrait of a man half submerged in water on a summer day, visiblefrom the nose down. Us being in hiding definitely inspires me as much as the Italian summer.
My partner looks different now. The plastic surgery didn’t bring major changes to his beautiful features, but he no longer appears exactly like the man in all those expensive self-portraits. That Sevastyan was a perfect image, with no flaws to make him human.My Sevastyanhas a smaller nose, and mild burn scars, but somehow he is even more beautiful to me. Because I love him.
I can’t believe that we found one another despite the odds. Despite my insane home invasion.
“You’re kidding me? Stand closer to Mrs. Russo and listen to what people are telling her. I won’t believe no one approached you to talk aboutGelato Timejust yet. It’s so delectably gay.”
He points out a slightly lewd self-portrait of mine, which pictures me in a sun chair, mouth open, and ice cream dripping from my mouth and fingers. I might also only be seen from the nose down, but my freckles are a pretty obvious giveaway.
Never in my life did I imagine I’d be painting things so happy and full of life when I used to be inspired by corpses. That might just be the testament to how alive I feel. I have Seva to thank for that. Before him, I never felt beautiful either. Now here I am, showing off my body in the paintings, openly gay, and proud of everything I am.
“Maybe the men who want to talk to me see your glare and choose to stay away?” I tease with a big grin.
“Plenty of women here,” Seva tells me, sipping his wine.
“Sure, because they’d want to seemesalivate over a cone of gelato.”
“I have no idea what you mean,” he says, smirking, and gently pokes my shoe with his. “Art is art.”
I don’t even notice once we drift closer to a small crowd facing a large-scale oil depicting Seva’s handsholding a glass of pineapple juice, complete with a slice of the fruit hung over the container. His face hides in heavy shadow, while the sun behind him makes everything else glisten.
I’m not yet fluent in Italian, but I know the language enough to understand that everyone here likes the picture. Two men discuss the ‘tenderness’ with which I depicted every detail of his scarred hands.
They’re not wrong. I kiss those hands every day, remembering how they saved my life. In our little villa out of town, we have created our own paradise, not far away from the sea. We travel less than we first talked about, but I’m glad, because our home is where I most love to be. There, I can be free and naked with Seva. We can paint all day and entertain each other.
Vera, the gallery owner approaches the pineapple painting, and I’m about to ask her how things are going, but she smiles at me in passing and places a red dot on the plaque by the painting, indicating that it’s sold.
“We’ll talk tomorrow, Vander. It’s hectic. Everyone wants a piece of you.” She winks at me and walks off.
I can hardly comprehend that people are paying for my work. She believed in me when even I was unsure if I was ready to show my art. Of course, she wasn’t the first, because none of the paintings exhibited tonight would exist if it wasn’t for Seva’s never-ending encouragement.
We leave just before the end of the event, and my man gallantly opens the door of our car for me. “Your carriage,maestro.”
“You’re so silly,” I mumble, but my face heats, and I place my hand on his thigh when the vehicle climbs up the beautiful street, heading out of town.
I can’t imagine where I’d be now if I never met this man. Probably still working two dead-end jobs and seething in my hatred. But the person whom I used to blame foreverything that went wrong with my life has turned it around, and now I’m a new man.
Not just because I live in Italy under a fake identity, but because happiness is no longer just a concept.
