6. Let’s go to my house?

Tommaso found himself resting on a small wall: it was cold, hard, and decidedly uncomfortable, but at the same time the only way not to be seen in case of unwanted noise. However, he knew he couldn’t stay there forever, that sooner or later he would have to come out into the open, as would his two friends a few feet from him. He would never have thought about the redhead of hair and the dark-haired boy together: he had never seen them talk to each other, at most exchanging glances when they were with him, nothing else.

There had been no signal from Alessio that he had indicated to him that something between the two of them was happening. And the truth was that he would rather his friend himself warn him, even confide in him. But what did he know about girls and relationships, how he behaves in certain cases? He had never had a girlfriend, not even in kindergarten, and his first kiss had been given during one of those evenings playing with obligation or truth. As much as everyone saw him as too shy to ask a girl out, the truth was that he had never posed the problem.

Dating a person was never interested in him because he had never found any girl attractive. When his two friends made comments about someone next to them, Tommaso preferred to remain silent and not make comments out loud. Thinking back to those moments, he realized how things were quite obvious even though he hadn't noticed. He... he didn't like girls, he never liked them.

Just as he reflected on this, almost simultaneously and unwittingly, Tommaso and Alessio shifted their gaze to each other. Alex was speechless to see that he had been caught in the act, immediately feeling guilty for not confessing his feelings. Tom, in response, took a deep breath, with brown eyes closed again and under Leo's gaze, and decided to get away from the wall and look away from the scene. He put a hand on his face, mainly to rub his eyes, which he only moved away after realizing that the other, now a few steps from him, was still staring at him without looking away. But also how the girl by his side was going to do the same.

Tom opened his eyes wide to see this, fearing what reaction Alexa might have to her being discovered. But, perhaps, fortunately, the girl would never have seen the neighbor take a few steps back to escape, because Alessio was making her move in another direction, further away from their homes. Surprised by this, Tommaso took a few steps ending up on Leonardo, who took him with a gesture of his arm to avoid seeing him on the ground.

Leo was quite upset at what he had seen: he remembered what had happened at Friday's party, but he preferred to run away before things got complicated. He hadn't met Lorenzo Fontana and he wouldn't have done it anyway if the scandal of the evening would have been two people with a secret relationship. That’s why he had left, leaving Tommaso alone who would be all too involved in the situation to have no second for him.

Despite this, he tried to recover as quickly as possible: he took the red-haired boy’s arm, intending to take him with him to another road, until Leo’s hand came down until he reached Tom’s, making sure he could drag the latter wherever Leo wanted and more forcefully. Tommaso alone would not be able to move anywhere and was even happy that someone else was getting him away from there. Leo took him first of all to the bench closest to them, then let him sit down to get air and give him the right amount of tranquility, although it was a bit impossible to find one with his mind full of thoughts peeping out as if a sudden tsunami had picked them up from various points and then hit him in the forehead with them.

«They were your friends, were they?» Leonardo asked now sitting next to Tommaso, turning to him and whose fawn eyes were directed to any point in the panorama in front of them. He felt and saw that scene repeat itself all the time as if his brain could never get enough of it. And of course, he ended up feeling guilty, not being a good friend or the right person he could talk to about these things with. The redhead did not answer the question, which was interpreted by the dark-haired boy as a yes. At this point Leo got up from the bench, standing in front of Tommaso once again, hoping in vain to be able to do something for him, even just to help him lift his spirits a little. «Do you want to talk about it?»

No answer yet: Tommaso was too busy annoying his nails with the same fingers to listen to him, he wouldn't even hear an ambulance if he had passed by to ask them for help. At this point, Leo came closer and closer to him, holding his face in his hands to force him to look at him: the two foreheads touched and Leo's caresses on Tom's face did not serve to console him with the scene seen just before, nor to make him look up.

So he decided to get away from the boy in front of him, tired of feeling useless in the situation and with a great desire for cigarettes and tobacco between his lips. Only when Leo snapped up, letting his hands go of his face, did Tom take care to look up to follow him and hope he wouldn’t leave leaving him there alone. This was not the case: Leonardo tried to smile at him, noticing his reciprocated gaze, holding his hand in case he felt ready to move again, to leave everything he had seen behind. Neither of them was surprised when Tommaso shook hands with Leo.

They spent the rest of the evening wandering around the city, among the small lights that lit up their path and taking buses when they were forced to use them. Rome looked so beautiful that evening and Tommaso couldn't help but notice it with a restrained smile. As much as she had tried to hold the mask of happiness, which she always wore, she seemed to have unhooked once and for all, after what she had seen. He had no reason to repress his feelings, feelings that had been officially exposed. As if that event had given him the chance to be himself for an evening.

The streetlights lit up the street, empty, which wasn’t weird enough for a Wednesday night like that. They had been wandering all over the city for hours now, without stopping for a moment, and the boy with red hair felt great energy inside him that he had never had before. Despite this, he still needed to rest his legs to recover a bit from the long walk he took with Leonardo.

Nothing he did often, or occasionally: that was nothing more than an exception that would remain circumscribed on that date. This is why he proposed to his friend to stop somewhere, who nodded to the proposal, pointing to a bar nearby that seemed perfect for the purpose. After occupying a table for two and having a beer each, they stayed talking about the usual topics they could somehow pull out, even unwittingly.

From time to time, Tom didn’t help but think about how things had become stranger and stranger since Leo appeared in his life. Alex lying to him and the same dark-haired guy who seemed to have been his lifelong friend. Finally, taking one last sip of his beer, Leo began a new speech. «It's past midnight, time flies when you're fine.»

The red hair was surprised by the thing, so he took his cell phone and only then did he notice: two missed calls from Alessio, various messages from friends, a single missed call from his mother, accompanied by a message asking where he was and if he would return home. Time to write to her that no, he wouldn't come home that night, and he came back to consider Leo in front of him.

Locking his cell phone with the appropriate button and having officially finished his beer, Tommaso looked up at that the other, shaking his head. Seeing his best friend’s name among the missed calls hadn’t lifted him too much: it meant he would probably find him in front of his door, to talk about what had just happened. And he didn't want to, Thomas didn't want to talk to him at all, not before he settled mentally.

«I can’t go home, I don’t know if I want to go back,» Tom exclaimed and got up from his iron chair, as Leo found himself doing the same and settled next to him. After paying, they officially left the bar and both looked around, not knowing what else to do or where to go. Tommaso was the first to not want to talk, so late at night and with a great need to sleep, with Alex. He turned to Leonardo, hoping to find in him an answer or idea that could help him with it. «Any ideas?» he then asked the same, placing his cell phone in the back pocket of the jeans and no longer giving him the slightest attention.

« Let’s go to my house? » finally proposed Leonardo, much to Tommaso’s surprise, who responded by nodding, without thinking twice. It made no sense at all: he had just agreed to go to sleep at the house of a person he barely knew, a real stranger whose name he only knew and some little information about him. He didn't know if he was hiding anything, or what his most important problems were. But he remained the only person who had managed to remove that mask as a simple and happy boy, leaving room for his true being. Perhaps it was precisely for this reason that, running with him to the house, he smiled with pure joy without realizing it and without thinking about it.

Arriving at the door, while Leo searched for the keys in his jacket pockets, Tom looked at his cell phone again, just one last time, finding a message from Alex saying: Do I have to explain to you what happened, where are you? But he just visualized, entering the new friend's house, whispering in his ear that no one that night, except the two of them, would be present in the house. And then, after leaning against the wooden door, Tommaso felt even better at hearing Leo’s lips rest on his own with such little notice.