Timely Trials

Chapter 22: Some Enchanted Evening

LOVINO POV

It was two weeks later when I went over to Antonio's house again. Two more sessions with Toris, two weeks without spending more than a few minutes with Antonio.

After getting his address (which I had never bothered memorizing before) and driving over to his house, I was happy. It was great to be at his house again. It was so nice to see him.

"Lovi! I was expecting you to come a little later," Antonio said, opening the door.

"Well you have to start suffering my presence starting now."

He said, "I don't ever have to suffer your presence. I only ever enjoy it. Come inside, okay? You look cold." He looked up at the gray sky. "And it looks like it's going to rain soon, don't you think?"

"Yeah, sure."

Clover the cat was there right away to greet me, meowing like nobody's business. In response, I made what was probably the worst cat impression in all of mankind's horrible history, which made Antonio giggle. I hung my coat up by the door.

Neither Antonio nor I had any clue on how to spend the day.

"We should have thought about this beforehand."

"Maybe. Or," Antonio said, "we could just make it up as we go and enjoy each other's company."

He was always easy to please. He didn't need a detailed plan of the future to be happy. I guess that was a quality in him that I loved.

"Still, you dipshit," I said, "what are you thinking about doing?"

A sheepish smile crawled onto his face. "I was actually thinking about taking a nap."

Why was I not surprised?

"I thought you were coming later," he continued, "and so I was going to nap until you got here, but here you are, and here am I, without any extra sleep."

I sighed loudly. We just stood in the entrance hallway for probably a whole minute before I finally admitted that that would be fine with me. I wasn't especially tired, but I'm always up for sleeping.

Antonio laughed. "You came all the way here, and all we're going to do is sleep."

"You're the one who was talking about just 'enjoying each other's company!'"

"That I was." He led me into his living room. "Come on. We can at least turn on a movie or something. Any favorites?" He gestured to his collection of DVDs. I didn't feel like thinking.

"You pick."

"Alright. How about... this one?"

"Whatever, Antonio." I plopped onto the corner of the sofa and leaned my legs against the sofa arm.

"Do you remember when you only called me by my last name?" he said, getting the DVD out of its case.

I felt myself blush. "Yeah. And I can always go back to it, Carriedo."

"No, no. I always told you you should call me by my first name, and now you're finally doing that. I like it this way." He put in the disk and turned, smiling at me. He flipped off the lights and sat next to me, practically leaning on my shoulder.

He really must have been tired, because soon he was leaning on me completely, asleep. I must have fallen asleep, too, but when I woke up, our positions were slightly changed.

Antonio's head was in my lap and I had an arm over him, keeping his body close to mine.

He woke up around this time, too, and sat up, forcing me to remove my hold of him. He put his own arm around me, though, and we sat like that together for a while. There was a point when he had faced me, his face full of a question I hadn't been expecting. Did I want to do it? Have sex with him?