Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.
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The hot Italian neighbor that Antonio peeps at every evening coming back from football practice is a writer of the failed quality, or so his mother says. "The poor soul's the type that writes a single book that shows up on the radar and then never appears again," she tells him as she chops onions in the kitchen and he watches her sitting backwards in a chair and ignoring her when she tells him to run along and do his lessons. She proceeds to drop a title Antonio has never heard of. "The last I heard, he had a brother who made it pretty well in the underground art scene in the city, so I guess he has a right to be jaded."
The way Antonio peeps is this: he passes the hot Italian neighbor on his way to the entrance of their apartment complex and always around the time he returns, which is about six fifteen in the evening, the hot Italian neighbor will be sitting on the fire escape, legs dangling down toward the street barefoot, smoking a cigarette and typing idly on a laptop. He'll risk the secondhand smoke but he knows the brand of cigarettes by smell. His mother asks him not to run but he jumps out of his shoes at the door and rushes to his bedroom to continue staring at his neighbor with fascination. The way his window is angled, he can crane his neck and catch a glimpse of green eyes.
One evening his mother leaves his windows open because it's hot and Antonio leans out his window anyway, shamelessly, eyes glittering. "Hasn't your mother told you it's rude to stare," the hot Italian neighbor asks, without looking at him. Antonio supposes he ought to be embarrassed that he's been discovered for a while but he forgets that.
"I heard you're a failed writer," he says.
This earns him a hard look, as he thought it might. The hot Italian neighbor's eyes are really green. "You're hot and Italian," Antonio adds, hoping it might soften the blow slightly.
"You're a bullet-nosed teenager," the hot Italian neighbor returns.
"Be my friend," Antonio says.
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So it turns out hot Italian neighbor - Romano Vargas, Antonio teases out of him - has a bit of an inferiority complex about himself despite being an adult. He complains a lot about neglectful grandfathers and perfect brothers and childhood isolation and swears a lot. Antonio sits next to him on the fire escape and listens and doesn't really comprehend. "If there's anything you can do, it's listen with your smiling face," his mother tells him. "Just try not and open your mouth all the time."
Romano prefers a face with a pouting frown which is endearing and slightly worrisome with the way he is slowly etching wrinkles on his smooth brow.
One late evening Antonio leans over and kisses that pouting frown, which if possible, becomes even more pronounced.
"Don't do that," Romano says. "A sixteen-year-old has no business kissing a man in his thirties."
"But," Antonio says.
"Don't bother with someone like me," Romano says, and retreats back into his apartment. He leaves Antonio with his laptop and an ashtray with a dying cigarette, the smoke tickling the boy's nose.