Venetian Masks (6 page)

“I….” Jeff swallowed. “How’d you know I’m American?”

The man pointed. “Kindle. Levi’s. Merrell shoes. Rick Steves.” Jeff noticed he had left his guidebook sitting on the table.

“Oh. I’m not… not really an expat though. I’m just here on vacation.”

“That’s cool. I’ve been bumming around Europe a while. It’s nice to talk to a homey.”

As Jeff processed this and tried to think of something to say—without sounding as if he had a single-digit IQ—a waiter brought his new friend a glass of beer. The man took a long swallow, smacked his lips approvingly, and held out a hand. “I’m Cleve Prieto.”

Jeff shook the hand dutifully. It was warm and smooth, the grip lingering maybe just a touch longer than necessary. “Cleve?”

“Short for Cleveland. My dad was a history teacher. My brother’s McKinley and my poor sister’s Roosevelt. We call her Rosie.” Cleve was even more handsome close-up, where Jeff could make out the little flecks of green and gold in his brown eyes. He smelled good too, like cinnamon and musk.

“I’m just Jeff.”

“Good to meet you, Just Jeff.” Cleve took another sip and then gestured at Jeff’s Kindle. “What’re you reading?”

Dammit, Jeff was blushing again. He’d been in the middle of a historical novel about a pirate and the spoiled but handsome young man he’d taken captive. “Um, nothing. It’s boring. Technical stuff for work.” He hugged the device closer, and Cleve smirked a little as if he suspected the truth.

“So. Where are you from?” asked Cleve, leaning back in his chair. In the late afternoon sun, his hair tended more toward bronze.

“Sacramento. How about you?”

Cleve shrugged gracefully. “Here and there. I’ve moved around a lot. You been to Venice before?”

“No.” Jeff didn’t add that he’d never been
anywhere
before.

“I like it, least this time of year. During the winter it floods a lot, and in summer there’s so many tourists you can hardly move. But spring and fall are nice.”

Jeff nodded and slipped the Kindle into his inner jacket pocket. But that left his hands free, so he started playing with his nearly empty water glass. He couldn’t remember ever being this flustered in front of a man before, but then men with movie-star looks rarely struck up conversations with him. “Are you a student?” he finally asked, although Cleve seemed too old for it. Grad student, maybe.

But Cleve laughed. “No, man. I’m just a bum, and I got kind of itchy feet.” He drank some more beer and then looked at Jeff through slightly narrowed eyes, his head tilted a little to one side. When Jeff was a kid, he’d had a calico cat named Muffin, and she’d looked at toys exactly that way when she was considering whether to pounce.

Jeff shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Um, I should—”

“You here alone?”

After a few blinks, Jeff answered, “Yeah.”

“Cool. ’S a good way to travel, you know. Not weighed down with anyone else. You can do whatever you want whenever you want to. I’m by myself too.”

Jeff thought about the man he’d seen with Cleve the day before. Maybe he was another stranger whom Cleve had struck up a conversation with, but their interaction had seemed too emotional for that. Ah, but what did Jeff know? Maybe they’d been talking about something touchy, like politics or sports. Jeff worked with a guy who was capable of going completely off the deep end and throwing a tantrum if someone said they preferred PCs to Macs.

Cleve finished his beer, glanced at his wristwatch, and leaned forward in his seat. “Tell you what. I gotta go. But how ’bout if we meet for dinner? Meals are always better with company, and I know this great seafood place.”

It was probably all some kind of elaborate joke, Jeff decided. He’d show up at the agreed-upon place and time, and Cleve would hide around a corner, snickering with his hip buddies over the geek he’d stood up. And yet somehow Jeff found himself nodding. “Okay,” he said.

“Great!” Cleve smiled widely and stood. He looked around for the waiter, who was nowhere to be seen at the moment, probably inside the restaurant itself. “Hey man, I really gotta scram. Would you mind?” He waved his hand at the empty glass.

Jeff decided that even if he never saw Cleve again, the company had been worth the price of a beer. “Sure. No problem.”

“Thanks. And here.” Cleve took a pen and a scrap of paper out of his pocket and scribbled quickly. “Eight o’clock?”

“Sounds good.” Jeff took the paper from him. It was a Billa receipt, actually, although Jeff couldn’t tell for what. Not that it really mattered. The important part was the name of a restaurant—Osteria Tommaseo—and what he took to be an address.

“See ya at eight,” Cleve said and rested his hand briefly on Jeff’s shoulder. Then he was rushing away, and Jeff’s head was still spinning.

B
ACK
at the apartment, Jeff checked his e-mail. A quick note from his mother, sent right before she left to show his house. A longer note from his boss, apologizing for interrupting his vacation, then asking how to fix a minor bug in the accounting software. Notices that he’d won a lottery, inherited millions, and could increase his penis size. A newsletter from his favorite romance publisher, with a few tempting titles. An envious message from his cousin Ashley, who had a two-year-old son and five-year-old daughter, and who despaired of going anywhere that didn’t boast french fries and a play structure. And that was it. Not that he’d expected anything more.

He shot off quick replies to his mother and Ashley and a somewhat longer answer to his boss. He added a couple of titles to the wish list on his account with the romance publisher. And then, because it was still nowhere near eight, he decided to go for another walk.

He’d always been pretty lean, but workdays hunched over a keyboard didn’t do much for his fitness level. He belonged to a gym and worked out regularly. He liked to bicycle too, and when he and Kyle could get away for a day, they used to head up to the Sierras for some light hiking. But he didn’t usually walk to get somewhere. Like most of California, Sacramento wasn’t really a walking kind of place, and the summer months were too brutally hot for non-air-conditioned exertion.

So strolling was a new thing for him, and he decided he liked it. He smiled at the pretty salesgirl who knelt in the doorway of a shoe store, petting a shaggy dog. He stopped to try—unsuccessfully—to puzzle out the meaning of a plaque affixed to a verdigris statue of a man with a weird hat. He scoped out restaurant menus for future meals and almost gave in to the temptation to buy a Nutella crepe. He managed to communicate his desire to buy a postage stamp from a newsstand vendor. He studied the sign graphics at a
vaporetto
stop and decided to go for a boat ride the following day. He smirked smugly at lost tourists who frowned over their maps.

It was slightly past seven when he returned to his building. Mita was on duty, smiling as always. “Is it love yet?” she asked.

“No. But I think I’ve developed a crush.”

“Favoloso!” She looked genuinely pleased, as if getting people to adore her city was her major goal in life. And maybe it was.

Jeff held out the paper Cleve had given me. “Can you tell me where this is?”

She peered at it for a moment and brightened. “Certo! It is very close.” She pulled a paper map out from under the desktop and marked a location with a red X. “This is here, yes? Tommaseo is just here.” This time she drew a small circle, maybe six blocks away. Then she slid the map closer to him.

“Thanks.”

“Will you eat there tonight?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Jeff didn’t want to commit, in case Cleve stood him up.

“It is very good. Very fresh
frutti di mare
—seafood, yes? Nothing frozen.”

“Sounds good. Um, do you think… should I dress up?” He looked down at himself doubtfully: green-and-white-striped button-down and jeans. He’d brought a tie and a nice jacket, and he could change to slacks if need be. But then he’d feel like an even bigger idiot if Cleve didn’t show. Christ, why was he so worked up over this?

But Mita shook her head. “No, you are fine.
Molto bello
.”

After more thanks, Jeff returned to his flat. He brushed his teeth and hair, clicked through several incomprehensible TV shows, and paced. At ten minutes to the hour, he checked himself in the mirror one last time and headed outside.

T
HE
osteria
was down a very narrow street, just off a small
campo
. Jeff arrived a few minutes early, and since there was no sign of Cleve, he gazed in the shop windows. He didn’t want to appear too obvious about the waiting. He was admiring a messenger bag and had almost talked himself into buying it when someone clapped a hand on his shoulder, making him startle and whirl around.

“You hungry, dude?” Cleve asked with a grin. “’Cause I’m starved.”

“Yeah, I am.”

“C’mon, then.” Cleve led the way to the restaurant. He entered confidently, as if he was familiar with the place. And he probably was, because the waiter glanced over at him, smiled, and waved them to a small table near the back.

It was a small restaurant—maybe twelve to fifteen tables—and the ceiling was low. The walls were uneven stone, and the floor was made of the same material but worn smoother, giving the impression of a cave. But it was a cozy cave, dimly lit by a few wall sconces and flickering candles on each table. It smelled like wine and olive oil and fish and bread, so that Jeff’s empty stomach rumbled expectantly. Judging by the murmur of conversations, most of the other customers were Italian. Everyone seemed relaxed and happy, laughing quietly or talking with gestures in that wonderfully Italian way.

Cleve seemed content to let Jeff rubberneck a little, and just when Jeff was going to attempt a little awkward conversation, the waiter arrived and handed them sheets of printed paper. Jeff’s heart sank a little when he looked at his. “Uh-oh.”

“What’s the matter?” Cleve asked.

“Do you think they have one in English?” Because he could only understand a word or two on the menu.
Funghi
meant mushrooms, he guessed, and
salmone
must be salmon, but he was clueless about the rest.

Cleve was looking at him, one corner of his mouth slightly quirked. “You trust me?”

“Um… okay.”

“I’ll order for both of us.”

Jeff considered for a moment before nodding, albeit uneasily. He liked to know what he was eating. When Kyle had lived with him, Jeff had always refused to eat anything new that Kyle prepared unless his boyfriend fully disclosed the ingredients. It wasn’t that he was an especially picky eater or anything—he just liked to
know
.

But Cleve seemed pleased with his acquiescence. “Cool. You gotta let me know if you have any allergies or anything. ’Cause me, I’ll put anything in my mouth.”

Suddenly very thankful that the darkness of the room hid his blush, Jeff ducked his head. “I’m not allergic.”

“Great!” Cleve didn’t even bother to look at the menu. When the waiter returned a moment later, Cleve surprised Jeff by conversing with the guy in Italian. Jeff couldn’t tell if it was good Italian, but the waiter seemed to understand just fine, nodding and smiling, as if he approved of Cleve’s choices.

“I just told him to bring us whatever’s really good tonight,” Cleve said when the waiter left. “And I ordered some wine too. That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Sure.” Jeff was always a little intimidated by wine lists anyway, even back in California. He was familiar with some of the varieties, but he didn’t know how to distinguish a mediocre wine from a delicious one, except by price. “It must be handy to speak the language.”

Cleve shrugged. “I’m not fluent, but I’ve picked up enough to get by. I can fake it in German and Spanish and French too, but anything Slavic mystifies me.”

“Wow. You must spend a lot of time traveling.”

“I’ve been bumming around Europe for a few years, yeah.”

“But what do you do?”

“This,” Cleve answered. For a split second Jeff thought he saw a shadow flit across those brown eyes, but he must have imagined it, because the grin didn’t fade. “I eat the food, I take in the sights, I meet new people.”

“But how? Do you have a trust fund or something?”

This time, Cleve barked out a laugh. “No way, man. My dad was a mechanic. He didn’t leave me anything but bills when he died.”

Jeff frowned. “I thought you said he was a history teacher.”

There it was, another quick flicker, like a cloud scudding by the sun. “You misheard,” Cleve said. “I said he was a history
buff
. He liked to watch flicks on World War Two and do that Civil War reenactment shit.”

Jeff opened his mouth to say more, because he was fairly positive he’d heard Cleve just fine, but the waiter showed up with glasses of what looked like orange wine with a slice of citrus floating in it. Cleve held up his glass and waited for Jeff to do the same. “Cheers,” said Cleve, clinking the glasses together gently before taking a sip.

It was a little bitter but also sort of sparkly and citrusy. He took a second taste and decided he liked it. “What is it?” he asked, dropping the subject of Cleve’s father.

“Aperol Spritz. It’s really better when the weather’s warm, but I thought it might be something new for you.”

“It is,” Jeff said and had another sip. And then, because he couldn’t leave the issue alone, he asked, “So you don’t work and you don’t have an inheritance. How do you live?”

“I get by. ’S not that hard. When funds get a little tight, I figure something out. Which reminds me….” He leaned back in his chair, idly swirling the liquid in his glass. He smiled broadly, and Jeff was suddenly certain that the man seated across from him was fully aware of the effect he was having, that Cleve knew he was fucking gorgeous and that Jeff was half-hard just from watching the way his throat worked when he swallowed. God, Jeff would love to lick that throat, to bite it. In the dim room, Cleve’s hair was a shiny almost black, like a raven’s feathers.

Jeff blinked rapidly. Cleve was just looking at him, smirking slightly. Waiting. “What?” Jeff demanded defensively before downing the rest of his drink.