Cooling Off Period by Alp Mortal
Categories: Contemporary Romance | Gay
Word Count: 15,052 Heat Rating: 3 Price: $ .99 Available here:
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Returning to his childhood home after 23 years, Salvatore is quickly reminded of the reasons why he left. However, with the imminent and unexpected return of Topo, Salvatore's childhood best friend and teenage lover, the past, the present, and the future look certain to collide.
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Chapter One
The ceiling fan was doing nothing more useful than to move the furnace-like air around and scatter his notes. And to add insult to injury, the bearing was obviously worn and the unit was making an annoying rattling sound. Even when he had soaked a towel and laid down on the floor with it stretched from his knees to up under his chin, the relief lasted barely fifteen minutes and hardly seemed worth the effort.
How he hated the heat, especially this heat, the heat of the mid-afternoon ... the heat in this house. Heat that held onto memories like flies encased in amber. Still; it wasn’t those memories that were giving him the most grief.
“I’m not staying, Sal. Whatever it is that’s stopping you from making a commitment, I really wish you’d deal with it. Call me when you’ve made up your mind what you want.”
Gavin’s words revolved much like the ceiling fan - theoretically useful but woefully inadequate when it came down to it. And the words - however honest - grated much like the noise of the fan.
“I should go for a swim ...”
Dragging himself up, he rummaged for a pair of trunks in his bag, which he hadn’t even had the energy to unpack. He pulled them on and threw the towel over his shoulder before slipping out through the kitchen door, hopping like a cat as the soles of his feet encountered the baking hot tiles of the courtyard. Opening the wooden gate that separated the courtyard from the road that led to the beach was like opening the door to Hell; he almost turned round.
The sand was as hot as the tiles, and he bolted across the narrow strip, flinging the towel down to dive straight into the water. It was 28 degrees.
However, bobbing like a cork, with the water lapping his top lip, he did manage to remain cool. When he started to prune, he reluctantly left the water and, picking up his towel, sauntered to the shade offered by the olive trees that grew at the margin of the beach. Spreading out his towel, he threw himself down onto his stomach. Within a few minutes, he was fast asleep.
oOo
“Buongiorno, Sal; caffè sarà pronta a breve. Stai andando a messa?”
The nap on the beach had refreshed him somewhat, but then he had struggled to fall asleep later on and had resorted to the brandy. Come the morning, he had a headache.
“Buongiorno, Marie. Grazie. Io non la penso così; Ho del lavoro da fare ...”
The shake of her head betrayed her private thought but he didn’t care; it had been far too long since he had attended Mass, and he didn’t plan to resurrect the habit today.
Once he had coffee, and while the temperature was tolerable, he escaped to the courtyard to soak up the scent of the lavender, sip his coffee, and smoke a cigarette while reading the newspaper.
Humour restored, he returned to his bedroom to unpack his bag. Setting his books on the bedside table, he caught sight of the collection of poems by Donne and took it back to the courtyard after arranging his toiletries in the bathroom and dumping his laundry in the basket for Marie to take care of later.
Marie; his surrogate mamma for want of a better expression. She’d taught him Italian when his own mother had patently disregarded the need - but forever thereafter complained to his father that he sounded like a contadino. His father habitually dismissed the complaint, flung money on the table, and left for the office. For the rest of the day, he would have to listen to his mother’s catalogue of ills, silently praying that she would choke on an olive stone.
Home schooled by the boorish retired schoolmaster - Signore Russo - to whom a child represented a problem that only hours of lessons by rote and a bamboo cane could ever hope to solve, he had literally begged to return to the UK and stay with his grandmother. The plea was only answered when his mother died and his father eventually agreed to take him back to England to start University.
It had seemed only natural to study Italian and plan to teach. His father had vetoed the plan and insisted that he studied Law. After three years of torture, despite gaining a first, he bailed, packed a bag, and left to travel, using some of the money that he had inherited from his mother.
His father would never speak to him again.
The ceiling fan was doing nothing more useful than to move the furnace-like air around and scatter his notes. And to add insult to injury, the bearing was obviously worn and the unit was making an annoying rattling sound. Even when he had soaked a towel and laid down on the floor with it stretched from his knees to up under his chin, the relief lasted barely fifteen minutes and hardly seemed worth the effort.
How he hated the heat, especially this heat, the heat of the mid-afternoon ... the heat in this house. Heat that held onto memories like flies encased in amber. Still; it wasn’t those memories that were giving him the most grief.
“I’m not staying, Sal. Whatever it is that’s stopping you from making a commitment, I really wish you’d deal with it. Call me when you’ve made up your mind what you want.”
Gavin’s words revolved much like the ceiling fan - theoretically useful but woefully inadequate when it came down to it. And the words - however honest - grated much like the noise of the fan.
“I should go for a swim ...”
Dragging himself up, he rummaged for a pair of trunks in his bag, which he hadn’t even had the energy to unpack. He pulled them on and threw the towel over his shoulder before slipping out through the kitchen door, hopping like a cat as the soles of his feet encountered the baking hot tiles of the courtyard. Opening the wooden gate that separated the courtyard from the road that led to the beach was like opening the door to Hell; he almost turned round.
The sand was as hot as the tiles, and he bolted across the narrow strip, flinging the towel down to dive straight into the water. It was 28 degrees.
However, bobbing like a cork, with the water lapping his top lip, he did manage to remain cool. When he started to prune, he reluctantly left the water and, picking up his towel, sauntered to the shade offered by the olive trees that grew at the margin of the beach. Spreading out his towel, he threw himself down onto his stomach. Within a few minutes, he was fast asleep.
oOo
“Buongiorno, Sal; caffè sarà pronta a breve. Stai andando a messa?”
The nap on the beach had refreshed him somewhat, but then he had struggled to fall asleep later on and had resorted to the brandy. Come the morning, he had a headache.
“Buongiorno, Marie. Grazie. Io non la penso così; Ho del lavoro da fare ...”
The shake of her head betrayed her private thought but he didn’t care; it had been far too long since he had attended Mass, and he didn’t plan to resurrect the habit today.
Once he had coffee, and while the temperature was tolerable, he escaped to the courtyard to soak up the scent of the lavender, sip his coffee, and smoke a cigarette while reading the newspaper.
Humour restored, he returned to his bedroom to unpack his bag. Setting his books on the bedside table, he caught sight of the collection of poems by Donne and took it back to the courtyard after arranging his toiletries in the bathroom and dumping his laundry in the basket for Marie to take care of later.
Marie; his surrogate mamma for want of a better expression. She’d taught him Italian when his own mother had patently disregarded the need - but forever thereafter complained to his father that he sounded like a contadino. His father habitually dismissed the complaint, flung money on the table, and left for the office. For the rest of the day, he would have to listen to his mother’s catalogue of ills, silently praying that she would choke on an olive stone.
Home schooled by the boorish retired schoolmaster - Signore Russo - to whom a child represented a problem that only hours of lessons by rote and a bamboo cane could ever hope to solve, he had literally begged to return to the UK and stay with his grandmother. The plea was only answered when his mother died and his father eventually agreed to take him back to England to start University.
It had seemed only natural to study Italian and plan to teach. His father had vetoed the plan and insisted that he studied Law. After three years of torture, despite gaining a first, he bailed, packed a bag, and left to travel, using some of the money that he had inherited from his mother.
His father would never speak to him again.
