It was a hot summer day and an open market, fresh fish on ice and farm eggs in every color, white and brown and blue and pale green. Tables piled high with herbs, heady mixture of basil and oregano, marjoram and thyme, rosemary, tarragon and fennel. More parsley than he thought the world could ever use, although the way Al was filling a bag with it, maybe he was wrong.

And tomatoes. Tomatoes everywhere, on every table, round and fat, or small and plum-like, deep, deep reds and bright yellows and even green. "What about these," he asked, holding up a couple that seemed nice and firm, and Al broke off his conversation with the dark-eyed beauty flirting with him over the garlic to shake his head. "No, no, no, Sam, we need 'em ripe, ripe ripe ripe, and a lot more than two", and he handed Sam the bag of parsley and basil, the onion and the peppers, and Al's hand drifted over the mounds of tomato, stopping here and there to test one, squeezing gently. And Sam watched Al's hands, square and blunt, strong and tan, dark against the redness of the tomatoes, and felt something inside him twist at the gentle way those fingers moved over them. The old lady behind the table smiled at Al, and said something to him slyly in Italian. Al answered back in kind, a hand on his heart as if swearing, and the old lady laughed, deep and rumbling, and Sam wasn't sure but he thought when she finally handed over the huge bag full of tomatoes that Al paid less than the posted price. When Sam asked what he and the old woman had been talking about, Al just smiled again and said "tomatoes".

Then Al pulled him over to vats filled with olives, green and dark purple, brown and black. And Sam added the bag of tomatoes to his pack as Al leaned over, closing his eyes and breathing deep. "Hmmm, doesn't it just make your mouth water?" he asked Sam, and Sam agreed, although it didn't have anything to do with the olives. And Al was bartering again, and the Italian words seemed to fill his mouth in a way English never did, and he was winking and his hands were moving the way they always did when he was on a roll, and pretty soon the old man running the booth had been replaced by his wife, who looked about twenty years younger and had fresh lipstick on her generous mouth. And Al had to try one from this vat, and one from another, and a couple of times he passed the other half back to Sam, who pulled the flesh from the pit with his teeth and chewed it, nodding at Al to let him know that he liked it. And eventually they had more bags, with four different kinds of olives, and a tin of salt-packed anchovies.

He left Al at the cheese booth to find something to drink, and came back with lemonade, and Al drank half of it down in one swallow before introducing Sam to Anthony, "the man behind the cheese " as Al said, and Sam looked at pictures of Anthony's kids, two little girls with dark hair and dark eyes, and a little boy, with the same hair and green eyes. Anthony wrapped up the cheese Al had chosen, none of which looked like Parmesan to Sam, all of which smelled ripe and wonderful, and Al turned Sam around and added it the pack, waving to Anthony as he pulled Sam back into the flow of the market.

The pack got heavier as fruit was added, soft, ripe pears, oranges and lemons, and finally Al pulled him over to a counter where they could order something to eat and drink, and Al had espresso, even though it was four thousand degrees in the shade, and they shared a hunk of bread slathered with butter and some kind of soft cheese, and covered with capers. After they were done, they followed the sound of music down a side street and over a block or two to a bar, where the floor to ceiling windows were open to the sultry air and the tables inside had spilled out onto the street, and Al ordered a glass of wine for him and a club soda for himself, and they listened to the lazy, jazzy music until the sun finally began to fall lower in the blue, blue summer sky.

And then Al found a taxi and they went home to the apartment they'd rented, second floor corner with a view, if you stood slightly to the left side of the window, right straight through to the ocean, and Al put more music on the player and spent the next hour in the kitchen, chopping and sautéing, roasting and mincing, and the apartment filled with the smells of the market, and Sam dozed on the couch under a fan, waking up occasionally to watch Al moving in the kitchen without his shirt, the humidity gleaming on his shoulders and collarbone over the bright white of his t-shirt. At one point he was dreaming, vague images of motion and blue light, and he felt Al's hand on his shoulder, and his deep voice murmuring something in Italian. He tried to tell himself to remember, when he woke up, to ask Al what it was he had said.

Eventually Al did wake him up, and they had dinner out on the balcony, the wind playing with the edges of the tablecloth and making the flame on the candle flicker madly. They talked about what they should do when they went back to New Mexico, and what to do about Ziggy, who was really too dangerous to hand over to DOD, and whether Al would finally retire.

And then Al carried the candle into the bedroom, and Sam took off his clothes and laid down on his back and Al kissed him, again and again, and touched him and squeezed him and smelled him and tasted him, and finally fucked him, on his back with his legs in the air and he cried out, again and again, and Al fucked him until he split, right down the middle, split like the soft ripe tomatoes of summer and even then he held Al close, closer, until he finally came against his belly like the soft summer rain.