anymore, though. So looks like I’ll have to drink it all myself.”
“Why can’t Toni have it?”
“House rules. He’s in a care home now, and apparently they haven’t got time to deal with inebriated geriatrics.”
“What about your grandma?”
“Nonna? She’s in a different place. A nursing home.” Paolo reached for the bottle. “She’s not allowed any fun either, but I reckon I want to talk about that as much as you do your brother, so let’s move on, eh?”
Luis didn’t need telling twice. He let Paolo refill his glass and drank more wine, enjoying the cocoon of warmth that settled around him. Around them. Locked up in the cafe, it felt like they were the only souls left in the world, and he was okay with that.
More than okay. Paolo checked in with the football results, and Luis let his mind drift. A week ago, he’d been preparing for release, ready to leave prison behind, and yet terrified of the blank space in front of him. Then he’d been running scared from the job centre one day and pleading with the teenage girl behind the counter in the bank to unlock his account, despite his lack of photo ID. Working for Paolo had filled the gaps enough to calm him, but a sense of impending doom still haunted him. Holed up in the cafe with a full belly, booze, and a beautiful man for company was too good to be true.
It had to be.
Paolo nudged Luis’s arm, fingers trailing over his forearm . . . Or were they? Maybe it was all in Luis’s head. And if it was, who cared? There were worse things to fantasise about.
The bottle of wine grew empty. Paolo made small talk. Luis responded with words, none of them important. The wine settled in his blood, warming his soul. He felt tired but too content to fall asleep and miss a moment.
He felt like someone else.
Paolo nudged him again—Luis had no clue how long it had been since the first time. “We’ve run out of booze. Probably time to call it a night.”
Luis couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less than walk home in the cold to his barren bedsit, but that wasn’t Paolo’s concern. He shrugged and got to his feet. “Do you want me to help lock up?”
“If you want.”
It was as good an offer as any. Luis set the chairs on the table while Paolo locked the back door and mopped the floors.
They met at the front door and stepped out into the night. “I live in the flats behind the petrol station,” Paolo said. “That’s on your way, right?”
Luis nodded.
“Come on, then.” Paolo set off, and Luis followed, falling into step beside him. It was strange to see Paolo outside of the cafe. The city was the same as it had always been, but its monotony didn’t suit Paolo’s beauty. It was like watching a puma prowl through the supermarket, dangerous and ethereal and not quite right.
“You’re so quiet,” Paolo remarked. “It freaked me out at first, but I like it now. It’s so different from how my family used to be.”
“Your grandparents?”
“Yeah. They were like the quintessential Italian couple, always yelling at each other, Toni ducking from all the shit my nonna threw at him.”
“What about your parents?”
“Didn’t really have any. Smackheads, the both of them. Long dead now. What about yours?”
“My mum lives in Birmingham. We don’t speak. And I never knew my dad.”
“Why don’t you speak to your mum?”
Luis shrugged. “She’s not very nice.”
“That’s as good a reason as any.”
“I know, right? Dante—uh, my brother used to keep in touch with her. He paid for her boob job.”
Paolo whistled. “Your family sound as fucked up as mine.”
“They are, but I don’t see them as my family anymore. I’m not the same person I was before, and I don’t care about them.”
“I know how that goes. For a long time, I was angry with my parents for being useless shits, then one day I grew up and stopped giving a fuck. Stopped missing a life I’d never had, you know?”
“I know.”
Paolo trailed to a stop. Luis glanced up and realised they were in front of the blocks of flats that hadn’t existed before he’d gone inside. Clean white cladding and a thousand windows, they looked like the new prison wing he’d watched go up during his last two years, but he kept that thought to himself. “This is you?”
“Yup.” Paolo fished in his pocket for a set of keys.