"It's the least I could do."
His smile did nothing to stop a few butterflies from making themselves known in my stomach and my cock to stir in my jeans. I was so glad I'd changed from my suit trousers when I'd got home because those were unforgiving at keeping my indiscreet thoughts discreet.
"And I know people." He pushed the small white box toward me.
I opened it to find two delicious-looking custard tarts.
"Man, you know the right kind of people. I knew it was a good idea to let you stay."
I reached out for one of the pastries and gave Tiago the other one. I moaned at my first bite into the smooth custard and flaky pastry. I couldn't remember when I'd last had a custard tart that was this good.
"You're supposed to eat it, not make love to it," he said as he took his first bite and let out his own moan.
I looked at him with a raised brow, and we both started laughing.
We cleaned the kitchen together, going around each other like we'd been doing it for years. A pang of sadness and longing for Dri came over me, but this time it didn't hit me as hard as before. I remembered the time Dri decided to cook a surprise meal for my birthday, and when I got home, the kitchen looked like it had been hit by a tornado. He'd been so pleased with his effort; I could have lived with a messy kitchen for the rest of my life just to see that smile every day.
"What are you smiling about?" Tiago asked.
"Nothing, just a nice memory of Dri."
"Hold on to those, Vítor. They're the most precious treasure you'll ever have."
He looked at me with such earnest eyes, I just knew he was also living with his own loss. I wanted to ask him about it but decided to go with a safer topic.
"So, are you going to tell me more about your center and how I can volunteer?"
I didn't think it was possible to see an even bigger smile on his face. I was wrong.
We settled into a comfortable routine for the rest of the week. Tiago would always leave freshly brewed coffee for me in the morning before he left, and I cooked dinner for us. Two days this week he even left a sandwich I took to work for lunch. Our conversations over dinner were easy, like we'd known each other for years rather than days. We kept to safe topics like how much we both disliked football, how much we both liked custard tarts, and the differences between living in Lisbon and Porto.
Our conversations never went into personal territory. Tiago was like a locked diary, and I hadn't yet discovered where he kept the key.
This normally wouldn't bother me, but Tiago had come home looking more exhausted with each day that passed. Yesterday he'd fallen asleep on the sofa a few minutes into the movie we were watching after dinner. He'd leaned into me and I'd shifted my position to make him more comfortable. It had been both a delight and torture to have him so close to me, especially when he'd moved in his sleep and ended up with his head on my chest and his arm around my waist.
I wanted to know what was causing his tiredness. Was he having problems at the center, or was it something else? The longer I spent with him the more I could see the pain he carried, even with his eyes hiding behind the dark-rimmed glasses he wore all the time.
I'd allowed us to stay in the same position for a while, but when there was no sign that Tiago was going to wake up, I'd lifted him off the sofa and carried him into his bedroom. As I'd pulled the bed covers on top of him, he'd called out a name I couldn't understand under his breath and that he was sorry.
He'd calmed down after I'd whispered a few words to him and had tried to erase the creases in his forehead with my thumb.
"Can I borrow the key, Tiago? I promise to look after it. Let me take the pain away, my dear."
Like all the mornings since I'd moved in, Tiago was gone by the time I got up, and like all the mornings before, there had been fresh coffee waiting for me.
How long would he carry on like this before he burned out? Part of me wanted to fix whatever it was that was making him so tired and sad, and then there was part of me that reminded me he wasn't my responsibility. I was only someone he shared an apartment with, and even that was temporary, so why did I feel so strongly about the wellbeing of this young man?
I was surprised to see him home earlier than normal, and despite the bags under his eyes, he looked happy.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey, you're home early. I haven't even got dinner started."
"I was hoping to return the favor tonight."
"I thought you couldn't cook for shit."
"I can't, but there's a great restaurant a block away, and I assure you the chef can most definitely cook."
