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The trouble had started on the ship to Naples. Not two hours out of port it had begun, and Johnny had no one to blame but himself—or the hardheaded kid he’d been, anyway, but whichever way he turned it, it all came back to him. He’d outrun plenty through the course of the race, but then the past had a way of catching up anyhow. And if that’s what it was, only history unwinding in its natural way, he supposed he couldn’t have stopped it even if he’d seen it coming.
And he hadn’t seen it coming. There’d been no warning at all—not when he’d boarded the ship with Gyro, not when they’d dropped their luggage in their cramped sleeping quarters, not when they’d each dispersed into the greater crowd of people mingling above deck. If there’d been any portent of the things to come, it was only that he hadn’t seen or heard Gyro since then, and Gyro was by no means known for an ability to make himself scarce.
Now Johnny stood at the railing of the ship, looking out over the waves, and the steady motion of the blue back-and-forth against the ship lulled him into a traitorous sense of security so that he was entirely unprepared when Gyro finally did reappear. He sidled up next to him, slung a familiar arm over his shoulder, leaned his head against him in a way that more or less ensured he was up to something, and quipped, “See something good out there, JoJo?”
It was a testament to his distaste for the nickname that Johnny’s body reacted before his mind had even processed the words: he tensed, back straight, his hands tightened around the metal railing, and when he spoke, it was through gritted teeth.
“You talking to me?” he said.
“Oh, sorry,” Gyro said, and he looked so perfectly contrite that it must have been an act. “Didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe you like Joe Kid better?”
Johnny remembered distantly that he’d told Gyro about his nicknames once, but it had been a split-second thing, noncommittal and just as soon forgotten. He’d played it expertly then, in his own opinion: revealed it and then put it away with no fanfare, posed just so that it wouldn’t be remembered and so that his incredible embarrassment wouldn’t be registered. So it seemed to him almost cruel that it should be thrown back in his face now. He looked to the sea and considered very briefly its cold embrace.
“Why’re you bringing that up now?” he asked tiredly.
“Oh, no reason,” Gyro replied. He sidestepped away from Johnny with a wide grin on his face, and it was then that Johnny took notice of the rolled up newspaper in his right hand. Gyro followed his line of sight and tilted his head innocently. “Ah, don’t mind that. Just picked it up at a newsstand on the promenade.”
“What kinda trash are you reading now?” Johnny muttered, eyeing the paper suspiciously. He had experience enough to recognize by shape and size alone that this one ran more tabloid than breaking news. He thought disconsolately back to what he’d once believed to be his glory days as the racing world’s rising star and now considered little more than an embarrassing footnote to his personal history. It was his intent to leave it there, forgotten. But then there was no accounting for muckrakers, no more than there was any accounting for Gyro.
“Trash?” Gyro said now, mouth dropped open in an exaggerated display of surprise. “This is news, JoJo—important stuff! And here you are, sullying the good names of those intrepid reporters!”
“I’ve had plenty occasion to meet those ‘intrepid’ reporters. Leeches, more like. You’re just lucky they never got a chance to latch on to you.” Johnny leaned forward and grabbed the paper from Gyro’s hands, done easily enough because he offered no resistance. Johnny knew then part of the game must have been in his seeing the story, just as well as he knew that if he ignored it, Gyro would only find some other way to keep him playing.
Johnny unfurled the paper to examine the damage. The headline was no more or less than he expected: “Racing’s most infamous jockey makes comeback,” it read, and he didn’t need to read further than that to guess as to the rest of the article’s contents. Instead, he stared at the splash photo they’d plastered all over the front page, one of Johnny in his heyday, atop his horse and carrying some trophy or another. He couldn’t even speculate which race that had been—not the Kentucky Derby; he’d have remembered that, at least—but then it had all started to blend together at some point, and he didn’t like to dwell on it. He lowered the paper, and there was Gyro standing before him, still grinning.
“You have a history,” Gyro said.
“Like you don’t,” Johnny countered. For the briefest of moments, he was tempted to read the article and discover which of his exploits they’d seen fit to recount, which dalliance or indiscretion had lit that spark behind Gyro’s eyes. But Johnny thought he’d grown, somewhat, over the course of the Steel Ball Run, and he fooled himself that this newfound maturity put him beyond any of that. Rolling his eyes, he leaned back over the rail of the ship and made a point of very deliberately dropping the paper into the beckoning waves. Gyro brought his hands to his cheeks and gasped, affecting an expression of mock hurt.
“First of all, you’re paying me back for that,” he said, pointing to Johnny. “Second, I already read it, so that was a wasted effort. The damage is done! I know all about you.”
That was an understatement if Johnny had ever heard one. Over the course of the past five months, the two of them may as well have been attached at the hip. They’d shared everything, up to and including a bedroll, and Johnny supposed there was little left to learn. He was entirely unimpressed by Gyro’s pronouncement, and his expression must have reflected that by the way Gyro pouted and crossed his arms.
“You’re really not gonna let me have any fun with this, huh?” Gyro complained. Johnny let his silence speak for his response. Gyro sighed, raised his hands helplessly and shrugged. “Well, alright then. Just remember, JoJo, I gave you a chance.”
That simple surrender ought to have served as warning enough, or if not that then the way Gyro’s lax bearing suddenly took on the minute qualities of alertness, shoulders raised, eyes narrowed, jaw set. Every inch of his countenance suggested scheming, but for all Johnny’s wariness, he lacked the means to untangle the complicated web that was Gyro’s mind. But his eyes seemed to scan the crowd on deck, and when he locked on to his target, Johnny knew it immediately from the look of pure, impish delight that crossed his features.
“Gyro, wait—!” Johnny hissed, at approximately the same time Gyro cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Hey, Mr. Higashikata!”
The elderly Japanese man was clear across the noisy deck, but perhaps in addition to his bizarre navel deformity he’d had some spectacular irregularity in his hearing as well, because at the sound of Gyro’s voice, he turned immediately in their direction. Gyro’s response was to lift a hand and wave him over, and distance proved no obstacle to his sight, either. As Higashikata approached, Johnny took note of the old man’s enigmatic smile and his dread only deepened. Trying to predict Gyro was trial enough; there was no telling what disaster may be brewing now an unknown factor had been thrown into the fray.
His vague sense of doom turned to a more pressing anxiety as he realized that tittering behind the old man was a delicate, pretty young thing that must have been his daughter. She blushed and lowered her head demurely when she noticed Johnny’s staring, and he turned away in embarrassment at having been caught. Her father, at least, had missed the entire exchange, settling comfortably into place next to Gyro.
“Fancy that we’d all be on the same ship,” Norisuke began conversationally, leaning over the rail with his chin resting on his hand. “She’s a fortunate one to carry so many champions, wouldn’t you say?”
At the end of the race, Norisuke had pulled off fourth place, and Gyro and Johnny had been two of the competitors whose higher scores had shunted him there. He looked to them now with a twinkle in his eyes, and Johnny couldn’t tell whether he held it against them or what he might do with that feeling. Johnny struggled to think of a way to address the man without insult; Gyro, in his usual manner, held no such reservations.
“Don’t jinx it,” Gyro warned. Then, “So you’re heading back to Japan, huh?”
“They say there’s no place like home,” Norisuke replied. “Is that where you’re headed?”
“Home? Sure,” Gyro said. “Back to Naples. Figured I should see how they’ve been getting on without me.”
“And you, Mr. Joestar?” Norisuke said, turning to face him fully.
“I just had four months of uninterrupted home,” Johnny replied, and that his tone was more teasing than bitter surprised even himself. “I’m about ready for a change of pace.”
“To each their own.” Still smiling, Norisuke stepped aside and took his daughter’s arm, leading her towards them. “I ought to introduce you now,” he continued. “Gentlemen, this is my daughter, Rina Higashikata. Rina, this is Mr. Zeppeli and Mr. Joestar—both participants in the Steel Ball Run.”
The little woman smiled softly and turned her head down, never making a sound. Rina, whatever her qualities, lacked her father’s boisterous manner, and Johnny instantly liked her for it. He meant to introduce himself more properly, hold out his hand or maybe bow, whichever was the better way for an Eastern lady, but before he could so much as twitch, he felt Gyro’s hand smack his shoulder, and then the fool opened his damn mouth, and Johnny suddenly remembered his earlier unease.
“There’s no need for all that formality, right?” Gyro said. “None of this Mr. Zeppeli, Mr. Joestar stuff. You can call me Gyro, and him—” Gyro pointed to him, that shit-eating grin on his face, and Johnny knew what he was going to say before the words even left his mouth. “—well, he likes to be called JoJo!”
“JoJo?” the little woman said softly, looking up through her long lashes. Red-faced, Johnny began to sputter a denial, but it felt cruel somehow to tell her she was wrong.
“Nice to meet you,” he said weakly, and that was that.
“JoJo, eh?” the elder Higashikata said. “You know, I thought I’d heard that name once or twice. Never would have matched it to you.”
Though the smile did not leave his face, he put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder and very purposefully drew her back toward him—and away from Johnny, who only barely managed not to wince. If he couldn’t deny the stories (because they were likely true), he’d at least have liked to explain himself. But then he couldn’t muster the courage to say a word about it in the presence of a lady like Rina Higashikata.
They spoke a while longer of lighter topics, and Johnny managed to smile through it all. But once they’d gone, so too had Johnny’s restraint. He waited just until the pair were out of sight, and then he turned to Gyro and glared, only more incensed for the pleased look on the man’s face.
“You’re an ass,” Johnny hissed, driving his elbow hard into Gyro’s side. Gyro doubled over, one hand nursing his stomach while the other flung to grasp the handrail for support, but even as he wheezed he managed to laugh. He looked up at Johnny through the curtain of his hair and grinned wider still, so that his obnoxious grills showed bright and golden.
“C’mon, JoJo,” he coughed, “don’t be like that!”
It was wishful thinking to suppose that would be the end of it. Over the course of their acquaintance, Johnny had noticed in Gyro a tendency to adopt and abandon strange whims just as quickly either way, but his warped sense of humor was a thing of its own. Once he’d set himself to a joke, there was no turning him away from it. This was usually the case even when Gyro himself was the only one who found it funny. Still, the entire incident might have been forgotten, if Johnny had only let things be.
Their passage across the sea ended when they disembarked from the ship in the early afternoon to an already bustling port town. They didn’t linger long. Once they’d collected Slow Dancer and Valkyrie, they saddled up, and Gyro led Johnny to the outskirts of the town, toward a roving countryside and what seemed like endless fields and hills and cottages. There were old, worn roads winding through the land, and it was those they followed away from the lively city and into a territory no more or less familiar to Johnny. They rode on even as the sun began its descent in the sky. Johnny found himself constantly distracted by the strangeness of the scenery; Gyro paid it no mind.
“Keep up, Johnny,” he said, when Johnny stopped for the umpteenth time to inspect some new bird, or tree, or the shape of a mountain in the distance. “We’ve got kind of a ways to go.”
“Where are we going?” Johnny asked absentmindedly. (Though later, he would note that he’d still been ‘Johnny’ at that point.)
“Home,” Gyro muttered, and then he was quiet. When Johnny realized the uncommon occurrence and looked to him, he found him staring impassively off to the distance. Johnny opened his mouth to speak, but then Gyro glanced at him sidelong, and some of the fog had lifted from his expression. “We’re going home. Don’t worry, I got a plan.”
Johnny narrowed his eyes.
“I wasn’t worried ’til just now,” he said. “What do you mean, you got a plan? What do you need a plan for? Don’t you already have a place here?”
“Of course I do!” Gyro protested. “I mean, in theory. In practice...well, I guess you could say it’s more like my family’s place.”
“But you told them I was coming, right?” The question was met with a palpable silence. Johnny was almost certain he knew the answer when he hesitantly asked, “Alright, but you at least told them you were coming?”
Gyro looked away again, biting his lower lip, which had begun to curve into one of the most disconcerting non-smiles Johnny had ever seen. “The old man loves surprises,” he said, only the flat inflection of his voice indicated the reverse to be true. Johnny gripped Slow Dancer’s reins a little tighter and grit his teeth.
“So what exactly is your plan?” he asked.
“Y’know, it almost sounds like you don’t trust me.”
“Oh, come off it. I followed you this far, didn’t I?” Which was really a more diplomatic way of saying, No, not really, but it never stopped me before. Gyro was quiet for a moment before he leaned over Valkyrie’s side and spat on the ground, and then he straightened in her saddle and whistled brightly. He turned to face Johnny and his grin had twisted once again into something sharper, almost mean. There was that troublesome glint in his eye.
“Relax, JoJo,” he drawled.
“I told you not to call me that!”
Gyro waved his hand and continued airily, “Everything’s gonna be fine. So what if they don’t know we’re coming? It’ll be a surprise! My parents are gonna love you—hell, who wouldn’t be excited to meet ‘racing’s most infamous jockey’ in person?”
“Quit fucking with me,” Johnny muttered, though there’d been a brief moment of panic before he’d realized what a patently ridiculous claim that was. “There’s no way those stories made it all the way over here!” But then that had been a mistake too, opening his fool mouth, because all it’d done was gotten Gyro started on one of those creepy laughs of his.
“Nyoho!” Gyro exclaimed, releasing Valkyrie’s reins long enough to clap his hands together in delight. “So you do know about the stories! Come on, which ones were true? They can’t all be, right? How about the one with the three girls at the track down in Louisville, or the one about the bordello in Salinas? Oh! Or that one on the train, that one had to be made up, right? Like, just from an anatomical perspective, no girl could fit that many—”
“We ain’t talking about this!” Johnny hissed, face burning.
“Well, I just think that’s the sort of thing I ought to know,” Gyro said sweetly, the very picture of innocence. “Considering I’m bringing you home to meet the family and all. I’m just trying to preserve my honor.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
But no amount of rebuke could dissuade Gyro from his new game, and for the rest of the journey, Johnny found himself with no choice but to endure the teasing—he couldn’t make Gyro stop talking, and he couldn’t very well take off on his own in an unfamiliar country. He thanked his lucky stars that the roads were deserted, at least, so the one-sided conversation could be kept between the two of them.
Gyro was still babbling away when they came upon the Zeppeli estate just before evening, the sun burning bright in the sky and casting their shadows long behind them. The cottage comprising the living quarters, it turned out, was set well beyond the fence that marked the homestead’s entrance, and Gyro offered only a moment’s hesitation before he urged Valkyrie toward it. That split second was warning enough to Johnny, however, that he was likely not approaching a warm homecoming. Gyro was uncharacteristically silent as they tied their horses to a post up front before making their way to the house proper.
Gyro stood before the front door and raised his fist as if to knock, then stopped. He withdrew his hand, paused, and then after a moment reached up to remove his hat, which he stuffed haphazardly under his left arm. Seemingly contented, he proceeded to rap twice on the door, and the greeting was returned by a low, feminine voice softly calling out something in what Johnny figured must have been Neapolitan—had to figure, because he couldn’t understand a word of it. But when the door was opened and a petite, sharp-faced woman stepped through it, he felt safe in assuming this was Gyro’s mother. There was just enough resemblance between them, and a spark in her expression at the sight of him standing there that suggested close relation. Her eyes went big for just a moment and then narrowed as she regained her bearings, the only remaining evidence of her surprise the set of her mouth just a little too taut.
She spoke again, something succinct, and Gyro replied in that lilting tongue Johnny had so rarely heard him use. Then the little woman stepped back and gestured them inside. A fraction of the tension went out of Gyro’s shoulders as he stepped past the threshold, and then he turned to Johnny and nodded his head, an instruction to follow. So Johnny did, offering Gyro’s mother a quick nod as he passed her by and trying not to shudder at the inscrutable look she directed his way.
Just past the door was an old wooden table, and Gyro immediately sat down in one of the chairs, carelessly dropping his traveling bag on the floor beside him. Johnny followed suit awkwardly as Gyro’s mother stopped at the head of the table and began trilling at them again in words he couldn’t understand. It went on for a time, the two of them exchanging words, until the woman turned to Johnny and began addressing him directly. Then, finally, Gyro took pity.
“He doesn’t know what you’re saying,” Gyro said, in English, with a casual air that implied he didn’t much care whether Johnny was able to follow the conversation.
“Ah,” his mother said, “I do apologize, Mr. …?”
“Joestar. Johnny Joestar,” Johnny supplied. She offered him a polite incline of her head, and Johnny reached back to long-ago memories of family gatherings and debutante balls and struggled to recollect the proper way to greet a lady in her home (when she hadn’t expected you, couldn’t possibly know who you were or why you’d come). Belatedly, he thought to remove his hat, and after an embarrassing amount of time managed to say, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”
“Just call him JoJo, ma,” Gyro said. She favored her son with a curious look, but before she’d said anything else—and before Johnny had the chance to correct him—Gyro interrupted, “Anyway, where’s dad?”
“He ought to be home any minute,” Gyro’s mother replied in near-perfect English. Johnny supposed Gyro must have learned it somewhere. “He had a surgery scheduled this afternoon.”
“Just my luck,” Gyro said dully. “Maybe I should have told him I was coming—could’ve given him the pleasure of knowing he’d missed me on purpose.”
The pronouncement was met by a long silence, and Johnny made note of the fact that his mother failed to dispute the assertion. Perhaps an hour later, he made note again that the statement seemed wholly appropriate for the man who walked through the door, took one look at his wayward son, and spared not so much as a greeting to acknowledge his return. Instead, Gregorio Zeppeli hung his hat and coat on a rack near the door, turned to his wife, and asked, “Have you started dinner yet?”
“I thought I’d wait for you,” she replied cryptically. Testing the waters, perhaps.
“I see.” Gregorio paused then, and this time when his gaze passed over the table before returning to his wife, he allowed it to linger a moment longer. “We may as well feed them, too.” That was all the greeting Gyro received from the father he hadn’t seen in nearly a year...and for the first time since they’d left port in New York, Johnny felt at home. But then, he’d left home for a reason. He felt the urge to say something, thought to how his own father would have reacted, and kept his mouth shut. Gyro, meanwhile, displayed as much restraint as he ever had.
“Good to see you too, old man,” he grumbled. Gregorio turned to him, a look somewhere between warning and surprise in his expression. Stern-faced and silent, he walked to the table, pulled out the chair across from Gyro, and sat down. After a long moment, he brought his hand up to his chin and tilted his head consideringly.
“You left this place without a word,” Gregorio said, “but you think I ought to dole them out now you’ve returned?”
“Well, I’m back whether you want to say ‘hello’ or not.” Gyro shrugged. “Guess I just figured you’d have something to say to your oldest son and heir to your name.”
“I’d say you’ve made quite a name for yourself as it is,” his father replied, though whatever feeling laced his tone lacked any warmth of pride.
‘Cold’ wasn’t quite right either, as it turned out. In Gyro’s family was a precarious calm, a disaffection so masterful it came out only as a matter of course, impersonal in such a way that one couldn’t truly take offense to it. There was no comfort and no coolness. In a peculiar way, there was nothing. This realization had come to Johnny within minutes of meeting the Zeppelis, and he had cause to wonder how Gyro—flamboyant, hardheaded (and selfless, and loyal) Gyro—had managed to burst his way out of those beginnings. But he was cool in his own way, and he showed no reaction to his father’s disinterest.
“News already made it here then, huh?” Gyro said. He grinned. “Guess that saves me the trouble of spreading it around, anyway.” He reached to the bag he’d thrown on the ground and lifted from it a sack of coins, a small portion of his winnings from the race. He tossed it on the table, where it landed with a jangling thud. Gregorio looked to it and Johnny thought he’d never seen a man display such distaste for proffered wealth.
“What is this?” he said.
“I brought home a lot more than fame,” Gyro said with a sly grin. He opened the bag and let the shine of the coins spill out to the table. His father stared at him silently, offering no reaction. “Don’t think this is all of it, but I got other plans for the rest. This part’s for you, though. I’m buying my inheritance early. I want that part of the estate out back, where I used to ride when I was a kid.”
“The barn?”
“And the house. I’ll fix it up.”
Gregorio regarded him calmly, and then he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You really mean to buy a portion of the family estate?”
“I’m part of the family,” Gyro said simply, and at his statement Gregorio’s eyes passed by Johnny and the judgment directed thereby was palpable. I’m not a part of any of this, Johnny wanted to say, a paltry attempt at his own defense spurred on by the acidic glare, but he’d no desire to insert himself into another family’s disagreements. Now, Gyro and Gregorio stood at odds over the proposed deal, and as plans went, this one had played itself out terribly (which in Johnny’s opinion fairly cemented it as having sprung from Gyro’s mind). He was thankfully spared any further discomfort by the tonal shift in Gregorio’s next words.
“Are you?” he said, considering. He paused, glanced again at the coins. “Very well, then. This is your down payment. You’ll work off the rest at the hospital.”
Gyro said nothing for a long moment, and Johnny registered with surprise that he appeared to have been stunned to silence. He thought he saw Gyro’s mouth drop open for a split second, almost too exaggerated to be genuine, but comedic timing had never been his forte. Finally, Gyro sneered and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed—unintentionally, perhaps, creating the mirror image of his father.
“The land’s not worth that much,” Gyro said. “Besides, who ever said I was going back to the hospital?”
“It’s the Zeppeli family business, and you’re a Zeppeli once more,” Gregorio said, and Gyro flinched, and Johnny very deliberately chose not to question the former portion of that statement. Better to think it true for now, anyway. “I suppose your...guest will be staying as well?”
“Suppose so,” Gyro muttered. He brightened somewhat. “Right, JoJo?”
“It’s Johnny,” he protested, but then Gregorio looked at him oddly and he was belatedly reminded of his decision to keep his mouth shut. He nodded in Gregorio’s general direction and said awkwardly, “Johnny Joestar, that is. Good to meet you, sir.”
“You don’t gotta be formal with the old man; just let him call you JoJo,” Gyro said with a snort. Gregorio narrowed his eyes and suddenly Johnny wasn’t sure which of them was being mocked.
“Johnny, then,” Gregorio repeated with finality. In the simple statement Johnny found a hint of solidarity, the first in a long while, and he thought with a united front he might really put a stop to the nickname.
And then Gyro’s mother poked her head out of the kitchen, smiled kindly, and said, “How do you take your tea, JoJo?”
The particulars of the transaction escaped Johnny, but Gyro did get his land. There was a home on the estate already built, though evidently not inhabited for some time. The dilapidated structure was no discouragement to Johnny, nor to Gyro, he suspected, as they’d both endured far less hospitable shelters during the race with no complaint. Most importantly, there was a barn, and great open land for running, and if Slow Dancer had a home then Johnny honestly supposed he didn’t much care about the state of his own.
It wasn’t too great a struggle to bring the place back to living conditions anyway. It was up to standard if not glamorous by the end of their second week living there, though the work required to accomplish that status demanded most of their time. During that work, the two of them had taken to talking to stave off boredom.
“Y’know, it might not be so bad if I knew what they were saying about me,” Johnny said, the words distorted somewhat by the nail held between his teeth. He narrowed his eyes at the board laid out before him—his measurements were off, so that it was too large to fit with the piece already nailed down. That was the third one he’d gotten wrong so far. He’d thought it would be an experience, re-flooring the kitchen of the old house they’d taken up in, a sort of way to make it more his own. It was proving more to be an exercise in frustration.
“Oh, it’s all good things,” Gyro replied from the doorway to the porch, where he’d so far managed to pry off the rusted hinges of the old door but failed to make much progress with the new. “Trust me, they love you.”
“I don’t trust a damn thing you say,” Johnny countered. He spit the nail into his palm, pushed away the offending board, and pointed an accusing finger at Gyro. “You’re the one what got ’em calling me that stupid name in the first place. Who knows what else you’re teaching them?”
“It’s a big brother’s job to teach!”
Before coming to Naples, Johnny had known only in an offhand way that Gyro was the eldest son of his family, that there were other Zeppeli spawn flitting about the Italian peninsula. Now they’d gone to great lengths to make themselves known, and Johnny could scarcely step foot outside the confines of his own home without one or more of them swarming him like flies, babbling away in their own tongue, and the only part of it Johnny understood at all was their form of address: JoJo.
But it was a minor complaint, at the heart of it. Soon enough, he had greater things to concern himself with.
Even after all the major work on the house had been completed, he’d taken to renovations while Gyro was at the hospital. He’d begun by using materials found around the estate and later (with considerable struggle, given the language barrier) through haggling with local vendors. The trouble now was that he’d nearly run out of things to improve, and once he finished with his brief stint as a handyman, he had no idea how he was meant to occupy his time. Somehow, the thought of his future hadn’t quite crossed his mind before he’d left the States. Now, it loomed like a specter, and in his ever-increasing free time, his thoughts drifted more and more in that direction.
He brought it up almost casually at dinner one night, resting his chin in one hand and using the other to idly poke at the meal before him.
“I never really got any schooling past the eighth grade,” he explained. “By then, it was all about racing for me—I never thought I’d need anything else. Anyway, even if I’d have gotten a real education, it’s not like it’d do me much good here. I still can’t really say anything besides ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and I guess ‘where’s the bathroom’ has come in handy once or twice.” And then there’d been a few curse words Gyro had thought it funny to teach him, but those were unlikely to benefit him in the career department.
“You don’t learn a new language overnight,” Gyro said. “Give it time.”
“I got too much time. That’s the whole problem.”
“There are worse problems to have.” He said it offhand, airily, as he stabbed enthusiastically at his dinner. Mouth full, he mumbled, “Well, I’ll think of something.”
“What kinda something?” Johnny said suspiciously.
Gyro swallowed loudly, then grinned. “Won’t know ’til I think of it, JoJo.”
So then Johnny had the pleasure of worrying not only for his long-term prospects in this country but for whatever Gyro supposed they ought to be. This anxiety was short-lived, for the very next day—not a full 24 hours since their conversation—his intentions were made clear by a pair of strangers who wandered blank-faced onto the property in the early afternoon, a man and woman entirely average in every way but that they’d thought to approach the foreigner on the Zeppeli estate. Johnny watched them from the porch with equal parts caution and curiosity. He wondered if perhaps they’d gotten lost.
But then they saw him standing there, and their ambling changed to a swift walk, and they were much too focused on him for their intent to be confused. As they approached, Johnny saw the uncertainty in their expressions, and though he smiled at them, the worry hadn’t gone from their faces at all by the time they stood before him. They looked almost embarrassed.
“We’re looking for JoJo,” the man said, wringing his hat in his hands. Johnny stared at him suspiciously as he attempted to work out who this man was and what he might want. The heavily accented English suggested he was local, as did his attire and the fact he’d thought to drag his wife on this excursion (and the poor woman still wouldn’t look his way)—so, not a fan and not a reporter, which left exactly one possibility.
“Well, I’m Johnny,” he said. “Close enough?”
The man paused, looked up from his fumbling hands. He studied Johnny carefully for a moment, and then he smiled brightly.
“No, you’re JoJo!” he declared, pointing to Johnny’s head. “That’s the hat, the one with the horseshoe. The doctor said you’d be wearing it!”
“The doctor, huh,” Johnny repeated, fighting back his annoyance. These were the first of his neighbors to approach him directly, and he supposed it wouldn’t do to yell them off his property—besides which, he hadn’t established himself quite so well in the region that he would risk an altercation. Anyway, he reasoned this man was as much a victim of Gyro’s prank as himself. “So Gyro Zeppeli sent you?”
“Yes, the doctor,” the man said, nodding with relief. “He said, go to the old house, that’s where you’ll be.” In taking in his surroundings, the man whistled appreciatively. “But you know, it doesn’t look so old anymore!”
“Ah, thanks,” Johnny said, taken aback. “We’ve been working on it awhile now.”
“And it’s fine work, too.” He looked as if he were about to say more, but he was interrupted by a brisk cough at his side, and then his wife leaned toward him and whispered harshly.
“Ask him about the lessons,” she urged.
“I’m only being polite—”
“But the lessons—”
“Lessons?” Johnny interrupted. He crossed his arms and sighed. “Folks, what exactly did the doc tell you?”
The man scratched his head. “Well, he says you’re good with the—with the—” He paused, evidently struggling to recall the word, until he saw Slow Dancer grazing nearby and pointed to her excitedly. “The horses! He says you ride them. Our son needs to learn. You’ll teach him?”
Teach him? The words rang in Johnny’s mind but failed to find any foothold. He was no instructor; he couldn’t recall ever having been properly taught himself. And besides which, he had no affinity for children. But the strangers would suffer none of his protest. “Listen, I don’t know about—”
“We’ll pay a fair price!” the man said. “And ours is a good boy, JoJo—quick to learn.”
“It’s Johnny,” Johnny repeated, privately mulling over the irony that if this couple knew the reputation behind the name, they’d have been begging to keep him away from any impressionable young minds. “I’ve never had a student before.”
The couple turned to each other a moment in silence, and then began a rapid-fire exchange in their own language, the content of which Johnny couldn’t begin to guess at based on the series of expressions which crossed their faces: confusion, consternation, consideration. Finally, the man turned back to Johnny.
“Well, he’s never had a teacher, either,” he said.
And that, apparently, was that. Finding no other reason to turn them away—and with a vague certainty that they would tire of him before long—Johnny accepted their proposal and told them to bring their son by the following afternoon to begin his lessons. Most likely, he supposed, they would discover their blunder within a few days and realize this was a wasted venture. Even in the worst-case scenario, Johnny couldn’t become more of an outcast here than he already was.
But then the next day arrived, and their son took to riding such that Johnny’s lack of teaching aptitude didn’t seem much to matter. He was a quick learner, Johnny discovered, and his parents were pleased at his progress. So pleased, in fact, that they began to send other students his way.
Then, although the exact circumstances of which escaped Johnny’s understanding, he had somehow become an accepted installation throughout the region as a horseback riding instructor. Though their conversation remained stilted and juvenile, the hesitation that once his neighbors had reserved for him had disappeared. He might have counted it a blessing, if they’d come to know him by any name but the one they (or, more likely, Gyro) had chosen.
Before long it seemed he was under assault by a litany of voices chanting the name—“JoJo, could you take on one more student?” “JoJo, the horse isn’t listening to me!” “JoJo, have you and the doctor got any flour to spare? We’ve run out at our place.”
And while the greater portion of him held no love for the name, the remainder of him could muster no anger nor resentment for the sentiment contained therein. He learned to tolerate it if not to love it, and that, he supposed, was well enough.
But even Johnny had his limits.
He could handle the children parroting the nickname day in and day out; it was almost charming coming from their high-pitched, carefree voices. He could handle it from the neighbors and townsfolk; they couldn’t know his history and therefore couldn’t mean any harm. He could even handle it from Gyro on most occasions now, if only for the sake of denying him the satisfaction of a reaction.
He could handle it from Gyro on most occasions.
Lying naked in bed, with his legs wrapped around Gyro’s hips and Gyro’s hands curled in his hair, was not one of those occasions. Johnny had halfway lost himself just to the feel of him when Gyro leaned down over him. Johnny’s eyes shuttered closed, and there was the sensation of Gyro’s stubble grazing against his cheek as he lowered his mouth to Johnny’s ear.
He whispered, “Say, JoJo, how do I compare to all those other girls?”
Johnny stilled. He breathed deeply once, twice. Pressed so closely together, Johnny felt Gyro’s laughter before he heard it, breaking through in short tremors, and in that quick moment between, he’d thought only, Oh, this again. The cruelest part of it all, he thought dryly, was that it caught him completely by surprise. He’d assumed, for some foolish reason, that Gyro must have known him well enough by now to know when he’d gone too far.
He’d assumed too much.
As evenly as he could, he said, “Gyro, I’ll give you one warning. I want you to think real carefully about the next words out of your mouth.”
Gyro broke away from him, held him at an arm’s length, and grinned, all teeth. One look, and Johnny knew he hadn’t listened. He sighed and drew an arm up over his eyes in exasperation as Gyro continued, singsong,“C’mon, have a little heart, JoJo! I just wanna make sure this isn’t, like, a casual fling for you. ’Cause, you know, I’ve heard that’s kind of your thing, but I don’t want you thinking I’m easy or nothing.”
“Gyro, for fuck’s sake—” Johnny opened his eyes solely for the sake of glaring at him, and Gyro batted his eyes demurely.
“I don’t wanna be just another notch in your belt, you know?”
Johnny, hastily considering his own needs, weighed his options and decided the most expedient and least painful route through all of this was just to play along. He sighed and motioned to Gyro above him tiredly. “Yea, Gyro, I abandoned my home, my country, and the only job I ever knew for a casual hookup. You really are that good a lay. Now can we get on with it?”
Gyro stared at him in silence a long moment, still grinning, and Johnny could very nearly see the wheels turning in his head.
“That’s awful romantic,” Gyro said at last. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to contain myself after that heartfelt confession.”
“Then don’t,” Johnny replied, frustrated, emphasizing his point by tightening his grip on his waist and grinding against him. The motion prompted a result entirely the opposite of what he’d intended.
“Oh, JoJo, take me now!” Gyro pitched in a high falsetto, before devolving into a fit of equally girlish giggles. Very quickly, Johnny realized two things: the first was that it was almost impressive how quickly any remaining trace of arousal deserted him, rather akin to having had a bucket of cold water dumped over his head. The second was that for all the growing up he’d tried to do, there was a bit of JoJo left in him. Now all he could think was that if he couldn’t get what he wanted, he could damn well get even.
His fury tempered, he smirked and waited, slow and careful, until Gyro’s laughter had died down to quiet. Then, basking in the seed of the plan that had come to him, he reached up and stroked Gyro’s face gently, throwing him off-balance just long enough for Johnny to shift his weight and flip their positions, so that he had Gyro pinned beneath him. He leaned down and kissed him quickly, lightly.
He drew back and tilted his head, taking in the confused smile on Gyro’s face and the way it morphed to wariness as Johnny trailed his hand down his chest to his hips. He continued till he’d taken hold of him, and then, stroking him gently, leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek. In his best imitation of what had been done to him, he brought his lips to Gyro’s ear and whispered, “Shut the fuck up, Julius.”
Except—except that he’d meant it as a joke, but as the nickname had done to Johnny, Gyro’s true name had inspired an equal and opposite reaction. There was no denying the way he stilled beneath him, his sharp intake of breath, the way he unconsciously bucked into Johnny’s hand and suddenly Johnny realized he’d not just gotten his revenge, he’d struck absolute gold. He froze without meaning to, his hand dropping back down to his side.
For what seemed like a very long time, he only stared at Gyro, who looked back at him with a sort of helpless reverence, face flushed, panting. Then—
“Again,” Gyro moaned, and then he reached up and his mouth was on Johnny’s lips, his jawline, his neck, unrelenting and ravenous and in between each touch a desperate plea, “Again, c’mon, Johnny, say it again—”
And there was a very childish part of Johnny that almost denied him the satisfaction, but the sensation quickly overtook him and without quite realizing it, he repeated the name, began reciting it almost like a prayer, because hell if he’d forgotten why he’d done it in the first place, but he had the feeling he’d won himself a little something of heaven.
Then they’d both been lost, and it wasn’t until after that Johnny really got to thinking about it. Once he was spent, Gyro rolled off of him and turned to his side, his back facing Johnny. He was silent long enough that Johnny finally took it for the petulance it was meant to be. Johnny sighed and rolled his eyes before realizing his efforts were wasted if Gyro wouldn’t so much as look at him anyway.
“What’s your problem?” he muttered, feeling more than fairly satisfied himself.
“That wasn’t fair,” Gyro mumbled into his pillow. “You’re not fair. That’s...that’s cheating.”
“Not my fault you came undone like that, Julius. And anyway, you had it coming.” Johnny snorted, stretching languidly in their bed. “Shit, you weren’t joking about being easy.”
“I thought you were a nice boy,” Gyro continued disconsolately. “I only told you my name ’cause I thought I could trust you. You weren’t supposed to use it against me.” He sighed loudly, rolled over to his back and brought his hand up to his forehead, palm-out, like some swooning Southern Belle. “But I should have known.” He looked sideways to Johnny, lips twitching in a barely suppressed grin on his face, and Johnny struggled to keep from laughing himself. Gyro pointed an accusing finger at him and said, “You know, they tell stories about you, JoJo—you’re a real heartbreaker, they say. They say you run through lovers like it’s a marathon. They say you’ll sow your oats in any field. ‘Don’t trust that JoJo,’ they say—”
“Keep it up, asshole,” Johnny said. “Just you watch: I’ll never say it again.”
A beat of silence, and then: “Bet I could make you.”
Humor narrowly beat out the call of sleep, and instead of yawning, Johnny hummed softly as his eyes drifted shut of their own accord. “Like to see you try,” he said.
Gyro wrapped his arms around Johnny and pressed himself close, his lips to the back of Johnny’s neck. Johnny thought he felt his smile when he replied, “Count on it, JoJo.”