Chapter 5

Andrew

 

There were two things I didn’t expect about visiting the Vatican.

The first was the crowd. The Colosseum had been swarming with people, but the Vatican was unreal. Every time we were shoehorned into another room at the Vatican Museum, squishing ourselves in until we were pretty much spleen-to-spleen with everyone, they’d let more people in. This place needed warnings for those with claustrophobia, because goddamn.

The other unexpected thing? How deliciously rebellious it felt to be wandering the Vatican with my boyfriend.

We’d spent this morning lazily fucking, and now we were here, and every step we took through this gilded complex gave me a thrill. Like just being here, walking shoulder to shoulder with Eric, my legs aching from a night of marathon sex, was a scream of We’re here, we’re queer.

It was hard to focus on that, though, since crowd control was seriously not a thing here. The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona had been incredibly strict about how many people were allowed into the cathedral at a given moment. If the Vatican did the same, I sure as hell couldn’t see it. Especially as we squeezed through the Vatican Museum—something we had to go through before we could see the Sistine Chapel—I was extra thankful I wasn’t claustrophobic.

The air in the building was faintly musty like all old buildings seemed to be, and thick with humidity from both the Italian summer and the crush of hot bodies squeezing their way through the museum. I barely registered much of what we saw aside from some of the more famous paintings and statues because I was too hyper aware of being squeezed, jostled, shouldered, and elbowed.

Herds of humans aside, though, the Sistine Chapel was pretty amazing when we got to it. The statues and paintings—especially Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling—were stunning. It was also quiet in here. Talking wasn’t permitted, and aside from the guards occasionally snapping at people to not take pictures or to stop talking, it was blessedly silent. Still packed, though. Jesus fuck.

When we left the chapel, it was crowded outside, but at least there was fresh air and a little more room to move.

“You always see that place completely empty in the movies,” Eric grumbled, rolling his eyes as someone knocked into him. “Kind of loses something when—” He grunted as another tourist shoulder-checked him while trying to keep up with a tour group.

“Yeah, it does.” I narrowly avoided getting clocked in the head by a long telephoto lens as a guy swung his gigantic DSLR around. “You want to get out of here?”

“Yes, please.”

We got out of there. Easier said than done, of course; even outside, the crowd was thick and it took some doing to make it to part of the plaza that wasn’t quite so congested. Away from the entrance to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel. Away from St Peter’s Basilica. Away from where various tour groups were congregating. I wasn’t even sure what tall marble building was looming behind us, throwing a pleasantly cool shadow across the ground, but there wasn’t a big crowd over here, so that was good enough for me. I was happy with any pocket of breathing room I could find.

“Oh, look at that.” Eric took out his phone and nodded past me. “That’s a hell of a view of St. Peter’s.”

I turned around. He was right. Especially with the sun hitting the gleaming gilded dome, it was gorgeous. He snapped a picture and then looked at me, and we exchanged wicked grins. Without a word, Eric put his phone in selfie mode, stepped up next to me, and held the phone out at arm’s length. I wasn’t sure how close he’d want to get, given our surroundings, but he wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and with the imposing dome of St Peter’s Basilica behind us, he kissed my cheek and snapped the photo.

A little thrill shot through me. Yesterday’s long kiss in the empty Colosseum had been fun and kind of reckless, but this? A kiss on the cheek in the middle of the Vatican? That probably ranked among the top ten most rebellious things I’d ever done or at had done to me.

For all I knew, Rome was a perfectly safe place for two men to show affection. But I didn’t know for sure. I hadn’t had a chance to do one of those how safe is it to be gay there? searches before I came. And even if Rome was technically safe, that didn’t necessarily mean the Vatican was the most appropriate place to be holding hands or whatever. It would be just my luck the Pope would walk by, someone would take a picture with us in the background, the picture would go viral, and everyone in my parents’ church would be scandalized.

So as we continued walking, I kept my hands to myself. While we wandered through the crowded piazza stretching out in front of St Peter’s, we behaved like a couple of friends who’d never even entertained the idea of getting naked together. We didn’t have much choice but to walk close together—too damn many people—but we carefully avoided touching.

Well, sort of. At one point, Eric let his elbow graze mine, and the way he smiled at me—a little bit shy, a little bit wicked—told me the contact hadn’t been accidental. In fact, it was probably the closest thing we could do to holding hands or putting an arm around each other in a place like this, and I caught myself itching for his touch. Not just a quick embrace and a kiss for a selfie, but the easy, casual affection we’d enjoyed during the cruise. This wasn’t the time or place for it, though.

And now I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I wanted to have my hand on him or my arm around him. The thrill of going into the Vatican with a man I’d been sixty-nining with earlier had worn off completely, and now I was just uncomfortable.

Without thinking about it, I blurted, “I kind of want to see if there’s a gay bar near our hotel.”

Eric turned to me, eyebrows jumping above his sunglasses. “Do you?”

“Yeah. I…” My face heated. “It would just be a nice break to be somewhere we can touch without worrying if anyone notices.”

His lips parted. I thought for a split second I might’ve put my foot in my mouth, but then he smiled. “That actually sounds really nice. I don’t know if any gay bars are open, but maybe we can find something to go to later.”

We left the Vatican and walked a few blocks until we found a cluster of shops and restaurants. Under normal circumstances, any of them would have been fine, but after being extra vigilant about PDAs, I needed to go someplace where we didn’t have to. Even if it meant going back to the hotel and getting it out of our systems behind closed doors.

Using a coffee shop’s Wi-Fi, Eric did a quick search for gay bars and night clubs in Rome. None of the ones near our hotel piqued our interest, but we both liked the sound of one place a block or so away from the Colosseum. From the looks of it, it was less gay bar and more gay café, and that sounded perfect. Especially since it was actually open this time of day.

A taxi got us there fairly quickly, and when we walked into the place, it was smaller than I’d expected, but the rainbow flags billowing beside a couple of fans immediately put me at ease. I liked this place already. There was a bar along one side of the narrow room, and the other side was lined with cozy tables for two or four. The atmosphere was low-key, the crowd sparse since it was still early, and someone had on a light cologne that made my head spin in a good way.

“Oh my God.” I draped an arm around Eric’s waist. “This is perfect.”

“I know, right?” He sighed and leaned into me. “I finally don’t have to look over my shoulder every time I get within an arm’s length of you.”

“No kidding.” I pulled him closer and indulged in a soft kiss on his cheek, loving the way the edge of his beard tickled my lips.

It was so weird how much we needed to touch after that tour. It wasn’t like we’d been overly affectionate in public before. There was something about being in a place where we couldn’t—or at least felt very strongly like we shouldn’t—that made me itch for contact, though, and now that we were in a place where it was safe for two men to touch, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. Not groping or making out—just touching. Finally fucking touching.

We took a seat at a table near the back, sitting side by side instead of across from each other, and ordered a couple of coffees.

“This is so much better.” I combed my fingers through his hair just because I could.

“It is. The Vatican was cool and all, but I kept thinking I’d get a ticket for walking while gay or something.”

I exhaled. “Exactly.” I didn’t know how rational that fear really was, but I was glad it wasn’t just me. And I was especially glad we were out of there and in a place like this where—

“Oh dude.” Eric straightened and his eyes got huge. “They’ve got homemade gelato.”

I perked up like a prairie dog. “What? Where?”

He nodded toward the glass cases. One was full of pastries. The other had silver cans, which I had heard were a sign of the best gelato. Someone had mentioned—a guide we’d been eavesdropping on, I thought—that the colorful gelato was for tourists. The locals preferred the stuff with less vibrant but more natural colors, and that was sometimes displayed like this—in plain metal cannisters. Something like that, anyway. All I knew was now my mouth was watering at the idea of something sweet and cold.

We exchanged glances, then got up and walked over to the case. In moments, we were back at our table with ice cold gelato and steaming cups of coffee. Ah, perfect. We were in a gay café in Italy, less than a block away from one of the coolest places I’d ever been, chowing down on homemade gelato and sucking down Italian coffee. It really didn’t get any better than this.

As he scraped some ice cream from the bottom of his bowl, Eric said, “Is it weird to go from touring the Vatican to lounging in a gay bar?”

I thought about it, then shrugged. “Probably. But if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”

He grunted quietly and sipped his coffee cup. “You’re Catholic, aren’t you?”

“I’m…” I considered my answer for a moment. “My parents are Catholic but I’m not. Not really, anyway.”

Eric tilted his head. “Not really? It’s kind of an are-you, aren’t-you thing, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “Well, there’s lapsed Catholics who haven’t been to church, confession, or taken communion in a while, and there’s full-on apostates. I think I fall somewhere in between the two.”

He studied me as if he wasn’t quite sure how to interpret that.

Shifting in my chair, I looked into my coffee cup to avoid his scrutiny. “There’s a lot about the church that I don’t believe. A lot of things I don’t like. I just haven’t quite figured out what I do believe.” I sighed. “When you have it drilled into your head from a young age that the worst thing you can do is not believe, and that hell is the punishment for not believing, it’s really, really hard to even think about believing something else.”

“That I believe.”

I lifted my gaze. “You do?”

“Of course.” He absently ran the backs of his knuckles alongside my forearm. “Drill that kind of thing into a kid’s head when they’re too young to question it, and it’s bound to stick even when he’s an adult. If I’d grown up on it, I probably wouldn’t be quick to walk away either.”

Nodding, I said, “Exactly. So I really don’t know what I believe anymore. I still call myself a lapsed Catholic because I have no idea what else to call myself, but I don’t think I believe what I grew up on, either. I guess I just haven’t gotten that far yet.”

“Doesn’t seem like something you need to rush.”

“Long as I don’t get hit by a bus or something, right?”

He barked a laugh. “That’s a morbid thought.”

I shrugged. “Hey, I’m just saying.”

“Just make sure you look both ways before you cross the street, okay? At least until you figure out what you believe.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Good. And do it anyway because I’d just as soon you didn’t get flattened by a bus.”

“Aw, I’m touched.” I paused to scrape some gelato from the bottom of the dish. “What about you? Are you…” I gestured at our surroundings.

Eric shook his head. “My parents were fairly religious when I was growing up. Grace before dinner every night, church every Sunday and Bible study every Wednesday—that kind of thing. But then two of their four kids turned out to be queer, and it made them reevaluate a few things.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “They’re still… I mean, I guess they’re still believers, but they don’t belong to that church anymore. I’m not even sure they belong to one at all, just that they still say grace before every meal unless my sister is there.”

“Why’s that?”

Chuckling, he said, “Because they learned real fast that she can and will turn an entire dinner into a discussion about the church’s oppressive history, and that pretty much means indigestion for everyone at the table.”

I snorted. “God help us if she’s ever at the table with my aunt, then. Or maybe we can make them sit at their own table while the rest of us eat in peace.”

Eric laughed, oblivious to how that broad smile still made my pulse surge every single time. “That might be kind of entertaining, actually. If my sister gets spun up enough, she’ll flip the damn table.”

“Oh really?”

“Oh yeah. If she gets so much as a hint that someone might believe her little brothers are going to hell for being queer, or that we deserve fewer rights, or whatever?” He whistled, shaking his head. “Buckle up, because it’s game on.”

“That almost sounds like it would be worth it, just to watch her go off.”

“It is, actually. I mean, if you have to sit through a family member being a queerphobic dick, you might as well get to watch them get shut down, too.”

“You ever join in?”

Eric shrugged. “If my sister runs out of steam, I will, but someone usually steers the conversation away before it gets to that point. And some of the family has started to catch on that it’s perfectly okay to not invite queerphobes to the same dinner as a couple of queers. So unless we’re at some big family reunion or a wedding or whatever, it’s not much of an issue anymore.”

“What a concept,” I said. “I’ve actually bowed out of a couple of weddings and family reunions in the last few years.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “When you know it’s going to be wall-to-wall people who love the sinner but hate the sin,”—I rolled my eyes—“it’s just not worth the hassle.”

“Hear, hear,” he muttered. “If I want that shit, I’ll just find a random news article and spend a few minutes in the comments section.”

I laughed. “Yes, exactly! And I swear, my sister-in-law’s family is like a walking, talking comments section. I don’t care what holiday it is—if they’re hosting, I’m staying home.”

“Smart. How often is that an issue?”

“Eh.” I half-shrugged and focused on scraping the last little bit of gelato from the bowl. “Maybe once a year, if that? Plus, they’re in Ohio, so it’s a bit of a drive. Pretty easy to weasel out of going, especially in the winter.”

“Oh, I know how that goes. The bigoted side of my family lives in Eastern Washington, so whenever they’re hosting Christmas, I’ll just make some production about my car not being reliable enough to get over the mountains in the snow. It’s a little white lie, but it cuts down on drama.”

“End justifies the means, I’d say.”

“Agreed.”

We sipped our coffee in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Eric spoke again. “So, anything else you want to see or do today?”

I thought about it, then shrugged. “We could probably go by the Pantheon or walk through the Forum, as long as it’s not getting too hot.”

“Oh, it’s gonna get hot.” He glanced outside, and the afternoon sun was definitely getting bright. Facing me again, he said, “We could just stay here for a little longer, then see how we feel.”

I reached across the table and slid my hand over his, still enjoying the novelty of being able to touch openly in a public place. “I’m not in any hurry. Are you?”

Eric smiled, lacing our fingers together. “I’m not in a hurry at all.”

“Good. Because I’m seriously considering hitting them up for some more of that gelato.”

He chuckled. “Hey, why not? Between the heat and all this walking, we can probably eat as much as we want.”

“I love that plan.”

So we lounged in that quiet gay-friendly café, indulging in gelato and coffee while the world went on outside. Maybe we’d go walk around in a little while. Maybe we wouldn’t. For now, we were just being lazy, and I loved it. It was so weird not to be checking my watch all the time to make sure we got back to the ship. We had a hotel now. Nothing was going to leave without us if we took our sweet time playing tourist, browsing souvenir shops, and indulging in Italian food. Talk about liberating.

All I had to do today was whatever the fuck Eric and I wanted to do, and we had all the time to do it. I’d check on some job applications before bed, and maybe send out a few more if we made it back to the room early enough, but otherwise? There was no schedule. No clock. Nothing to do but enjoy Italy with Eric.

No, it really didn’t get any better than this.