Page 8 of Ship of Fools

“Why would you say that?” He huffs out, suddenly back to being annoyed with me. Then he looks scared, breathing too heavily, running his greased hand through his cropped hair. He’s had it cut again. I bet it’s soft against his fingers.

I’m clearly losing my touch here, and I need a break. Luca Germano turned me down for a simple reason. He’s probably gay, because most people frequenting Club Eden, are… gay. Since it’s a gay club. Yet, I’m feeling less confident by the second here, sat behind my desk being... frankly, both rude and stupid with one of our freelance tech crew. Because I know what I am doing, I’m flirting, and why the hell am I flirting with him, of all people? I don’t understand myself anymore. Well, I do. He’s handsome, in a rugged way. A little bit scary, because the man clearly works out and is both tall, fit and muscular. The kind of man with big hands that would toss me around a bed with ease and completely dominate in the bedroom. He’s also staring at me like I have two heads.

Note to self, also the kind of man I should avoid, because I usually end up in a state like last weekend. Do I take any notice? No. Here I go again.

“You usually spend the evening stalking me around the club and staring at me.” It’s a little bit of a lie, but I’m smiling and batting my eyelashes. I’m giving the guy a chance here. I wouldn’t mind a hookup with him. I would totally let him do me, like a little good pick-me-up.

“Look, mate.” He says again, with surprising strength, as he walks up to my desk and leans on his knuckles on the top. Leaning over me and staring at me with an intensity that scares me. I actually shuffle my chair an inch backwards, because... Yeah. Intense.

“Don’t mess around with me, I’m not into all that.” He’s serious too, enough for me to feel intimidated.

“Mate, it’s an invitation to fuck, not a bloody job interview.” I nip back, trying to blow my chest up like a bloody baboon. I’m not impressive, I realise that, as he smirks at me.

“Just leave it. Not interested.” He huffs. I just laugh, because as he stands back, he turns around far too quickly for a man not interested. He’s also sporting a semi in his jeans, unless he’s hung like a horse. He’s probably hung, but that bulge...?

“Look, Luke.” I try, but he cuts me off.

“Luca. Not Luke.”

“Luca, my bad.” I try a smile, but he doesn’t take the bait. Just stares, like he does. Maybe it’s just his thing, and perhaps I have read all this wrong from the start.

“I go to Eden for a drink at the weekend, because my best mate from school mans the bar. That’s why I go there. I hang out and shoot the shit with a guy who I have known since I was three. Is that clear?” He’s pissed off, and now he’s frightening me. Just a little. In a good way.

“Crystal.” I nip back.

“I’m not interested in being one of your fuckbuddies, okay? So, leave it. I’m very happy to work for you, and you have a great team downstairs, so if you have a project you need me for? Ring me. If not? Then I hope you have a great Christmas... and all that.”

He’s lost his steam at the end, clearly not holding a planned-out speech. He would never make a salesman, because now he is twirling around in a circle again, almost tripping over his own feet as he walks out of my office, leaving the door wide open behind him.

I don’t go down and check out the car. I probably should, before the handover to the new owner this afternoon. I should probably be there to sign it off. Instead I lean back in my chair and let my eyes close. Just for a second to calm myself down.

What on earth am I doing? That? That display of complete and sheer unprofessionalism was... staggeringly stupid. I could lose my job. It could be seen as harassment, on a grand scale. I need to stop whatever it is I think I am doing.

In any case, I need to go home, grow up and grow a bloody brain, because the one I have at the moment? It’s fried.

Luca

“Where is my phone?” I ask for the hundredth time in the day. I rarely use it, but as always, have left it somewhere in the house, and as usual, it has somehow sunk and disappeared into the endless clutter in my family’s home. The house is warm, messy, dusty and lived-in. Old, faded school photos are stacked against the dresser, with family heirlooms and old wedding photos as a dusty sidekick for the peeling wallpaper. Christmas presents are neatly stacked under the worn-out oldplastic tree that we manhandle out of the loft year after year, adorned with festive lights and cracked old baubles from our childhood Christmases. The coffee table in front of me is covered in open packets of festive sweets and cakes… next to an overflowing laundry basket and a random pot plant still in its cellophane wrapper.

I’m sprawled on our sofa with Bea’s head on my lap, after an overgenerous helping of Dad’s special Christmas Eve calamari, with a round of family tombola on the side, where we all argued and fought until Mum called a truce and made us eat a bucket of Semifreddo. Italian style, with one tub and five spoons. Now, hours later, after too many video calls to relatives in Italy, I am exhausted and wrung out, nursing a sugar rush and stomach ache.

As kids we had to spend hours speaking nicely to relatives on Christmas Eve, thanking everyone for our generous gifts. We still have to sit on Skype and say polite niceties to people we barely know, and smile at near strangers who blow kisses and wish us well for the festive season. Our cousins laugh and show off their kids, chats that are kind of stilted and slightly cringy, but I don’t mind too much, it’s part of the Germano family Christmas and it somehow makes me feel warm on the inside. We leave Nonna until last, because we all love speaking to her and right now she is nattering away in the background as she tells me all about her soaps, the latest films to watch and is all up to date on my love life thanks to Mum and Dad and Facebook.

She’s knitting as she chats to us on Bea’s laptop, laughing as she freely mixes the languages, depending on what we are talking about. She asks about my boy crush, and I don’t even have to tell her his name, Nonna already knows and has checked up on both his Facebook, Instagram and TikTok account. You think your Granny should be just that, a granny, yet Nonna Germano is more tech savvy than me, and I actually went to college to learn that stuff. Nonna just picks it up from the TV, and then lectures me on the new iPhone features, Microsoft updates and the dangers of social media.

She, apparently, approves of Andreas Mitchell, even though she says he looks a little young for me. He is twenty-eight she tells me. She googled him, and to her great annoyance none of his family are of Italian origin, and none of her friends have ever heard of a Mitchell family in Chistleworth.

I promise to ask around and get answers to all her questions, so I can tell her everything she needs to know next time we speak, and Bea snorts in the background as I blow kisses to the woman who birthed my dad. Bea is about to birth another Germano boy, yet Nonna just laughs when I curse our crazy genes, and tell her I hope her kid doesn’t inherit all of our traits and silliness. I hang up and tell Bea she looks exhausted. She sticks her tongue out.

“I’m having a baby, and I am going to enjoy my last night as a free woman.” She mutters and pops another chocolate into her mouth. We are surrounded by Italian sweets and foods, gifted in numerous care parcels that those insane Italians insist on shipping to us, despite Chistleworth high street having a well-stocked European deli. We don’t mind though, and I unwrap another chocolate Baci from its silvery foil, letting the sharp flavour hit my tongue.

Granny Nonna used to pity the English for having to celebrate Christmas surrounded by dry mince pies and revolting fruit cakes. Now she curses the Italian supermarkets for not stocking those things for her to binge on, and demands year-round deliveries of delicacies from the British Isles. Dad and I ship it all on the company account, big boxes of junk food that keep us in Nonna’s good books for weeks. In return we are spoilt with parcels with exotic sounding brands and delicious treats with questionable calorie contents.

“There are no calories in these.” Bea sighs and crams a slice of Panforte into her mouth, throwing the wrapper carelessly on the floor.

“That mini Panettone was better than Dad’s big homemade Panettone.” I sigh and pat her head. I’ve eaten too much. Again.

“Dad’s Panettone is the best. Don’t let him hear you say things like that.”

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