All that summer, Michael and Louis made their plans.

Michael would pass his GCSEs in June the next year, and then spend six months studying to take the SAT test. Then Michael would apply for a dual passport. He began to sign his full name: Michael Louis Oliveira Blasco.

Using his Latin name made Michael feel wobbly inside, as if he had changed his name to join his father, as if indeed they had in some way merged identities. It felt as if he were going public, as if he were promising someone never to love anyone else. He would repeat that new name to himself over and over in a whisper.

Thoughts of his father drove out thoughts of anyone else. The beaches of California are not short of handsome men wearing little clothing. They had no power to turn Michael Louis Oliveira Blasco's head or heart. The magic of naming echoed what had happened in biological fact. Michael's ego had melted down and merged with someone else's. He had married his father.

Mi macho, como te amo.

There was nothing else in Michael's life for over a month. Love made him numb. He and his Dad came back from a movie and a slightly beery dinner. It was eleven at night – eight in the morning in England. Michael rang home and finally told his mother of his decision, and then took everything one step further.

His father had drunk a bit too much. He couldn't handle drink that well. He was a bit woozy and his black eyes swam with love. Michael wanted to kiss him. Instead, he took his hand and said, 'Dad. I've decided. I'm not going to go back to England.'

His father's eyes dimmed. 'What do you mean?'

'I'm going to stay here. At the end of this summer? I'll finish high school in Oceanside.'

'Oh man.' His father let Michael's hand drop. He covered his head with both hands. 'Man, oh man.' He swayed as if under a burden. 'You can't treat your mother like that, Mike. You're too old to give in to emotion like that. You got to do the right thing.' The words were laboured, like he was remembering lines from a John Wayne script. 'You got to go back home to your mother and we'll do this thing the right way.'

His face looked blue-white and blotchy.

'It's what I want to do.'

Isn't that what you want?

His father sniffed and moved away from him, took a swig from the bottle and as if he had heard Michael's unspoken question, shook his head, no.

Michael went to bed a bit drunk, and slept well enough until about 5 am, when he suddenly was awake, wide awake, with the truth as clear as if it were squatting on his chest.

I love my own father like I should be loving someone my own age.

Michael, Michael, what do you think you're doing? There is no one else in the world doing this, there isn't even any name for what you are doing. You are out there, man, you are way, way out there.

What are you doing to your mother? She's the one who's actually been there all your life, she's the one who's done all the paying. Now, just when you're growing up and she's getting old, you want to take off and leave her.

And you want… there really was almost no way to say it. You want your father. You want to settle in with your Dad and you want…

Though he's a Catholic he was born semi-circumcised so the head of his dick always shows and it's always clean and before I sleep and when I wake up I think of the head of that cock in my mouth. It's all I want.

You have to stop it, Michael. This is crazy. Go on home at the end of summer and get over it. That's all he wants. Go home and let the whole idea of living with him in America dissolve.

What are you going to tell him? Are you going to say, Dad I'm a faggot and I'm in love with you and I want to live with you like a pair of hairdressers? No, you're not going say that, so what the fuck are you going to say?

You're going to say, Dad, I've changed my mind, I don't want to live with a dumb Marine. I'll say I've decided that English universities are better.

He'll pretend that's OK, OK with him, and he'll cough to clear his throat instead of crying, and he'll put on those mirror shades so I can't see his eyes, and when he drives he'll thump the steering wheel hard for no reason.

Real great, Michael. Superb. Either way, you're going to hurt him. Aw shit, what have you done?

It was a long time to stay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Michael was not strong. He slipped back into reverie. He imagined that Louis was not his father at all, and that they had gone backpacking in the wilds, washing in lakes, and holding each other at night. He imagined them making love, imagining trailing his face down his father's body. He masturbated, imagining making love to him, and mopped up with the tissues he now kept by the bed. He fooled himself with imaginings. He went to sleep and woke up, lulled and soothed, with the feeling that it would all be OK somehow.

Michael walked out to the kitchen later, in his Y-fronts with a morning hard-on.

'Man, you look like I feel,' said Dad, a remark open to interpretation. He reached for the coffee-pot. 'You're like me, you can't wake up without caffeine.'

Flawless, unchanging California sunshine came through the windows. It would be another beautiful day, with Oceanside ten degrees cooler than anywhere else.

Michael couldn't even remember why he had been so concerned.

His Dad went to work, and Michael lay on the bed and masturbated again, dreaming of him. The dream this time was more direct: they were still father and son, but no one knew anything. They lived together as partners, they slept in the same bed and Michael swung his bag of books into the car every morning and drove off to UC San Diego. It took people years to realize what was going on. They were shocked at first, Mom, Michael's uncles, but when they saw it was love, they got used to it. They grew to understand. It was the image of sleeping all night, his face cushioned on his father's breast, that made Michael come.

Then he got up and looked at the curriculum covered by the SAT test, and made a list of American textbooks and thought of joining summer school. And after that there would be nothing to do except loll on the beach all day dreaming of his father. And he would go to the camp, and see his father in the nude, and run with his father and dream with his father of the life they both wanted to build together.

Driven mad by the imperatives of love, Michael became sure his father wanted the same thing.

As they started the run, Dad slapped Michael's butt. He looked at Michael in the shower and said, 'Man, what do you call that thing? Is that a dick? It looks like it belongs on a horse, man!' His father walked on the pier with an arm on Michael's shoulder. He hugged him as they watched television on the sofa.

The liquid looks of love, the hugs, the sudden rufflings of his hair, the kisses sometimes even on the mouth, thrilled Michael, and warmed his heart, and made him dream, and convinced him that they were, in everything but consummation, lovers.

Michael did not imagine, even in his daydreams, that they would proceed immediately to sex. Sex would emerge almost as an afterthought, almost as a by-product of complete intimacy. They would share meals, share showers, share food, share beds, and at some quiet moment, foreheads touching, they would proceed to make love.

Michael dreamed of the moment that his father would finally say something. He imagined it in some detail. His father would begin quietly, shy. It would be no easy thing for a Marine to admit that he – and he would look down, smiling – that he loved Michael. He knew such a thing was a bit unusual but he had seen something in Michael's eyes, something that at first he wanted not to see.

Michael was romancing.

He began to be sure, from his father's eyes. He was sure from the totally comfortable way that he would sometimes break into terrible campfire songs that he loved him too. His father was too shy to say so. His father had always been so masculine; so conventional. It would be hard for anyone to accept, let alone a conservative man whose utterly traditional American values were underpinned with an equally unforgiving Catholicism.