A folded page from a newspaper lay on the floor beneath the letterbox. Luis stared at it, apprehension blooming in his gut, glad he still hadn’t bought tokens for the electric metre. The front door was cheap and thin, with no window, but he crept towards the paper as if he had a thousand eyes on him. He picked it up and unrolled it. Another phone number greeted him, but the last one on earth he actually wanted.
Beneath it was a note.
Call me bro, D
A full-body shiver passed through Luis. He didn’t bother to wonder how Dante had found him, but he’d been counting on it taking him a little longer. At least until he had a job he could point to as reason for why he couldn’t re-join the family firm. Knowing Dante, it wouldn’t have put him off for long, but by then, perhaps Luis might’ve had enough money to be somewhere else.
Somewhere far enough from the city that Dante couldn’t be bothered to come looking for him. After all, it wasn’t like he’d taken the trouble to visit Luis in prison. No one had. He’d been as alone then as he was now.
He took the phone number to the kitchen and tossed it in the empty fridge. Fury swept through him that he didn’t have the balls to put it in the bin, but he’d never had balls when it came to Dante, and Dante knew it. He didn’t give a single fuck about Luis—he was a tool to him, a puppet. Not a brother, but a pawn in a sick game Luis could never win.
You’ll call him, though, won’t you?
Of course he would. If he didn’t, Dante would come banging on his door, inserting himself into the silent, safe space Luis had a chance to carve out in the shitty bedsit he called home.
He backed out of the kitchen and returned to the sanctuary his lumpy bed seemed when he compared it to standing in the draughty kitchen and glaring at the fridge. His heart beat louder, but not with the heat it did whenever he caught sight of Paolo. No. This was different. This was a fear he knew.
His borrowed phone vibrated somewhere on the bed. Another shot of terror curdled his insides. Seriously? He’s stalking me enough to have this number?
But that was impossible, even for Dante . . .
Unless Paolo was working for him, and he’d offered Luis a job to keep him where Dante could find him. Dante was well capable of manipulating the world enough to get what he wanted, but the theory relied on him knowing that Luis would walk into Toni’s—
Stop it. Luis sucked in a deep breath. For that to work, Paolo would’ve had to be faking his disgust for street bangers, and nothing on earth would’ve made Luis believe that shit was anything but bone-deep and real.
He found the phone halfway down the bed. A message lit up the screen, from Paolo.
got caught up and couldn’t call. do u want to come back tomorrow?
Luis hesitated only a moment before he tapped out his reply.
yes.
4
yes.
Paolo opened the message a dozen times, as if each time he opened it would tell him something new about the man he didn’t recognise as the Luis Pope he remembered.
Or thought he remembered. Truth be told, most of what he knew about the Pope brothers was based on rumours and rep. Nasty reps that still sounded warning bells every moment Paolo gave up to thinking about Luis, which was more than he cared to admit, especially at 4am, when he’d spent all night fielding updates from his nonna’s nursing home.
Tired, he rolled out of bed and stumbled to the shower. Under the hot spray, Luis filled his mind again, but this time, not the horror in his eyes when he’d flung his breakfast across the room. Instead, his muscled back, hidden beneath his stretched T-shirt, and his beautiful forearms took over. Heat pooled at Paolo’s groin. He shook his head, trying to clear it, but the images of Luis wouldn’t quit. The man was a masterpiece. Even if Paolo never saw him again, he would forever be his ultimate fantasy.
So one day with OG Pope has ruined all men for me. Excellent.
The thought was galling enough for Paolo to ignore his morning wood. He showered his restless night away, dressed, and left the house under a cloud of misty dark sky. Sometimes, it was hard to believe a new day had begun when he left the house in the pitch black of the previous night. Winter made his shoulders sag and his legs feel heavy, but then summer months trapped indoors were a bitch too. Fuck my life.
He hadn’t replied to Luis’s affirmative message about taking the cafe job; drama at the nursing home had distracted him. His plan had been to message him when he’d downed his first cup of shitty instant coffee, but as he neared the end of the high street, a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, shivering in the frigid air.
Luis.
For some reason, the sight of him, cold and clearly as tired as Paolo, made Paolo want to cry. He settled for a grunt. “Morning. I was going to tell you to come in at six.”
Luis shrugged—Paolo was coming to learn it was his baseline of communication. “Had to get electric from the shop, so I was awake. You don’t have to pay me for the extra hour.”
“We’ll talk about that after coffee.”
Luis said nothing. Paolo preceded him to the cafe door and opened up, stepping aside to let Luis pass. He was wearing different clothes, dark jogging bottoms and a grey T-shirt, and his hair was damp from the shower. It was a hundred colours: dark brown, chestnut, and subtly streaked with gold. The kind of hair women paid a hundred quid for, but Luis had scored it for free.
It looked soft, like silk. Paolo itched to run his fingers through it. Perv. It felt like more than that, but he couldn’t decipher the butterfly sensation in his gut. He was too damn tired. And perhaps that was it. Fatigue induced horniness. It was a thing, right?
Besides, no one in their sane mind wouldn’t be attracted to Luis.
Paolo followed him inside, flipping the lights on as he went. The heating was already on, timed to perfection so Paolo never walked into a cold cafe, and as he watched Luis’s broad shoulders drop and his shivers ease, he’d never been more glad of his poxy radiators.
He moved to the coffee machine and switched it on, giving more thanks to yesterday’s Paolo who’d set it up for the first batch of the day. Luis hovered in the kitchen doorway. “What do you need me to do?”
“You can slice the mushrooms, tomatoes, and the black pudding in a minute, but I figured we’d get a coffee first and have the conversation we didn’t get round to last night.”
Luis nodded.
Paolo turned back to the coffee jug. “How do you take it?”
“What?”
“Coffee. Black or white?”
“Black? I think? I don’t really drink it.”
“Do you want tea instead?”
“Don’t mind.”
Paolo poured hot coffee and then brewed strong tea in one of the oversized mugs Toni’s was famous for. He fetched milk from the fridge, added enough to make the tea rosy, and held the mug out.
Luis hesitated a moment before he took it. “I used to get these from your granddad back in the day.”
“Which day?”
“Fridays, after school on my way to my, uh, brother’s house.”
“Oh. I didn’t do Fridays. That was band practice at All Saints.”
Luis’s eyebrows shot up. “You went to All Saints?”
“Yup. I was in your year.” Paolo nodded to the tables. “Shall we sit down?”