“Like what?”
“Like, if you have an issue I should be helping you more with. Or if it’s something that puts you at risk in a busy kitchen. Like, what if the gas alarm went off and you didn’t hear it?”
“I’d smell it.”
“What about the fire alarm?”
“I’d smell the fire too.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“I’m really not.” Luis set his mug down. “You’re asking me stuff that doesn’t give you the answer you want.”
There was no challenge in Luis’s tone, only truth. Paolo leaned forwards, seeking more. “I think you’re struggling to hear out of your left ear. Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re smart enough to figure it out, I guess.”
“That’s not what I—”
“I know.” Another of Luis’s ghost-like smiles warmed his face. “I’m being a dick, sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t mind.”
“You didn’t give me that impression when I first got here.”
“There’s different levels of dick.”
Luis met Paolo’s gaze head on, his golden eyes steady. “That right?”
Paolo swallowed, hiding his face behind his coffee mug. Anyone else, he might’ve thought they were flirting, but . . . not Luis Pope. He was taking the piss. He had to be, because the alternative was mind-blowing.
And flattering. When was the last time a bloke as hot as him looked your way twice?
Too long ago to remember, but then, Paolo’s love life was time constrained to the occasional Scruff hook-up, so . . .
“Anyway.” Paolo cleared his throat. “Am I right about your hearing?”
Luis gazed at him for another drawn-out moment, then nodded with a heavy sigh. “You’re right. I got by with it for a while, but it’s getting worse.”
“What’s caused it?”
“You really want to know?”
“Asked, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but you said you didn’t want any road shit up in your face.”
“I meant that in the literal sense, not that you had to pretend you’re someone else.”
Luis’s eyebrows twitched.
Paolo snorted. “Okay, maybe I did mean that. But whatever. I’m an arsehole. I say and mean lots of things in the heat of the moment.”
“Like what?”
Like stuff you’re too straight to ever hear. “Stop evading. It’ll be lunchtime at this rate.”
Beaten, or perhaps bored of their dance, Luis leaned forwards too. Both hunched over the table, Lord knew what they looked like to anyone watching, but Paolo didn’t care, and maybe, just maybe, neither did Luis.
He raised his hand. For a heart-stopping second, Paolo thought he might touch his face. But he didn’t. He pushed his own hair back, revealing an ugly, ragged scar on his scalp. “Retaliation,” he said. “For something Dante had fucked up on the outside. Someone had to pay, and apparently, I hadn’t paid enough for his bullshit.”
Paolo’s fingers itched to trace the scar. It was clearly old, but the vicious line of raised flesh turned his stomach. “What happened?”
“Got jumped in the showers and whacked with a pipe. Knocked me out for two days and damaged the auditory nerve in my brain.”
“How bad?”
“I don’t know. I got away with it for a while, but it’s got worse in the last year.”
“Can they do anything to fix it?”
“Dunno.”
Paolo eyed Luis and set his mug down. Was his vague answer another deflection, or did he really not know? His expression was as open as Paolo had ever seen it, but after two short days with the man, what did he know?
In any case, the cafe had begun to fill up again, and it was time to get back to work.
The lunch rush came and went. With Luis clearing the tables, Paolo’s tired self felt like he was on holiday. Perversely, the lack of absolute chaos kicked his fatigue up a gear. He made mistakes. Got mad. Repeated them.
“I asked for beans, mate. Not tomatoes.”
Paolo glared at the hipster with the ludicrous facial hair. Is that a thing now? Porn-star moustaches? Maybe he needed to get out more.
Or not, if it meant waxing handlebars. “We don’t do beans.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that when I ordered then? I don’t like tomatoes.”
“Like I give a shit.” Paolo snatched the plate back and stomped into the kitchen. He tossed it into the sink, food and all.
It broke.
Luis appeared from the back door, a roll of fresh bin bags tucked under his arm. He glanced between Paolo and the sink. “They didn’t like it?”
“I didn’t like him. He’s a prick with turd-coloured pipe cleaners stuck to his face.”
“So . . . what are you going to do? Punch him?”
“What? No. I wish.”
“I can tell. And so will he if you go back out there looking like that.”
“Yeah, well. He’s not a regular so I don’t give a fuck.”
“Uh-huh.” Luis reached into the sink and retrieved the fragmented plate. He disappeared with it, leaving Paolo to seethe in peace and stare at the mess of food in the sink. Clean it up. But he didn’t have time. Hipster Prick needed his order, and Paolo needed to deliver it without lamping him in the face.
Still grumbling, he returned to the grill and plated up a fresh lunch. He took it out, but the man with the bad moustache had gone, having opened every packet of sugar in the bowl and emptied them on the table.
Rage swept through Paolo. He’d never been good at hiding his feelings, and right now, he didn’t care who knew it. He dropped the plate of food on the table and burst out of the front door. Hipster man was twenty feet up the road, loping along in his tweed trousers. Fucking dick. Paolo started forwards but strong arms hauled him back.
“Don’t,” Luis said. “His dad’s a copper.”
His lips were close to Paolo’s ear, so close his warm breath sent shivers down Paolo’s spine, but his temper was hot and strong, and for a moment he fought the glorious arms wrapped tight around him. “So? What’s he gonna do? Arrest me for telling his kid he’s an arsehole?”
“I’ve been nicked for less.”
Paolo grunted, but though his temper burned bright, it had the stamina of a pound-shop firework.
It fizzled out.
He stopped struggling, and Luis let him go.
Bemused, Paolo spun around. Luis stood behind him, expression so hard to read it was as if he didn’t have one. “That bloke was a prick.”
Luis nodded. “I know.”
“You should’ve let me deck him.”
“Why? He’d still win. You’d just be the immigrant yob who’d put him in hospital.”
Paolo scoffed. “I wouldn’t have hit him that hard.”
“Yeah, but did you see him? One fucking flick and he’d have a concussion and compensation claim.”
Luis was right, obviously. But Paolo still wanted to kill someone, because it was that or contemplate how crazy-hot Luis’s arms had felt around him. Sure and strong and yet so thrilling it was hard to believe Luis had let him go yet. The rollercoaster was still running, twisting and turning, spinning every thought that passed through his head upside down.