The Boy in the Garden

The clink of weights and low grunt of someone finishing a set faded as I pushed through the heavy door of the weight room. My shirt clung to my back, the damp fabric cooling in patches where the air hit it. My lungs still worked in short pulls, but it wasn’t the burn of the workout that had my head spinning.

It was him.

The boy from the garden.

I’d been moving through my sets on autopilot, muscles firing on memory alone, because my mind kept drifting back to the way he’d looked sitting under the wisteria. Sketchbook balanced on one knee, pencil moving like it was following something only he could see. That kind of focus you want turned on you.

The locker room was quiet when I stepped in, the hum of the vending machine filling the space between the faint drip of a showerhead somewhere down the row. The smell was a mix of soap, sweat, and the faint chemical bite of disinfectant. My sneakers squeaked once on the tile before I stopped in front of my locker.

I twisted the lock open, the metal warm under my fingers, and swung the door wide. For a moment, I just stood there, letting the cool air from the vents wash over my skin. My shoulders were tight, every movement reminding me of the strain I’d put on them, but under that there was something else; a restless hum that had nothing to do with the weights.

The garden came back to me in a rush; the boy sitting under the wisteria, sketchbook balanced on one knee, eyes flicking up just long enough to catch mine before darting away again. That look had been circling me all day, sharp enough to cut through the ache in my muscles. I felt myself swell just from replaying it, my cock thickening against the cling of damp fabric. By the time I reached for the hem of my shirt, I was already half-hard, the thought of him enough to drag me there without a single touch.

I peeled my shirt off, the fabric sticking to me before coming free with a quiet rip of separation. It landed on the bench in a damp heap. My hands moved automatically to my shorts, sliding them down along with my underwear until both pooled around my ankles. The air hit the sweat still clinging to my thighs, cool enough to make goosebumps rise along my skin.

In the narrow reflection of the locker door, I caught a glimpse of myself; hair damp and curling against my forehead, a flush high across my cheekbones, chest still rising and falling like I hadn’t quite left the workout behind. But my eyes… they looked like they belonged to someone thinking about something; someone.

The showers were already steaming, white tendrils curling into the air like breath in cold weather. I padded across the tile, the sound of my steps swallowed by the hiss of running water. I picked the stall at the far end, turned the handle, and stepped under.

The first burst of heat made me hiss through my teeth, shoulders tightening before the warmth started to sink in. Water beat against my back and streamed down my arms, tracing over the ridges of muscle still tight from lifting. I braced one palm against the tile, letting my head tip forward until the spray ran over my neck.

That’s when he came back to me; sharper this time.

I didn’t even know his name, but the image was complete. Legs stretched out on the bench, one ankle hooked over the other. That lazy, precise way he sketched, like every line mattered but he wasn’t in a hurry to find the end of it. And those eyes; steady, curious, almost unsure of what they were looking for, but locked on me like they might have found it.

My hand slid over my chest, following the rivulets down my stomach. Lower.

The thought of him; his mouth pulling into that half-smile, the flick of his gaze up and away like he didn’t want me to see he was watching; tightened something low in my stomach. My fingers curled around my cock, the heat of my hand mingling with the steady pour from above. I stroked once, slow. Then again. The rhythm found me without thinking.

The water poured over my shoulders, slicking my skin, dripping down to mix with the precum already gathering at the tip. My grip firmed, my palm sliding wet and hot along the length of me. I let out a low breath, the sound swallowed by the roar of the shower.

But it wasn’t the water I heard. In my head it was the scratch of his pencil, the soft hitch of breath when he looked up from his page. I pictured his eyes holding mine too long, his mouth parted like he wanted to say something but didn’t.

I stroked again, harder this time, my hips canting forward into the motion. The image sharpened; his lips, the dark sweep of his lashes, the way his fingers moved quick and certain across paper. I imagined them on me instead, wrapped tight around my cock, stroking in perfect rhythm with mine.

“Fuck…” I whispered, the word pulled out of me as my hand worked faster, my body angling into the stream of water, chasing the heat building low and heavy in my gut.

My head tipped back against the tile, eyes shut tight, the fantasy blurring into sensation. I could see his smirk, feel the weight of his gaze on me. My hips thrust into my fist, chasing it harder, the sound of skin-on-skin faint under the shower’s roar.

I was right there, trembling on the edge of it, when—

Footsteps. Quick, flat slaps of rubber soles on wet tile.

I froze, breath caught in my chest.

A guy from the weight room walked past, towel slung over one shoulder, whistling something tuneless. He didn’t look my way, just grabbed his things and pushed through the door. The slam echoed off the tile.

I let go, hand falling to my side, heart still racing. The water kept running, washing heat and sweat and something else down the drain. My cock was still hard. Still aching for release. I stayed there until the steam blurred the edges of everything; his face, the memory, the want; just enough to make me feel like I could walk out without giving myself away.

By the time I made it across campus, the afternoon heat had settled into something heavy and slow. Rome had this way of holding sunlight like it didn’t want to give it back, every stone and brick radiating warmth hours after the sun had climbed past them.

The garden at AUR sat tucked away behind an iron gate, more a pocket of quiet than a real escape. The wisteria draped low over the pergola, its purple blooms fading at the edges but still fragrant, the air thick with them.

I hadn’t been looking for him; not out loud, anyway; but I still caught myself scanning the benches as I stepped inside. And there he was.

Same bench. Same sketchbook.

He sat with one leg stretched out, the other bent, foot hooked under the bench. The light caught on the edge of his jaw, on the curl of hair that fell forward when he looked down at the page. His pencil moved in lazy, deliberate strokes, like whatever he was drawing didn’t mind waiting for him to get it right.

I slowed, pretending to check my phone like I hadn’t already zeroed in on him. The leftover steam from my shower was long gone, but something about seeing him again lit up the same low thrum in my chest.

“Hey,” I said, my voice a little lower than I meant it to be.

He looked up, and for a second I wondered if he’d even remember me from the other day; the quick glance, the nod. But then that small, private smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Hey,” he echoed, pencil still poised above the page.

I stepped closer, the gravel under my shoes crunching in the quiet. “Mind if I sit?”

He tilted his head toward the open space beside him. “It’s a public bench,” he said, but there was warmth in it; an invitation disguised as a shrug.

Up close, I could see what he was working on. Lines that curved into arches, shadows sketched in light hatching. It wasn’t finished, but I knew the shape; the edge of the pergola above us, the sweep of the garden path.

“Looks good,” I said.

He smirked, eyes flicking up at me from under his lashes. “It’s not done.”

There was a pause then, not awkward, just… aware. The kind where you feel like someone’s looking at you even when their eyes are on the page. I wondered what it would be like to have that focus all to myself, without the sketchbook in between.

“I’m Caleb,” I said, breaking it before it could swallow me whole.

“Marco.” He didn’t offer his hand, just said it like it was enough. And somehow, it was.

For a moment, he went back to sketching. The pencil scratched lightly over the paper, his wrist moving in small arcs. I watched his eyes flick between the page and the pergola above us, the same steady rhythm as before.

“You always draw out here?” I asked.

“Only when the light’s good,” he said, without looking up. Then his mouth twitched. “And when the company’s interesting.”

I felt my eyebrows lift. “I’m not sure I count that as company. We’ve barely talked.”

Now he looked at me, and there was something in his gaze that made my stomach dip; amused, a little assessing, like he was weighing whether to say what was on his mind. “You sat down, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“Then that’s company.”

The air between us shifted. It wasn’t heavy, exactly, but it had that charged stillness I’d felt in the showers earlier; the kind that made you aware of where your hands were, of how close someone’s knee was to yours.

Marco tapped the end of his pencil against the paper and glanced toward me again. “So, Caleb… are you going to let me keep guessing what you’re studying, or are you going to tell me?”

I smirked despite myself. “Guess.”

His eyes swept over me, slow enough that I could feel it. “Something detail-oriented,” he said finally. “You look like the type who notices things.”

It was nothing, just a throwaway observation; but the way he said it, low and sure, made it feel like he was talking about more than my classes. I held his gaze a beat too long, and when he smiled, it felt like he knew exactly what he’d done.

“International Relations and Global Politics,” I said, answering his earlier question. “Not exactly sketchbook material.”

Marco’s eyebrows lifted like that told him something about me. “So you’re here to study the world while you’re in the middle of it.”

“I guess you could say that.”

He let the pencil rest across the page and looked at me like he was fitting pieces together. “Where’s home?”

“Small town in Iowa,” I said, and instantly felt the tug of distance; cornfields, flat roads, the smell of rain before it hit. “About as far from Rome as you can get, in every way that matters.”

A slow grin pulled at his mouth. “Iowa,” he repeated, like he was testing it. “That’s what I’m calling you from now on.”

“Iowa?” I echoed.

“Mm-hm.” He tapped the pencil against his temple, as if locking it in. “Fits.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked it, but the way it sounded in his voice made my skin feel warmer than the sun on my back. “Right. Well, thanks for the… nickname?”

“Anytime, Iowa.”

I stood, brushing a bit of gravel dust from my shorts. “I should head back to my apartment. Got reading to do.”

“Of course you do,” he said, eyes back on his sketchbook.

I’d made it halfway down the path toward the gate when his voice carried after me. “Hey, Iowa.”

I turned.

Marco was watching me now, elbow propped on the back of the bench, pencil loose in his hand. That smirk again; slow, knowing.

“You ever had gelato?”

TO BE CONTINUED…