“I don’t think your brother liked me,” I suggested to Bianchi.

His English had improved enormously since our last meeting, but he failed to understand what I had said. This, I realised, was how our conversations were going to be. My Italian was considerably worse.

“Lorenzo,” I persisted. “He hated me.”

“Enzo does not like me either,” Bianchi replied. “He says I must change. If I do not, he will make me change.” He paused before adding with a hopeful smile, “Is my English good?”

The memory lingered.

Bianchi’s mother scarcely looked old enough to have three grown children. Her eyes sparkled as she welcomed me into her home. Cinzia had clearly told her about me. Like most of the family, she spoke no English, and Cola translated.

She is delighted that you have come.”

In the background, Lorenzo had made his feelings perfectly clear. As we left the apartment, I glanced back just in time to see him draw a finger slowly across his throat.

We settled in the small courtyard behind Signora Bruschi’s building. Four sun-bleached walls, their peeling ochre and sienna softened by deep green ivy, enclosed the space. Around us drifted the familiar soundtrack of Italy: overlapping conversations spoken in rapid, melodic bursts, punctuated by warm laughter and the rhythmic clink of porcelain spoons against ceramic coffee cups.

Cinzia seemed to interpret my return as a declaration of intent towards Bianchi, who sat casually between us.

“Lorenzo è uno stronzo,” she declared. “He is a complete asshole. Ignore him.”

“I disagree,” Cola interrupted. “Miles must be careful not to antagonise him, otherwise there will be consequences.”

“I do not like the sound of this person,” Signora Bruschi frowned.

For the first time that day I was able to study Bianchi properly.

He was small in stature but lean and athletic. His olive complexion carried the faintest flush across his cheeks, while his pale eyes seemed incapable of hiding emotion. Whenever he spoke, his hands moved instinctively, every gesture as expressive as his words.

Bella figura.

Like many boys his age, he dressed with understated style: dark skinny jeans, immaculate white leather trainers, a pale button-down shirt, and around his neck a simple silver chain from which a small St Christopher medallion occasionally caught the light.

He noticed me watching him.

The unguarded charm of a working-class country boy surfaced immediately. His hand brushed gently against my knee, and the hopeful expression on his face suggested that he was still searching for my approval.

I remained uncertain whether this was a path I truly wanted to follow.

The oppressive heat mirrored the suffocating intensity of obsession.

Much had happened during the past year.

Bianchi was studying sports science at Liceo Scientifico Statale Angelo. He had also found part-time work as a porter at a hotel in Verona. Once school broke for the summer, he would spend the season picking peaches, cherries and kiwi fruit on a large farm before moving into the nearby vineyards for the September grape harvest.

Then Signora Bruschi announced that she would prepare lunch for everyone.

Almost immediately, Cola declared that he and Cinzia were meeting friends later at Pedrotti on Via Venti Settembre.

“But Bianchi will stay here,” he added with a grin. “No doubt he will spend the night with Miles.”

His announcement made it sound as though I had been volunteered to babysit Bianchi, who was still considered too young to spend the evening drinking with the others. Pleasant though it was to be included, I could not escape the feeling that Cola and Cinzia were quietly steering events.

Signora Bruschi immediately crossed herself.

“That will not happen,” she said firmly.

Her reaction caught me by surprise.

Like many Italians, she held deeply rooted Catholic beliefs, yet she had raised no objection when I had lived with Pietro several years earlier. After his death, she had even insisted that his rooms were mine whenever I wished to return.

“Bianchi is welcome to stay,” she continued, “but he must sleep in Cola’s room.”

“Cosa vuoi dire, mamma?”

There was, I had come to realise, a distinctly Veronese form of compromise. Family harmony always came first. Certain realities were quietly accepted, provided nobody spoke about them too openly.

“Bianchi will share a bed with you, Cola.”

“Ma, mamma…”

She folded her hands as though in prayer.

“I must protect both boys,” she said. “Miles is already in a relationship, and I will not allow anything to happen beneath my roof that might threaten that.”

Only then did Bianchi understand.

His shoulders dropped, and the disappointment on his face was impossible to miss. He had lived on memories for an entire year. Now it seemed he would have to keep waiting.

No one had asked for my opinion.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that obsession did not belong to Bianchi alone.

The thought of Cola and Bianchi sharing a bed stirred a jealousy I had never known I possessed. Whatever doubts I still harboured, I suddenly recognised that I regarded Bianchi as mine to lose. Cola, who had no interest whatsoever in Cinzia’s younger brother and would never dream of taking advantage of the arrangement, had nevertheless become the one person standing between us.

Only Cinzia seemed amused.

“Cola,” she teased, “I hope you can survive the smell of Bianchi’s cheap body spray and teenage sweat. Perhaps it would be better if you slept with Miles instead, and Bianchi could have Miles’s bed all to himself.”