Hot.
Addictive.
Luis wanted to wake Paolo up and do it all over again, but they were fast running out of time. Dawn was creeping in. Before long, Paolo would be awake, and work would take them away from the quiet sanctuary of his bedroom. Luis had learned to love working at the cafe, but there was something so tranquil about watching Paolo sleep, he didn’t know how he’d ever stop. How he’d ever tear himself away and go back to the real world. The one with bacon sandwiches instead of blowjobs, and awkward customers instead of gentle kisses, and questions that splayed Luis open.
Somewhere on the bed, a phone began to vibrate, softly at first, but then louder, harder, with the added soundtrack of “A Town Called Malice.”
Luis found the phone and shut off the alarm.
Paolo still hadn’t stirred. Luis considered leaving him to sleep a little while longer. Then he remembered the delivery, and the fact that despite exchanging earth shattering blowjobs, Paolo would probably freak if he woke up to find his keys had been lifted and Luis gone.
He settled for stroking Paolo’s face until his eyelids started to flutter. Then he sat back in case Paolo had forgotten he was there.
Paolo’s eyes slid open, heavy and dark. His gaze found Luis in a heartbeat, zeroed in and focussed before it zoned out again. “Damn. I thought you were real.”
“I am real.”
“Really? How come you stopped doing that thing with your thumb on my cheek?”
“You felt that?”
“I think so. Or I dreamt it, which backs up my theory that you’re not real.”
“I’m real.” Luis brought his hand back to Paolo’s face and rubbed his thumb over his cheekbone. “See?”
Paolo made a low sound and closed his eyes. “So last night really did get as out of hand as I remember?”
“Depends on your definition of out of hand. I probably have more scope for it than you.”
Paolo cracked an eye open. “If you say so. What time is it?”
“Half four.”
“Ugh. In my next life, I’m gonna have one of those burger vans outside the pubs. Late nights only.”
“So you’d be going to bed around now?”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have to get up till afterEastenders.”
“You watch that shit?”
“Sometimes, when I visit Toni. He loves it.”
Luis helped Paolo sit up. Like Luis, he was naked. His olive skin and soft, dark body hair were as gorgeous as they’d been last night when he’d had Luis’s cock in his mouth. Fresh heat bloomed in Luis’s gut, but they didn’t have time to fool around—if Paolo even wanted to revisit what they’d done last night. They had a cafe to open.
They took separate showers. Paolo gave Luis a toothbrush and pressed a hooded sweat jacket into his hands before they left the flat with damp hair and shifty eyes. It was cold out. The hoodie was the closest to a coat Luis possessed, and he was glad of it, but it smelt of Paolo, and he was sorely unprepared for how that made him feel. For how his head spun with each breath, and every step they took towards the waiting cafe felt like a seismic shift to a dynamic that had been loaded, even before they’d rolled around on it.
Paolo was quiet. He kept his usual grouchy chatter to himself, but he walked close to Luis, their arms brushing from time to time, so Luis left him alone.
At the cafe, Paolo unlocked the back door and let them in. The fresh delivery was pulling up. Luis went inside and flipped the lights while Paolo signed for it, then set to work putting it away.
When he was done, he moved to the dishwasher to set it up for the day but found it already on and loaded with detergent and salt. He circled the rest of his morning jobs and found them completed too.
Puzzled, he searched out Paolo. He was sitting at his favourite table, scowling at the notebook he used to keep his accounts.
“You’ve done all my jobs,” Luis said. “Why?”
Paolo kept his gaze down as he replied.
