He didn’t. But that didn’t stop Paolo imagining a different life, one where Toni and Nonna got to grow old together in their garden flat, serving dinner at the battered kitchen table where Nonna had taught Paolo to hand roll pasta. There’d have been a place for Luis at that table if he’d wanted it.
Paolo wanted it, even if it was nothing but a dream.
They took the bus back from Toni’s care home. Paolo sat by the window. Luis slumped down beside him and lolled his head on Paolo’s shoulder. He looked asleep, though it was hard to tell. On the nights they’d spent together, Paolo had always knocked out first and woken up last. He wished it was one of those nights now, so he could absorb every moment of Luis so peaceful. Stroke his face and tangle his fingers in his silky hair without the distraction of making each other come.
Not that Paolo was complaining about that. Being naked with Luis was cloud nine territory. Problem was, he never wanted to come down.
The bus passed where Luis would get off if he was going home. He didn’t stir, and Paolo didn’t rouse him. At some point, he’d have to take a breath and figure out what the hell they were doing, but not yet. Their stolen nights together were too precious. Paolo couldn’t give them up.
Not yet.
12
Luis hadn’t been home in days. Every morning he rolled out of Paolo’s bed and down the road to work, and each night, he rolled straight back in. Some evenings he went with Paolo to visit his grandparents; others, he stayed in Paolo’s flat, figuring out how to use his TV and trying to pretend that immersing himself so entirely in Paolo’s life was a good idea.
It wasn’t a good idea. Luis had ignored Dante’s text, and there’d been no others, but the sense of borrowed time was so strong, Luis woke each day feeling like it was the end of the world. Paolo’s arms around him helped, but too soon, it was always time to get up and face the day.
He hadn’t cooked for days either. Paolo never asked him why or forced him away from the dishwasher, but on the fourth Saturday since Luis’s release, it was time for him to learn the way of the pasta pot.
“You don’t have to,” Paolo said. “I’m thinking of jacking it in anyway. I need more days off in my life.”
Luis couldn’t argue with that, but he also knew Paolo needed the money to pay the constant stream of care-home bills that were piling up on his coffee table. “Teach me how to do it,” he said. “Then maybe you’ll get those days off.”
Arguing was Paolo’s baseline, but for once, he didn’t. He shrugged and went back to piling tomatoes onto the kitchen counter. Huge sacks of pasta joined them. Olive oil. Basil. The Italian bacon Luis couldn’t pronounce no matter how many times Paolo tried to teach him.
Paolo said something about cheese.
Luis frowned. “What?”
“Mozzarella,” Paolo repeated. “I couldn’t get enough, so I’m gonna whack some cheddar in. Don’t tell Toni.”
“I won’t.”
“Sure about that? You two get on pretty well. If you were a woman, he’d have married us off by now.”
“You think he knows we’re . . .” Luis couldn’t think of a word to describe what he and Paolo were currently doing. Did one even exist for two blokes who worked together by day, played dick tennis at night, but kept almost one hundred per cent of their feelings to their separate selves?
Probably not. Luis settled for a vague hand gesture.
Paolo smirked. “He knows.”
“You told him?”
“No. He’s just Italian.”
Like that explained it. “So he doesn’t want to marry you off to a bloke?”
“It’s not that. He’s just too old and catholic to think outside that particular box. It wouldn’t occur to him that queer couples can do all that these days, and I don’t have the spoons to explain it to him.”
“But he’s cool with you being extra-sexual?”
Paolo’s smirk morphed into Luis’s favourite smile. “If that’s what you want to call it, yeah, he’s cool. I’ve never had to worry about shit like that.”
The conversation moved on. Paolo taught Luis how to make a huge pot of tomato sauce and layer it with trays and trays of penne pasta. When it was done and stacked up in Paolo’s emptied out fridge, they watched Al Pacino films on the couch until they began to doze off.
They went to bed. It was the first night they’d slept together without rolling around for three hours first, but Luis didn’t mind. Wrapped around Paolo, listening to him breathe and mutter in his sleep, was almost as good as him being awake.
“So, you just stick them in the oven for a bit and that’s it?”
Paolo nodded. “That’s it. Told you it was easy.”
“It’s easy today. You spent four hours cooking yesterday, after work.”
“We spent four hours cooking.”
“For the first time ever. You’re usually on your own.”
“Lucky me,” Paolo deadpanned around a wide yawn. “Put the salad out and slice the bread if you want to make yourself useful.”
Luis did as he was told. When he came back, Paolo was sitting on the kitchen counter, poking at his phone. Luis frowned. At work, Paolo was rarely still, and the trend of being glued to a phone screen seemed to have passed him by. “Everything okay?”
Paolo glanced up with heavy eyes. “Hmm?”
“What’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Sure?”
“Of course.” Paolo ditched his phone and slid off the counter. “I was just texting Toni back. He’s a pain in the arse when Chelsea are playing. Keeps asking me to tape the matches, like anyone still owns a VCR.”
“You can’t get them on YouTube?”
“Of course. Doesn’t stop him asking me to tape them for him. He forgets stuff.”
Paolo’s eyes darkened again, and Luis realised, not for the first time, that he was out of his depth. He’d never had elderly relatives. His family was small, estranged, and fucked up. He’d never had to worry about the things Paolo worried about, and he’d never hurt the way Paolo did every time the folk who’d raised him faded just a little more.
Luis took the keys from the hook and left the kitchen to open the front door. Unlike weekday mornings, no one was waiting, and previous Sundays had taught him that custom came in lazy trickles rather than mad rushes.
He went back to the kitchen. “Can you take him out?”
“Who?”
“Toni. Is he allowed out of the home?”
“It’s not an institution. He can leave anytime he wants.”
“Take him to the pub, then, to watch the Chelsea game.”
“I have to work.”
“Not if I’m here.”
Paolo’s face broke into a soft smile, weary at the edges, frayed, but still all kinds of lovely. “You’re so fucking sweet.”
Luis laughed, couldn’t help it. “I’m really not.”
“Yeah, you are. No other fucker on earth gives a shit about Toni and his football angst.”
“You’ll take him then?”