“When did you get out?”
“Yesterday.”
“What are you doing roaming the streets at five in the morning?”
“What do you care?”
It was the other man’s turn to shrug. “I don’t care if you’re just out for a morning stroll, but if you’re on your way home from something dodgy, this conversation’s over.”
“I didn’t ask you for this conversation.” Luis kept his voice low, swallowing the frustration expanding in his chest. How was this even his life? He’d dreamt about cafe dude, but not like this. Never once had he imagined him becoming so fucking annoying. “If you don’t want to have it anymore, let me pass.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying? Because as much as I’ve got nowhere else to be, I haven’t got time for this.”
“Do you have time to work today?”
Luis glanced up sharply. “What?”
“Work. As in, work for me. Today. I’m snowed under and could do with the help if you’re up for a trial shift.”
The sun broke through the clouds behind the train line, grey streaked with a golden glow. Tension bled from Luis’s shoulders. “What’s your name?”
“Why does that matter?”
“I want to know if you’re serious.”
“How does knowing my name help you with that?”
“You know mine.”
“That’s not my fault.”
Luis couldn’t deny it. But stubbornness flowed through him thicker than blood. He’d mellowed in the six years he’d spent with no choices or autonomy, but without rhyme or reason, the world had stopped turning until the beautiful man in front of him revealed his name.
“Paolo.”
“Paolo what?”
“Cilberto. Like my granddad, Toni.”
“I know him. Big guy with the giant moustache.”
“That’s the one.” A faint smile brightened the man’s—brightenedPaolo’sface. “He hasn’t run the cafe in years, though, so why he thinks he’s got a say in who I hire, I have no fucking clue.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Here we are,” Paolo agreed. “Now, do you want the job or not?”
“I want it.”
“Can you start now?”
“Now?”
“You said you had nowhere else to be.”
Luis spread his hands. “Then I guess I’m all yours.”
