“What? When have I ever courted anyone? Have you regressed to your childhood?”
“I don’t know what else you would call it, boy. He didn’t talk about you like someone you’d meet on that sex app on your phone.”
“Grindr isn’t a sex app,” Paolo lied for the millionth time. “And I don’t have it on my phone anymore.”
“Because you’re courting Luis?”
“Because I don’t use it anymore.”
“Because you’re—”
“Stop saying that.” Paolo reached for a biscuit and pretended to shove it in Toni’s mouth to shut him up. “I don’t know if Luis is staying over tonight, okay? He left work early.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He might’ve gone to see his brother.”
Toni sobered. The playfulness in his old eyes dulled. “His brother? He told me he didn’t want anything to do with him.”
“I don’t think he does, but Dante came looking for him today.”
“Where?”
“At the cafe.”
“Oh.” Toni sat back in his chair. “That’s not good.”
Paolo sighed. “I was hoping you’d think it was nothing to worry about.”
“Of course it’s something to worry about. That brother is scum. We don’t want his kind in our place or around Luis.”
“We don’t get to pick his family for him.”
“But he should. He doesn’t want this, you know that. He just wants a quiet life.”
“He won’t get that with us.”
“You know what I mean. He’s not built for the life he’s led, no?”
Paolo couldn’t argue with that. Luis’s tale of what had gone down to land him in prison had shaken Paolo to the core, but his shock had nothing on the trauma he’d seen pass through Luis’s eyes as he’d told his story. And what about the scar on his head? Retaliation, he’d said, that had landed him with enough damage to ruin his hearing. But what about the scars Paolo couldn’t see? His own life had been tough, but he’d got through it with the love and support he’d had at home. Luis had never had that. His father was dead, his mother gone, and his brother was an evil piece of shit who used him for his own gain.
Whatever Luis had done in the lifetime he’d lived before he’d walked into Toni’s cafe, he deserved better. “He told me what he did,” Paolo said, breaking the brooding silence that had stretched out between him and Toni. “About the Securitas van and the man he hurt. I was pissed off with you when you wouldn’t tell me before, but I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a self-centred dickbag who needed to get to know him before I was ready to deal with that shit.”
“I don’t know this dickbag insult you throw at yourself, boy. But if there’s one thing you’re not, it’s self-centred. If you were, you’d still have that app on your phone, and you wouldn’t be here, spending your evening with your old nonno.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now be a good boy and give me some of the limoncello I asked you to bring.”
Paolo drank limoncello and played cards with Toni until the creeping need to be with Luis overwhelmed him. He bid Toni goodnight and caught the bus. It rumbled through the city at its usual speed, but to Paolo, it crawled. He couldn’t bear it. Two stops before home, he jumped off and ran the rest of the way to Luis’s bedsit.
It was dark and quiet, but that on its own didn’t mean Luis wasn’t there. He buzzed the intercom. There was no answer, but as he turned to leave, a kid in a hoodie came out and walked away without checking the exterior door had shut behind him.
Paolo caught it and slipped into the carved-up old terrace that housed Luis’s bedsit.
Luis’s front door was down the dim corridor. With Luis waiting at the end, it had never seemed too bad, but without him, it was downright creepy. Nerves buzzing, Paolo hurried to Luis’s door and knocked. No sound came from inside, but he waited anyway. Counted a hundred heartbeats before he gave up.
He fished his phone from his pocket and called Luis’s phone.
It didn’t connect.
Despite the plausible possibility that Luis was at the shop or waiting outside Paolo’s flat, Paolo’s irrational heart sank into the pit of his stomach. Somehow, he’d convinced himself Luis was safe at home, even though Luis’s bedsit held nothing but a bed, a single saucepan, and a washing machine jammed into the bathroom. No couch, no TV, and a heating system that couldn’t keep Barbados warm. Please be at my place. I won’t ask you anything, I promise.
But when he got home, Luis wasn’t there either.
Paolo trudged upstairs and forced himself to eat. Then he took a beer into the shower and sat down under the hot spray, letting it pummel his neck. I’m so fucking tired. But at the same time, restless energy danced under his skin. Anticipation that made no sense, since it was clear Luis wasn’t coming. Paolo closed his eyes, willing the hot water to do its job, but it ran out long before it had a hope of soothing the anxiety smouldering in his belly.
He got out of the shower and caught sight of his reflection in the steamed-up mirror. Ever the masochist, he wiped it clean and studied the dark circles beneath eyes that were red and wide with worry. Stop obsessing over him. He’s a grown man. And when he does come back, he’ll flip his shit if he thinks you stayed up all night angsting about him.
When, not if. He could count on that, right?
Paolo had no idea. He shook himself and left the bathroom without bothering to dry off. Damp footprints followed him out, but at his bedroom door, a soft tap from the other end of the hallway turned him around.
He padded to the front door and squinted through the peephole. Luis was already walking away.
Alarmed, Paolo threw the door open. “Where are you going?”
Luis didn’t turn around.
Naked but for his towel, Paolo shot after him and grabbed his arm. “Luis. Stop.”
Luis whirled around, wrenching his arm free before it seemed to click that it was Paolo.
His expression was like nothing Paolo had ever seen. Haunted, lost, confused. As if he’d started walking in one direction and ended somewhere entirely different.
Paolo tugged on his arm. “Come in. It’s cold.”
“You’re the one flashing the neighbours.”
“Only because you knocked once and walked away three seconds later.”
“I knocked three times.”
“Why didn’t you call then?”
“Thought you’d gone to bed.”
Without you? I’ve forgotten how. Paolo hustled Luis inside and shut the door. Luis reached over his head and slipped the chain on, then bolted it top and bottom.
Paolo eyed Luis as he leant on the door and blew out a long breath. “Expecting burglars?”
“You don’t lock your doors at night?”
“You know I don’t. Those bolts haven’t moved in years.”
Luis treated him to a dead-eyed stare, the kind that made it clear he didn’t want to explain himself, and Paolo didn’t feel like making him. After fretting away his evening, he was just glad Luis had showed up. “Do you want to—”