FIVE

24 December

One day until Christmas

Luciano’s Christmas List:

Just because everyone does it doesn’t mean it’s not stealing, Anse thinks as he reads over the note again. If someone told him he’d be lining up to get into the markets just after seven on the morning of Christmas Eve, he would have laughed in their face. But now, as he takes a carpark someone else had their eye on, he mentally prepares himself for the barrage of people and produce.

Get in. Get out.

He hits produce first. A man shouts out a special on mangos, so he buys three because it’s simply more economical to do so. He doesn’t find passionfruit, but he does find a can of pulp by the register. After debating on what type of pumpkin Luciano wanted for far longer than he’s willing to admit, he buys a full Kent and calls it a day. Potatoes, onions, broccoli, carrots. He checks out and pays for his purchases, and then wheels over to the butcher. If he’s lucky, he might be able to get a coffee, pack the car and be out of here by eight am. A veritable Christmas miracle.

At the butchers, he shoulders his way through the crowd and grabs a large leg of lamb without hesitation. There’s no time to mull over decisions. He must commit. Even then, a woman looks him up and down, sizing him up. Will she fight him for a leg of lamb? The look on her face says she’s considering it. He pays for it and leaves before things heat up any further.

The morning is already warm, but he still buys a coffee from a pop-up caravan, relishing the end of his impromptu market run.

His phone vibrates, and he takes a seat on a nearby bench to answer.

Daniel: you and luc want to come around tonight for a Christmas drink? May or may not be homemade Pfeffernüsse and stollen? And hot choc/mulled wine.

Anse: Luc is still in syd, but i’ll come if he’s not here.

Daniel: When does he get back?

Anse: today. Soon.

Daniel: did you get peaches?

Shit. He looks over at the produce market and regrets the idea of going back in there. But he’ll have to, won’t he? His brother won’t let them forget if he doesn’t get his beloved grilled peach salad.

Anse: a whole bag.

* * *

It’s just after lunch and Anse’s bored. He’s wrapped Luciano’s gift and placed it under their mini-Christmas tree. He’s cleaned the apartment, done the laundry, hung it out and watered the plants in the courtyard. Now he sits on the lounge scrolling through his phone as he sips a coffee. The warm summer breeze drifts in through the open window and curls around his ankles.

Finished meeting – be home in a few hours Luciano had text almost an hour ago. He’d be in the air soon, and finally home.

Anse downs the rest of his coffee, and with nothing else to do, grabs the keys to their car: the Fiat.

Two years ago, Luciano had owned a Vespa much to everyone’s chagrin. Not only had it been slightly dangerous, but it had also played into a rather convenient stereotype. Had he looked cute as fuck riding around town on a red Vespa? Yes. Was it suitable for Canberra’s extreme frosts and extreme heatwaves? Probably not.

So, when the Vespa had been ‘retired’ after an ‘incident’, Luciano had finally purchased a sensible car: a little Fiat.

Which is fine for Luciano’s slim five-foot-eight frame, but when it comes to Anse, who stands at almost six-foot-four and could easily fill a doorframe, he tends to look rather comical.

Pushing the seat right back, Anse starts up the car and drives the short distance from Trattoria to Daniel’s home in Deakin. Hugged by the mountains, the suburb of Deakin overlooks the ridge of the Brindabellas. In the winter, Daniel and Ellie get a dusting of snow in their yards. It only lasts a few hours, until the sun comes out in earnest, but it is beautiful to behold.

For most of Anse’s life, snow has been an annoyance. Dirty. Wet. Slippery. Beautiful in the Alps and in farmland, but not in the cities. Now, he misses it. Even the slushy stuff that used to soak his socks.

Anse parks the Fiat in Daniel’s drive and makes his way up to the house. Through the large bay window, he can see his mother and Ellie: they’re sorting out baby clothes on the living room floor.

He opens the screen door, knocks against the doorframe once and then enters. They are expecting him, anyway.

‘Hey,’ he says as Ellie and his mother turn to look at him. ‘I was promised stollen.’

‘Anse!’ his mother beams and rises to hug him. She smells like lilacs and vanilla. ‘You look run off your feet. Where’s Luciano?’

‘He’s in Sydney,’ he says.

His mother frowns. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Gisela, would you offer Anse a drink from the fridge?’ Ellie says from her place on the floor. ‘I would but you know,’ she points to her large belly.

‘I’ve got it,’ Daniel crows as he appears from down the hall. ‘Anse! Pete brought beer over from Germany, and we saved you a Rauchbier.’

The bottle is opened, and a stein is poured before he has a chance to say no. Oh dear. What a shame.

‘Why is Luciano not here?’ Gisela insists when they’re all gathered in the lounge room.

‘He had to go to Sydney for work. It was quite urgent. He’ll be back this afternoon.’

As soon as he says it, he hears his phone vibrate on the kitchen bench. The text message comes through to his smart watch. I won’t be home this afternoon.

Frowning, he puts the beer down, excuses himself and grabs his phone from the bench. Luciano’s tried to call twice already but he must have been too caught up in the conversation to notice.

‘Babe,’ Luciano says as soon as he picks up. ‘It’s madness here. All the flights are cancelled. The hire cars are gone. I’ve tried to book a bus back to Canberra but the earliest I could book isn’t until at least ten o’clock. I won’t get back into the city until the early morning.’

Sweat drips down the back of his shirt. ‘I’ll pick you up.’

Luciano laughs down the phone. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not. See if you can get a train to Goulburn. Or Bowral. I’ll come pick you up.’

‘No,’ he hesitates. ‘I can hear Ellie in the background. Stay with them. It’s Christmas. I’ll be home as soon as I can.’

‘Luciano.’

‘I’m the one who wanted to come on this trip and go to this meeting.’ He sighs down the phone and Anse can picture him pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘I should have expected this. I’ll figure something out, Anse, it’s fine.’

It’s definitely not fine. ‘What if the bus is cancelled? You’ll be there all night.’ He hears Luciano’s hesitation on the phone. ‘I’m coming to get you.’

‘Okay. I’m sorry. I really should have thought this through. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I want to do this.’ He grabs his keys from the counter. ‘Call me if you can get a train out.’

‘I will,’ Luciano promises. ‘See you soon. Drive safely.’

Anse hangs up and looks back to his family, who are awkwardly silent in the loungeroom. Anse makes a big show of sighing as he approaches them.

‘That was Luc. He’s stuck in Sydney. The flights are delayed, and he can’t get a bus back until at least ten. I’m going to try to meet him halfway in the car.’

Daniel frowns. ‘Do you want some company?’

Anse shakes his head. ‘It’ll be fine. If Luc can get a train to Goulburn, we’ll only be gone a few hours.’

Pete gathers a few Pfeffernüsse and places them in an air-tight container. ‘For the road,’ he says as he hands them to Anse.

‘Drive safe,’ Ellie says as she eases herself off the floor. She sucks in a sharp breath as she stands. All eyes immediately turn on her. ‘I’m fine. They just kicked me.’

With the attention now firmly on Ellie, Anse takes the opportunity to leave. ‘I’ll text you details for lunch tomorrow,’ he promises and then leaves with his box of Pfeffernüsse clutched firmly to his side.

He fills up the Fiat at the local petrol station and grabs a coffee before embarking on the drive to Sydney. It’s late in the afternoon, almost four, but the road is busy as people embark on the trek to the coastline, whether to spend time away or to catch up with family. He slowly cruises around the perimeter of a bone-dry Lake George, the usually lush-green grazing lands now bleached under the harsh sun.

To be honest, it’s nice to have a few hours to himself. Anse puts on a podcast and switches off for a while.

As investigators closed in on the suspect, they were shook when reports of a second murder came in –

A phone call interrupts the podcast just as Anse passes the Big Merino. Anse picks it up, and Luciano’s tinny voice echoes through the car’s speaker. ‘I got a train to Bowral!’ he shouts down the line. Anse hears what he assumes to be a train conductor in the background, announcing incoming trains. ‘I’m getting on it in ten minutes!’

‘I’ve just passed Goulburn,’ he says. ‘I’m at least an hour away if the traffic doesn’t back up.’

Luciano breathes a sigh of relief down the phone. ‘Thank you. I’m so grateful for you, you don’t even know.’ The same conductor’s voice shouts in the background. A train whistles. ‘I have to go. They’re boarding. See you soon.’

* * *

The train arrives before he does. It’s dark—almost eight at night—and quiet when he pulls into the train carpark. Strangely, it’s begun to rain, and it falls from the heavy clouds in large globs. Luciano stands under the awning of the train station, his overnight suitcase at his feet. He looks up as he sees the headlights of the Fiat roll into the train station.

‘My love!’ he cries out as he grabs his suitcase and dashes through the rain. Anse gets out of the car and hugs him. The suitcase topples over.

‘Thank you for coming to get me.’ He pulls back, pushing the hair from Anse’s face. ‘Was the traffic bad?’

‘It was fine.’ He kisses him because it’s been almost two days since they’ve seen each other, and Anse doesn’t know the last time they’ve spent that long apart. Hell, it was only two days. But he felt Luciano’s absence every minute. ‘Let’s go home.’

Luciano throws his suitcase in the boot of the Fiat before hopping in the front seat.

Trevor Carter died in prison at aged eighty-nine, never revealing where the bodies of his victims were located.

Luciano scoffs. ‘Wow, nothing weird about a man listening to murder shows driving down a highway at night.’

‘True crime relaxes me,’ Anse mutters as he hands Luciano his phone. ‘Change it to something you want.’

Luciano happily takes control of their road trip playlist. ‘Can we get Maccas in Goulburn? I haven’t eaten since lunch and the train didn’t have a food cart. I’m starving.’

‘Sure,’ Anse says. Maccas Drive-Thru on Christmas Eve. What a bizarre year. ‘How did the filming go?’

Luciano bursts to life. ‘Oh, babe, it was amazing. Like the way they do it and the way they structure how to film, it’s incredible. The contestants are amazing.’ He falls back into his seat. ‘It was so fun.’

‘We’ll have to have a party to watch your episode.’

‘I can’t really believe it’s going to be on TV. It feels like a dream.’ He pauses. ‘Speaking of TV. You know how I had a meeting this morning?’

Anse feels a sense of impending doom settle over him. ‘Yes?’

‘Well… it was also about TV. Specifically… my TV show.’

He tries very hard to focus on the road—and navigating around a particularly slow semi-trailer. ‘Your… TV show?’

‘They loved Stanley Tucci’s documentary series in Italy, and well, they want me to replicate that for Australian audiences. You know, a documentary about me ‘re-discovering my roots’ and reliving my mother’s memory. And my publisher is completely on board to do a tie-in recipe book.’

‘Another recipe book?’ Anse clarifies.

‘Yes. Like a whole photo essay, new recipes.’ He sighs. ‘They want an answer soon. It would mean shooting in Italy for a month. In May.’

‘A month,’ Anse considers.

‘I know,’ Luciano replies. ‘It’s a long time to be away from the restaurant, and away from home, but I was thinking that you might be able to swing some leave, and maybe you could come. At least for a bit of it. We could always jump across the border to Austria, you could show me around Vienna.’

It’s a huge opportunity, especially if his ProChef episode is well-received. Luciano’s had a bit of success on TikTok, but Anse knows the churning of media. He won’t be Australia’s darling for long. He needs to capitalise on things that come his way, while they still do.

But a whole month away?

‘Do you think it’s a bad idea?’ Luciano asks as the music dies down.

‘No, quite the opposite,’ he replies. ‘You should do it. You need to do it.’

Luciano purses his lips. A car passes them, lighting up their faces in the headlights.

‘You want to do it, don’t you?’

‘Do you think I could leave the restaurant for that long?’ Luciano asks. ‘I just…’

‘The restaurant is you, Luc,’ he says. ‘But you aren’t the restaurant.’ Heaps of chefs step away from their restaurants once they’re up-and-running. It makes sense that eventually Luciano will do the same.

A long sigh billows from Luciano’s nose. ‘You’re right. I just… have to think on it a bit more. It’s big project to take on. You know, professionally and emotionally.’

‘I understand that.’

Luciano lies back in his seat and places a hand on Anse’s thigh. Warmth seeps through his shorts at the touch.

‘How did you go shopping this morning?’ he asks.

Anse shoots him a dirty look. ‘A woman almost fought me over a leg of lamb.’

Luciano laughs. ‘Sounds exactly like I thought it would be.’

They drive in comfortable silence for a little longer, and then the golden arches of McDonalds appear as they near Goulburn. It’s still at least an hour until they get home, so they order dinner and sit in the car to eat their burgers. Rain spits down, hitting the windscreen and dribbling down the glass.

Anse wonders if he should propose now, as Luciano bites into his quarter pounder and the streetlights in the parking bay bathe him in luminous orange light. He sips his coffee and wonders exactly what they’d tell people. He proposed to me in front of McDonalds at nine o’clock at night on Christmas Eve.

He doesn’t even have a ring.

But does he really need one?

‘What?’ Luciano looks at him. He offers Anse his half-eaten burger. ‘You wanna bite? Trade you for a nugget.’

He leans forward and takes a bite of Luciano’s burger.

* * *

They get home just after eleven. The weather has moved with them, and they are dampened by a spittle of rain as they climb the stairs to the unit above the restaurant. By the time they get changed and into bed, it’s edging closer to midnight.

Anse slips into bed, mentally overtired but physically exhausted. He takes a moment to shoot a message to Daniel, letting him know they’re both home safe before putting his phone on charge.

He hears Luciano rummaging around in the lounge room, so he keeps the lamp on until he’s come to bed.

A moment later, Luciano appears in the doorway, holding a large carboard box wrapped with a white ribbon

‘Is it too late to exchange gifts?’

Anse smiles and rises onto his elbows. ‘Not at all.’

Luciano climbs onto the bed beside him. ‘Merry Christmas, darling.’

Anse takes the small box onto his lap and tugs at the ribbon. It comes undone easily, and he lifts the cardboard lid up to reveal the collar of a fine black robe and a gift voucher to his favourite local bookshop.

He sets the voucher to the side and pulls out the large bathrobe. It’s cottony and thick. ‘Is this a replacement after my old one tore in the wash?’ he asks Luciano.

‘An upgrade,’ he says, snuggling in close.

‘I love it, it’s perfect.’ Anse places the voucher on his bedside table next to his lamp and stack of unread books. ‘This is very thoughtful, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to cull the bookshelf before I buy anything new.’

‘This place is just getting too small for us,’ Luciano notes in the quiet.

Anse looks down at him with tired eyes and a warm smile. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Maybe a little townhouse close by. A house in the suburbs?’ he stretches, curling his toes like a cat. ‘It’ll suck to have to commute though.’

‘Poor dear,’ Anse replies, trailing his fingers down Luciano’s bare chest. ‘Do you want your present now?’

‘Yes!’ Luciano yelps, rising to his elbows as Anse leans over to get the present from the top of his bedside draw.

He hands Luciano a wrapped box and a card. Out of obligation, Luciano opens the card first.

‘Spa voucher!’ he croons as he slips the card out of the envelope. ‘This place is fancy, too!’

Luciano opens the small box to reveal a candle from a local candlemaker they’d discovered at a handmade market. He brings the candle to his nose to inhale, and Anse can smell the distinct scent of sea-salt and musk.

‘I love it, thank you,’ Luciano says, putting the candle back into the box and corralling his gifts onto his bedside table. Then, he snuggles into Anse’s side. ‘Next time we should get couples massages. That’d be fun.’

Anse runs his fingertips down Luciano’s spine, feeling the ridges and bumps beneath his warm skin. Luciano tips his head up, his chin resting on Anse’s collarbone.

‘I love you.’

Anse leans down to kiss him. ‘Love you too.’

Luciano kisses him with more intensity than he expects, and he feels his body ignite. It’s late: almost one in the morning on Christmas Day, and Luciano will want to get up early to start on Christmas lunch, but God, he’s not going to say no.

Luciano’s warm body presses against him, already mostly naked. He breaks the kiss and the sight of Luciano panting slightly, eyes dark and wanting, makes warmth stir in his stomach.

Anse pulls him closer and feels hardness against his hipbone. Meanwhile, Luciano’s hands are not idle. They smooth over Anse’s chest, down his stomach and then tug roughly at his boxers. Anse kicks them off as Luciano quickly disposes of his, and then they’re back together, tangled on the mattress, mouths and hands moving and pulling and grabbing.

Luciano pushes Anse onto his back and straddles him, a wicked smile on his face. One of Anse’s hands settles on his hips as the other opens his bedside drawer to blindly search for lube.

The pump bottle rolls out of his grip, and he sits up a little further to grasp it. Just as he does, Anse sees his phone light up.

It’s one-fifteen in the morning, and Daniel is calling him.

‘Is that your brother?’ Luciano asks, his gaze drawn to the flashing phone.

Before Anse can respond, Luciano rolls off him. Anse reluctantly lets go of the lube and reaches for his phone.

‘Daniel, what’s wrong?’ he says. Beside him, Luciano runs his hands over his face in frustration, cock hard between his legs.