“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 likehim.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.
Man, I wish he hadn’t done that.Not because thumping a hipster was his lifelong ambition. Nah, but because now it didn’t matter how the rest of the day played out, not a minute would go by when he didn’t think about those damn fucking arms.
6
Paolo was a book Luis couldn’t put down. One minute he was cooking lunch for the five thousand and whistling along with the radio, the next he was charging down the street, ready to kill over a plate of tomatoes.
It would’ve been funny if he wasn’t so god damn hot.
And he was friendlier than his regular outbursts belied. For two weeks straight, except Sundays, he made Luis breakfast and sent him home with a foil-wrapped parcel for dinner. Luis wondered if he’d get sick of eggs and bacon, but it had been the best part of a week, and he wasn’t there yet.
