I sink deep into the bed, and the second I get to work, the door to my suite opens and I hear Matty’s voice call out for me.
With superhuman strength, I pull a stop, drop, and roll and heave my naked body off my bed, crashing to the cold tile floor with a thud.
Matty scream-laughs from the belly as he catches the tail end (see what I did there?) of the show. “Sorry, Field!” His laughter grows into howls.
I bonk my forehead against the floor, thanking the gods I didn’t break my dick before hoisting myself up and jumping out of my skin when I see Matty standing next to Nic Avello Jr., who stares me up and down with a smirk on his face.
“Ay, che vista! Bellissimo!” Nic says as Matty throws a pillow at me to cover up.
“I thought you left!” I shriek.
“Sorry, bro,” Matty says through laughter. “I saw my mom coming down the stairs and had to get Nic inside.”
“Why?” I focus intently on holding the pillow in place over my crotch.
“Because I couldn’t let her see—”
“No, why is he here?” I nod to Nic. “Ciao, Nic. Come stai?”
“Bene, e tu?”
“Così così.” I nod toward my crotch. “So you guys’re, what, staying here tonight?”
Matty shrugs.
“Can you at least toss my shorts?”
Matty kicks them across the floor.
Carefully hoisting them on, I drop the pillow. “What am I supposed to do?”
Matty whispers something to Nic, who shrugs and kisses Matty’s cheek. Matty blushes, then rushes over to me, hooks his arm around mine, drags me into the bathroom, and shuts the door. “Can you bunk with Benny?”
“Are you kidding?”
“Please! I really love this guy!”
“Love?”
Matty looks at me with the biggest puppy dog eyes. “Okay, not likelovelove, that was a strong word, but have you seen him? I—Ireallywant him to be my first.”
I rub the exhaustion—and blue ball haze—from my eyes. “Really?”
He nods. “We talked all last night and spent the day together today.”
“Yeah, we saw you at the Avello farm.”
His nostrils flare. “I knew it! I need more about you and Ricky STAT!”
“So much to catch you up on,” I say. “We caught Cam cheating on Ricky.”
Matty’s eyes widen so large they look like they’re about to fall out of his skull.
“I know, but tell me about Nic! How’d that even happen?”
He swoons and sighs, and the smile that stretches across his face can light even the darkest nights. “While you and Rickywere busy exchanging passionate looks and moments at the groves yesterday, I was off on my own, taking selfies against the lemons like a goober and not paying attention to anything when . . .” He recounts the rest of their fated meeting in Hallmark movie–level detail.
Making ridiculous faces, sticking his tongue out, Matty worked the camera doing one of those 360 videos of the grove and the valley and coastline, and as his body rotated and came back around to where he started, in the back of the frame, Nic Jr. was standing, arms folded, all devilish smiles, leaning against a guardrail.
