The Stars That Tremble (7 page)

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the times for a meeting to run long! Gio had gotten stuck at the most epic faculty meeting of all time. Eons passed, seasons changed, animals went extinct. He was inclined to tell everyone he’d just do whatever they wanted so he could get out of there, but no, the meeting dragged on, well past five and into the dinner hour. When it at long last mercifully ended, Gio bolted from the conference room and to his office, where he rapidly changed clothes, checked his e-mail, said something nasty to his assistant Angela, and then apologized for being rude. He took a moment to examine himself in the men’s room on the way out of the building. He thought he looked passable. His hair was mussed but that couldn’t be helped. He could have used a shave, but there was no time. His shirt was a little wrinkled, but maybe that would fix itself as he wore it.

He wasn’t going to make it in time for dinner, that was plain, so he grabbed a sandwich on his way down Eighth Avenue and ate it as he walked. It was not a good sandwich—the turkey had no flavor and there was way too much mayonnaise—but it was sustenance and that was what mattered. He got a text from Mike to meet him and his friends at the Thai place where they were eating, and then they’d walk to this club together.

So Gio, of course, caught every “don’t walk” sign as he walked. By the time he finally got to Fifty-third Street and found the restaurant, he wanted to cry.

Mike and four other men were sitting around a table toward the back. Gio walked over to them and said hello.

Mike stood and… arms. He had incredible arms. He’d been wearing sleeves every time Gio had seen him before so he hadn’t really noticed, but now he was wearing a tight black tank top that showed off meaty, muscular biceps and perfectly outlined the pecs of a man who worked out or did a lot of physical labor—probably both, given Mike’s profession—and Gio’s mouth went dry.

He was a far cry from the lithe little dancers Gio had been dating lately.

Mike smiled. “Well, I’m glad you made it.”

“Sorry, terrible meeting. If I could have left it, believe me, I would have in a heartbeat.”

Mike nodded solemnly and gestured toward the table. “Here, meet everyone. The blond one is my friend Sandy. We’ve known each other for a million years and served in the army together until I got discharged. The handsome man in the pink shirt is Sandy’s new boyfriend James. He’s a doctor and we’re supposed to be impressed by this.” Sandy threw a napkin at Mike, which just made Mike laugh. It was nice to see Mike laughing instead of nervous, although there were several empty beer bottles on the table, which might have explained that. Mike went on, “The mustache sitting next to James is Dave. He did a tour in Saudi Arabia with me and Sandy in the late nineties. And the guy with the shellacked hair over there is Dave’s boyfriend Angelo.” Mike placed his hand on the small of Gio’s back and said, “Guys, this is Gio.”

Everyone greeted Gio with smiles and waves.

“We just have to settle up the bill and then we’ll be on our way,” said Mike.

“Yes, all right.”

“I got this,” Sandy said. “You and Gio go ahead and wait outside.”

Mike pulled a wallet from his back pocket and handed a wad of bills to Sandy.

They were relatively alone out on the sidewalk, but Gio was still conscious of the people scuttling by him. And he couldn’t take his eyes off Mike’s arms.

“Sorry, my friends are….” Mike waved toward the restaurant, looking flustered, but didn’t finish the sentence.

“It’s okay,” said Gio, although he had no idea what Mike was apologizing for.

“I’m glad you made it, though.” Mike hopped a little, shaking out his arms. “I… this is… it’s a little strange for me, I guess. You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who hangs around in clubs, but I can’t for the life of me think of what else I’d rather be doing on a Friday night.” He put his hands on his hips, which only emphasized the whole package. Gio stared at that chest and wondered what it would be like to touch this man, to be in bed with him. Mike said, “Well, I guess I can think of a few things I’d rather be doing.” He winked.

“Huh?” said Gio.

Mike laughed. “Wow. I make a joke about sex and you’re not even paying attention.”

Gio let himself touch, let his fingers float down Mike’s chest. The tank top was soft and Mike’s skin was warm beneath it.
Oddio
. “You’re distracting,” Gio said.

Mike caught his hand and held it for a moment. Mike’s hand was rough and calloused but warm against Gio’s soft skin. Gio felt weak for a brief moment. The hardest physical thing he ever did was run on the treadmill at the gym. But Mike had work-roughened hands and strong muscles, and his body was incredible. Mike let his hand go and Gio dropped it to his side.

“I’m distracting?” Mike said.

“You are… you’re a beautiful man, Mike.”

“Thank you.”

“You go out like this often?”

“Not like we used to.” Mike gazed down the street toward Ninth Avenue. “For a while there, Sandy and I were going out pretty regularly, but we’ve been doing much less of that lately. We’ve been busy, I guess.”

Gio wanted to know so much about that. He wanted to know if Mike and Sandy had been an item, if Mike had gone home with a lot of strangers, if Mike was more of a party boy than he came across as. Gio didn’t ask any of these questions, though, worried he wouldn’t like the answers.

“I haven’t been to many dance clubs in the States,” Gio said.

“No?”

“When I lived in Milan, there was this little disco near La Scala that I used to love. Milan has a few gay bars, but it’s not like New York. So this was kind of a refuge. It’s where my friends and I went to dance and drink. I was more carefree in those days, I suppose. I had my whole career ahead of me.” It was a little bittersweet, thinking back on that time. “Well, anyway, I suppose I have been feeling my age lately.” Gio shrugged.

“Maybe what you need is a little dancing to feel young again,” said Mike. He glanced toward the restaurant. “The guys are coming.”

Gio appreciated the sentiment but felt a little skeptical. Looking at these friends of Mike’s made Gio feel a little awkward and out of place. He worried he wouldn’t be able to keep up or he’d make himself look foolish. But before he could get very far with that line of thinking, Mike’s friends emerged from the restaurant.

When Sandy walked outside, he slapped Mike’s back and signaled toward the corner. Gio understood then that the guys were a buffer. Gio had been invited into a social situation so that Mike could see him without being alone with him. It was a clever scheme given the circumstances, although Gio wished he had more time to talk with Mike.

Gio let himself be swept up in conversation with these men as they walked. They made it easy, luckily. Angelo spoke pretty good, albeit accented, Italian; his family was from South Brooklyn and Naples before that and his grandmother had spoken Italian at home, he explained. He could speak both school Italian and some of the Neapolitan dialect his grandparents had spoken. Dave piped in to talk about the vacation they’d taken to Rome and Tuscany a few years before. Gio lamented that he hadn’t been home to Tuscany in a number of years. “I’m from Borgo San Lorenzo originally,” he explained. “It’s a large town a few miles from Florence.”

“I loved Florence!” Dave gushed. “Such a beautiful city.”

So that went pretty well.

Mike spoke softly to James for a moment, so Gio turned to Sandy when Dave started asking Angelo what he remembered from the trip. Sandy smiled. “You should know, Mike is my brother. Not in the blood sense, obviously, but you work the trenches together, you see some of the shit we saw when we were in the Middle East? You’re brothers for life.”

“You want to protect him,” Gio said. “I understand that.”

“I was the one who suggested he invite you out this evening. Partly because he likes you and wants to spend time with you, but partly because I wanted to scope you out. Just so we’re clear.”

“All right.”

Sandy was a little intimidating. He wasn’t quite as big or bulky as Mike, but he had some of that same strength, the same wide shoulders that spoke of working out and lifting heavy things.

“Is this where you give me the speech about how you’ll hurt me if I hurt him?” Gio asked.

“No. No, Mike can take care of himself. I am a little curious about your intentions. I mean, if you just want to fuck around, that’s fine with me. But Mike’s last boyfriend left him because he couldn’t deal with the fact that Mike had a kid. So you should be clear on what you want, is all.”

Gio hadn’t quite gotten past the simple fact that he liked Mike and that the attraction was mutual. He’d thought about sex with Mike—he’d have to be dead inside not to, he reasoned—but he hadn’t gotten as far in his thinking as a relationship. Because that was an issue, wasn’t it? Gio adored Emma, but as a teacher does a student. Mike was her father. And that added a whole layer of strange to the situation that Gio had been aware of but hadn’t quite wrapped his head around yet.

“I don’t really know,” Gio said. “We just met.”

Sandy nodded. “I know. No need to make a commitment right this minute. Just… things worth thinking about.”

It was early enough in the evening that the club wasn’t quite hopping yet. There were a few people milling around, most of them clustered around the bar. Music was blaring. Angelo must have spotted someone he knew because he gestured and then he and Dave disappeared into the small crowd.

“When you do go out, this your regular spot?” Gio asked Mike.

“Yeah. We come here… well, not that often. How often do we go out, Sandy?”

“Not like we used to. Once every other month, maybe.”

“That’s sad,” said Mike.

“We’re almost forty,” said Sandy.

“That’s sadder.” Mike laughed.

“What are you all drinking?” James asked.

He took drink orders and vanished. Gio felt somewhat better now that he’d talked to everyone in the group. He fell into conversation with Mike and Sandy.

“That seems to be going well,” Mike said, nodding toward James’s departing figure.

“I know,” said Sandy. “He’s dreamy.”

“I like him. Hang on to that.”

Gio thought the dynamic between Mike and Sandy was interesting, particularly in the way they looked out for each other. Gio found himself hoping he met with Sandy’s approval. “How long have you and James been together?” he asked.

“Not long. This is only maybe our fourth or fifth time out together.”

Sandy absently bobbed his head to the music. Gio looked around the club. The music was clunky and repetitive and the décor was just this side of tacky—they seemed to be going for a kind of beachy theme, with palm trees painted on the walls and Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling—but the crowd was as Mike described, mostly guys in their thirties or forties, no especially raucous behavior. There was a throbbing mob of men dancing together closer to the DJ booth, though, and the dancing was unambiguously sexual and intended to attract male gazes.

“So if you don’t go to clubs in New York,” Mike said, “what do you do with your spare time? And don’t tell me you’re all work and no play.”

“I go to the theater a lot,” Gio said.

Mike chuckled. “When my sister says, ‘We’re going to the theater,’ she usually means she and her husband are going to see a big Broadway musical, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

Gio smiled. “I like some musicals okay. But, you’re right, I mostly go to see plays. Or the ballet or the philharmonic. And the opera, of course.”

“Of course,” Mike said with a smirk. “What else does a classy guy like you do with his off time? Do you read? Watch television?”

“Sure, some. Well, I don’t watch a lot of television, but I read. I like a lot of the midcentury Italian writers. Calvino, Moravia.”

Mike frowned. “Okay.”

It occurred to Gio that Mike probably wasn’t familiar with those authors. “Do you read much?”

Mike shrugged. “A little. I got into reading sci-fi when I was in the army. And I kind of like military thrillers. I mean, most of them get the details wrong, but they’re kind of fun too. So, you know. Nothing too brainy.”

Gio wished he could take back his answer. He hated that he’d made Mike feel self-conscious. “Sounds like more fun than the stuff I read,” Gio said, trying to apologize. He smiled.

Mike smiled back, so that was something. Then he closed his eyes and bobbed his head. “Oh, this is a great song.”

With no further explanation, Mike slipped away and joined the writhing bodies on the dance floor. At first he just bobbed in time to the beat of the song, but as the music picked up tempo and layers of instrumentation and singing were added, he started to really move.

“I probably should have warned you that Mike loves to dance,” said Sandy.

Mike moved with a surprising fluidity and grace for a man as large as he was. He raised his arms and moved his hips and got into the music. He turned and pivoted and swayed. It was beautiful and mesmerizing.

A guy walked up behind Mike and put a hand on Mike’s hip. Mike went with it, closing his eyes and leaning back. The guy snaked his hands up Mike’s body, smoothing over the fabric of his shirt, pressing against his chest. Mike pushed his hips back and danced with the guy. Gio suspected he should have been jealous, but instead he found the scene intensely erotic. Mike dancing was maybe the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

“That’s… wow,” said Gio.

“You’re not… freaking out?” asked Sandy.

The first guy moved on to dance with someone else and another man came up in front of Mike. Mike danced with him too, pressing their bodies together and grinding their hips briefly before shifting into different kinds of movement. This guy’s hands were all over Mike, and he kissed Mike’s shoulder.

“Should I be freaking out?” Gio asked.

“No. This is how he blows off steam. He’s done this for years. Whenever he has a particularly stressful week, he wants to go dancing. Then he’ll make out with half the guys in the club but won’t take any of them home.”

“He doesn’t take them home?”