But he had to eat. Tomorrow he’d need his wits about him, not to be on his knees with low blood sugar.
He opened a can of spaghetti hoops and emptied it into his only saucepan. The hob was slow to heat. Lights off, Luis gripped the counter and let his eyes fall closed again, wondering if it was possible to fall asleep standing up. If, perhaps, after days of tossing and turning in his lumpy bed, this was the answer, a slow, hypnotic sway over a tin of Heinz.
The metallic snap of the letterbox roused him. Startled, he opened his eyes to find the carby orange gloop in the saucepan was boiling. He turned it off and ventured into the hallway. An envelope was on the floor by the front door.
He picked it up and turned it over. His name was scrawled on one side, and it was sealed shut with thick brown parcel tape.Jesus fucking Christ, please tell me that bellend hasn’t dropped the package off here...
But the thought tailed off as Luis looked closer at his scribbled name. At the exaggerated capital letters and barely legible lowercase. He knew that handwriting. He’d spent the last two months staring at it, deciphering it, and producing plates of food in the hope that he’d got it right.“Should’ve been a doctor, right? Shame I’m all beauty and no brains.”
Paolo’s face, alive with his sardonic grin, flashed into Luis’s brain, filling every sense and facet. Heart pounding, he tore the envelope open. Bank notes, twenties and tens, fluttered to the floor, along with Luis’s rent card and a scrap of paper torn from the cafe’s order pad. Luis ignored the card and the money and scrambled for the note.
Luis,
Here’s your wages from the last however long. I don’t even know, but your tax records are up to date, so there’s that. I hope you’re okay and enjoying whatever you’re doing now. Let me know if you need a reference and I’ll post it to you.
P
The note slipped from Luis’s fingers. He slid slowly to the floor, surrounded by money he’d earned with honest graft, early mornings and long days spent side by side with a man who’d claimed a long-dead piece of his heart. A new ache tore a hole in Luis’s chest.
With a guttural moan, he put his head in his hands and cried.
18
Paolo strode away from Luis’s bedsit, rain driving into his face, disguising the angry tears enough that he could pretend they weren’t there. On the way over, he’d pictured reaching for the letterbox and the door opening at just the right moment. Luis meeting his gaze, and everything that had torn them apart disappearing as if it had never been there at all.
His imagination hadn’t counted on Luis not being home, but as he left the dark bedsit behind without bothering to knock, the cynic in him reasoned that it was just as well. Their last encounter had turned violent, and Luis had walked away. Worse, Paolo had let him and had done nothing to fix it in six long days. How did they come back from that?
We don’t. He doesn’t want your life, and you don’t want his.It sounded so simple on those terms, but the words scraped Paolo’s soul. It was true; he didn’t want to be part of the world Luis had come from, but he didn’t believe Luis did either. Hecouldn’tbelieve that the growing, innocent pride he’d seen in Luis every day he’d worked at the cafe hadn’t been real. It wasn’t Paolo’s place to proclaim a bacon sandwich worth more than whatever bullshit Dante Pope was peddling, but fuck, to Luis it was. It had to be, or Paolo really had shared his bed with a stranger.
Lost, Paolo caught the bus home. With all the stops, it was a five-minute journey, but the rush hour traffic was backed up to the cash-and-carry. Paolo found a window seat and settled in, tipping his head against the steamed-up glass and watching his tiny slice of the city go by without seeing a single thing. Luis was like a vice around his heart, clenching tighter and tighter the further Paolo got from the bedsit.What is it about this dude?Paolo could admit to himself that he loved Luis, but he’d loved others before. Wanted them. Needed them. But he’d never loved anyone like he loved Luis. Never with so much of himself and so little left behind now Luis was gone.
He’s not gone, though, is he? It’s not like he’s died.
Felt like it, though.
Paolo’s gaze fell on the cafe as the high street came into view. The council paint on the pavement was still there, clumsily plastered over the message Dante’s crew had left on the concrete. He still had no clue what it meant. Just that it had frightened Luis enough to push him over the edge and drive him away from Paolo for good. Had that been Dante’s intention? Or had it been a warning to Luis about something else? Something deeper and more sinister than Paolo could imagine. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he couldn’t seem to let it go. Couldn’t letLuisgo. This couldn’t be it. There had to be something else he could do.
But what? He’d paid Luis up to date. Filed his taxes. Tapped out a dozen messages he’d never sent. Spent hours at a time with his thumb hovering over Luis’s number.Call him. Worse-case scenario, he doesn’t answer. AndPaolo could’ve handled a tangible reason to give up and walk away. This silence? Nah. It was killing him.
The bus rolled into the high street. Paolo shuffled off and started in the direction of home. He’d already been to see Nonna, and all he had left to do was eat a solitary dinner and fall into his empty bed, but his feet dragged as he neared the flat, and the sense of something undone nagged at him so profoundly his head ached. Dante replaced Luis in his mind. Anger came again, white hot and pointless. Paolo wanted to hurt him more than he’d ever wanted to hurt anyone. Wanted to stamp on his smug face. Set fire to whatever it was that mattered more than his own brother.
But beneath Paolo’s rage, common sense was a cool drip of cleansing water. There was nothing he could do to hurt Dante, but perhaps he could reach him another way. Perhaps—
Don’t be a fool.But Paolo had been a fool for Luis the split second he’d found him waiting at the counter looking for work. For a job Toni had persuaded Paolo to give him. Maybe if Paolo’d had faith in Luis from the start, Dante would never have got to him. Who the hell knew? With so many questions unanswered, wild speculation was all Paolo had.
Didn’t stop you filing his P45, did it?
Guilt prickled Paolo’s skin. He’d done that on the fifth day Luis hadn’t shown up for work, angrily hacking away at his laptop, four beers deep. He’d regretted it come the morning, but the damage was done. It was official. Luis no longer worked for him.
Paolo wondered if Luis would even care when the tax forms came through. If the security of employment had ever meant anything to him. Then he remembered every tiny thing about Luis that kept him up at night, and his feet finally took root in the pavement and turned him around.
Fuck this. I’m gonna tell that cunt straight.
* * *
The Moss Farm estate towered over Paolo’s corner of the city. Literally. Six blocks of grimy bricks and dodgy cladding cast shadows over the streets below, grim and imposing, but a lifeline to anyone who couldn’t afford to live anywhere else.
Dante Pope could definitely afford to live elsewhere, but Paolo had it on good authority that he still resided in the council flat Luis had grown up in. Block three, top floor. He imagined it would be obvious which number.
