He’d done worse, and so had Luis, at Dante’s bidding. There were no boundaries. No limits. No ceiling on what Dante would do to get what he wanted.
Luis’s heart stuttered like a broken clock.
Paolo came back into the kitchen. He gripped Luis’s shoulders and turned him round. “You wanna go home?”
“No.”
“You sure? It’s my fault you got no sleep.”
“I slept.”
“Then what is it? Is whatever’s going down between us fucking with your head? Cos we can stop anytime you like. No hard feelings, I swear.”
Luis’s heart did another scraping flip. This was his chance to put a safe distance between them. To make them employee and boss before Dante got wind of something more. But he couldn’t do it. Paolo kept him upright. Luis had only truly known him a few weeks, but the notion of living without him, in any capacity, left him weak for all the wrong reasons. “I don’t want to stop.”
“Okay.” Paolo nodded slowly. “But will you at least go home and get some rest? It’s fucking withmyhead to see you so tired. I don’t do guilt well, even when it comes from something as hot as you.”
Leaving him felt like the end of the world, but Paolo possessed an authority Luis couldn’t ignore. The kind of authority that had him on his knees in the bedroom. Luis left and went home, failure like acid in his veins. He let himself into the bedsit, locked the doors, and drew the one pair of curtains he owned.
Darkness wrapped around him. On the kitchen counter, his phone buzzed.
Expecting Paolo, Luis picked it up. A message from an unsaved number flashed up on the screen.
Unknown number:don’t 4get abt me
Luis stared at the message for a long time before he deleted it and put his phone in the fridge.
11
Paolo:u get home okay?
Luis:yea
* * *
Paolo:take tomorrow and thursday off. i’ll pay you x
Luis:u don’t need to do that
Paolo:i do if i don’t wanna be a sweatshop boss
Luis:dramatic
Paolo:italian
* * *
Paolo:had enough of this shit for one day. wanna have dinner later? i’ll cook something without bacon, i swear
Paolo:or not, i’m easy. just lemme know if ure coming in tomorrow x
* * *
Paolo gave Luis the next day off, and the one after that. He half expected him to show up anyway, but when he didn’t, Paolo ran the cafe alone and marvelled how he’d ever managed without Luis.
It was carnage. Dishes piled up. Tables went uncleared. By two o’clock on the second day, he ran out of steam. He shut the cafe early and went home with no regrets, except that he hadn’t given Luis a key and asked him to let himself in.
He took a shower and fell asleep, naked, on his bed. It was dark when he woke, and the message he’d sent to Luis before he’d left the cafe had gone unanswered. Frowning, Paolo pulled up the message thread between them. As they were together most days, it was short, a grand total of twelve messages, and Luis wasn’t exactly wordy, but he always replied. Every message, until this one.
