Chapter Text
Michele finally had some time to relax, time he hoped to spend with his family, maybe catch up with a friend. Have some time for himself, generally, and to worry about trivial stuff that did not concern skating. He totally didn’t see what was coming at him.
He woke up that morning to the sun coming in through the shutters and the smell of coffee. It was spring and the World championship had just ended. He and Sara were staying at their parent’s house for some time, while they were back in Italy. He stretched, put on a pair of slippers and headed to the kitchen.
“Morning,” he mumbled, as he entered the room.
“Look who finally woke up!” Sara’s sharp voice was a pain for his ears first thing in the morning. She was already fully dressed and she appeared ready to go out.
“Coffee, Michele?” his mom asked.
“Yes, please.” He sat at the table and looked at Sara. “Going out already?”
“Elisa and Cristiana are coming to pick me up! We’re going shopping. I don’t think you want to come.”
“Thanks, I’ll pass,” Michele replied, to his mother’s surprise. He was doing his best to give his sister more space, but after being inseparable for twenty years he had a hard time understanding what was an acceptable amount of time spent with her and what was too much. Too many times she had to remind him to let her go. Going to Barcelona had been a slip, but on the other hand he hadn’t rushed to the kiss and cry after her performance. He was particularly proud about that.
Sara smiled, knowingly. “See you later, then!”
When she left, Michele’s mother turned to him, concerned. “Did something happen? Did you guys fight?”
Michele shook his head. “No, don’t worry. She just wants to spend some time with her friends only.”
She sighed with relief. “Good!” She turned back to the stoves. “There’s apple pie if you want to eat something to eat.”
“No, thanks. I think I’ll go for a walk.”
After spending a lot of time abroad, Michele missed his hometown. Naples was beautiful, especially now, when it was not too hot yet. He took his time to appreciate the seafront, to smell the briny air and listen to the waves crashing on the foreshore. He made a mental note to come back during the summer, when they could bathe in the sea water. Around eleven he got really hungry and decided to stop and buy a pastry.
He sat on a bench and scrolled through his phone’s address book. It was painfully short: because of the fact that he spent most of his time skating and that he was not a really friendly person, he wasn’t close with many people. With the exception of Tommaso, a guy he went to middle school with, the others he was in good terms with were all skaters living abroad. Like Emil.
Michele couldn’t help comparing Emil to an oversized and overexcited puppy whenever he thought about him. He always seemed to have too much pent-up energy to release. He had been way too happy when Michele had asked him to come to Barcelona to cheer Sara on.
“Try to tone it a down a little, will you?” he had told him, after Emil’s too loud ‘yes!’ “I may have promised to back off, but Sara’s still my sister. I’m not gonna let you have her so easily.”
Emil had laughed in response.
He had to admit it: he was lonely. He had only Sara to hang around with, but she had been clear about that: he was too dependent on her and if he wanted to grow out of it, the first step was to spend some time without her. He knew it, but it was not like he had someone to spend some time with, outside of his family. He wished there was someone to keep him company.
Looking at the time, he noticed it was already noon. “Better go home. Maybe I can help mom with the cooking.” He was heading home, when his phone chimed. It was a text from Emil.
“Speak of the devil,” he thought. “What does he want, now?”
He opened it.
“What if I told you I just landed at Napoli – Capodichino?”
Michele read the text. Then he read it again. Then he stared straight ahead in complete disbelief.
“What????”
“Just answer”
“I will murder you with my bare hands”
“So, in case I actually landed in Naples, I couldn’t count on you for a lift?”
“COL CAZZO EMIL!” He didn’t have to translate the slur for his friend.
Michele was typing with such fury, he could have broken the screen. He ran on the way home, stormed inside the apartment and screamed: “Mom, I’m taking the car!” Which caused his mother to almost have a heart attack, since in that moment she was standing in the atrium, rearranging some flowers.
“Mickey, what happened?” she asked once she calmed down.
“An idiot happened,” he answered, without further explanation.
He cursed all the way to the airport. He had hoped to get some rest, relax, and suddenly the Czech pain in the ass was in his city and God only knew what the hell he wanted. By a stroke of luck he found a spot to park the car almost right outside the Arrivals.
Walking inside the airport, he phoned Emil. The guy picked up after a couple of rings.
“Mi-“
“Tell me where the fuck are you,” he interrupted him.
“So you came to pick me up, after all!” exclaimed the Czech.
“Just tell me where you are,” sighed Michele. He took a look around: maybe he would have been lucky enough to spot him right away.
“In a coffee shop,” tried to explain his friend.
“The name, Emil. Coffee shop is pretty generic.”
He told him the name. It took Michele a couple of minutes to find him. When Emil saw him, he jumped on his feet and sprinted towards him.
“Mickey! I’m so happy to see you!” He threw his arms around the Italian, letting go of the trolley he was dragging behind, which fell on the floor with a thud.
“Calm down, ok?” He tried to get out of Emil’s hug. “ You still have to explain what the hell you are doing here.”
“I’ll tell you later!” He picked up his luggage and they headed to the parking place. “So, where are we going?”
Michele frowned. “You should tell me, genius.”
“Ok, then… Do you mind taking me sightseeing?”
A realization dawned upon Michele. “You don’t have a place to go, right?” he asked.
“You’re right!” Emil didn’t stop smiling all the way to the car. “There was a last-minute offer to fly here and I came. I’ll figure out the rest while I’m here.”
“You’re an idiot,” growled the Italian.
Michele went through several stages, hearing that. First the ‘you could have least told me you were coming, I was supposed to be on a break, not to babysit you’ stage. Then he started to worry about Emil’s lack of plans. Not a lot of people spoke English fluently and Emil didn’t understand a word of Italian. He then got angry at him for making him worry.
He didn’t actually voice any of those thoughts. He just wallowed in his quiet rage for a while.
They didn’t talk a lot during the trip. Actually, Michele didn’t talk. Emil on the other hand started narrating his whole trip, regardless of whether Mickey was listening or not. When he finally fell silent, Michele had calmed down a little.
“I’m bringing you home now. You can use our computer if you need to look for a hotel or something,” he told him.
“If he hopes I’m gonna be his tour guide, he can forget it.”
Sara was back when they came home. She and Emil hugged and then he was introduced to the twins’ mother. Of course he made a good impression, being all smiles and cheer. Their mother, whose name was Giuliana, did not speak a lot of English, but somehow they still managed to communicate.
As he helped his mother set the table, Michele noticed that Emil and Sara were whispering to each other, but he didn’t even try to understand what they were saying. Emil was probably there to see her and didn’t want to tell him, to avoid making him jealous. Was he bothered by it? No. Not at all. Emil was probably better than the majority of the guys out there. He was cheerful, always ready to have fun, but also caring, attentive…
“Almost sounds like you are the one who has to date him,” he told himself.
They had lunch all together. Michele’s mom had an habit of preparing meals as if they always had a guest, so there was something for Emil too. She picked up that habit when the twins were in middle school: they always forgot to inform her when they were bringing a friend home.
“You still haven’t told me why you are here,” Michele reminded Emil. “Or if you have any plan. What do you want to see?”
The boy slowly finished chewing his mouthful and said: “I was thinking about Rome. I’ve wanted to visit the city for a while.”
“Then why the hell did you come to Naples?” Emil seemed to ignore the question, so he went on. “Anyway, you should at least buy a guide, if you don’t want to get lost.”
Emil glanced at Sara. “Actually…”
“Actually we thought you could go with Emil,” his sister intervened.
Michele fell silent for a while, his face expressionless. “We thought?” So that was what they were talking about, before? He felt his anger growing once again.
“Sara told me you had nothing to do…” Emil added, shyly.
“Oh, Sara told you, didn’t she?!” growled Michele.
His sister jumped to her feet, exclaimed: “Grandma’s calling me, I have to go!” and sprinted away.
“Grandma lives in Florence!” he shouted.
At that point Emil started laughing uncontrollably and even Giuliana joined him, even though she understood very little of that conversation. She was used to the shenanigans of the twins, especially to Sara running away from a discussion that way, something that never failed to crack her up. And Emil’s laugh was particularly contagious. They almost didn’t hear Michele shouting at them to stop laughing, first in English and then in Italian. When Sara finally came back, Emil had tears streaming down his face.
“Now, seriously,” Sara began, sitting at the table. Her voice was calm and rational. “I really think going on a little trip is a good idea for you. You’re not hanging around with me and I don’t want to see you all alone all the time, since even Tommaso is away right now.”
Michele mumbled something in response. He knew Sara was right. With the exception of his parents, he was alone there.
“Mickey, are you going to Rome? Is this what they’re saying?” his mother asked, switching to Italian. Emil made a curious face at the sound of the foreign language. Michele glanced at him, at his cheerful expression and big blue eyes. He thought about spending all the time on his own and how boring it could become.
And then he thought about Rome and Emil and how, after all, that morning he had wished someone was there to keep him company.
“I guess so,” he answered.