he wasn’t in the mood to contemplate that either, so he busied himself straightening Nonna’s room.
Luis took a seat in the corner. He watched Paolo bustle around, his watchful presence, as ever, a comfort, not an intrusion. Paolo had brought Nonna clean handkerchiefs. Luis took them from him and folded them into perfect triangles. “Where does she keep them?”
Paolo jerked his head at the dresser. “In the drawer.”
Luis got up and opened the drawer. He placed the handkerchiefs inside and withdrew a framed photograph of Paolo and Toni. “When was this taken?”
“Judging by my tragic step cut, sometime in the nineties.”
“I had one of those too, but I shaved it off when my mum wasn’t looking.”
“Was your hair blond when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, like bright strawberry blond. I had red cheeks too, like a cartoon.”
“Where did your dog tags come from?”
Luis turned back to the drawer. “They’re my dad’s.”
“Is he dead?”
“For a long time now.”
“How did he die? Was he a soldier?”
“Yeah. He was killed in Bosnia when I was little.”
“I’m sorry.”
Luis put the photo back without asking why it was tucked away in a drawer and not proudly displayed, as if he already knew how much it scared Nonna to be watched over by faces she didn’t always recognise. “It’s okay. I never really knew him. It was harder for Dante.”
“Why doesn’t he wear the tags then?”
“Can’t remember.”
If the tells Paolo had imagined in Luis were correct, he was lying. But Nonna stirred before he could second guess every twitch of Luis’s eyebrows, and not even Luis could distract him from that.
Nonna had one of those days where she didn’t know who Paolo was. She called him Guiseppe and asked him to take her dancing. Paolo played along, as he always did. It was easier than forcing reality on her.
Didn’t stop her figuring out that Paolo had it bad for Luis, though. When they finally left her to it, Paolo had blushed more times than a shy bride.
Visiting Toni was easier. He knew Luis’s face. Welcomed it and him, as if Paolo brought hot guys to see him all the time.
He didn’t. But that didn’t stop Paolo imagining a different life, one where Toni and Nonna got to grow old together in their garden flat, serving dinner at the battered kitchen table where Nonna had taught Paolo to hand roll pasta. There’d have been a place for Luis at that table if he’d wanted it.
Paolo wanted it, even if it was nothing but a dream.
They took the bus back from Toni’s care home. Paolo sat by the window. Luis slumped down beside him and lolled his head on Paolo’s shoulder. He looked asleep, though it was hard to tell. On the nights they’d spent together, Paolo had always knocked out first and woken up last. He wished it was one of those nights now, so he could absorb every moment of Luis so peaceful. Stroke his face and tangle his fingers in his silky hair without the distraction of making each other come.
Not that Paolo was complaining about that. Being naked with Luis was cloud nine territory. Problem was, he never wanted to come down.
The bus passed where Luis would get off if he was going home. He didn’t stir, and Paolo didn’t rouse him. At some point, he’d have to take a breath and figure out what the hell they were doing, but not yet. Their stolen nights together were too precious. Paolo couldn’t give them up.
Not yet.
12
Luis hadn’t been home in days. Every morning he rolled out of Paolo’s bed and down the road to work, and each night, he rolled straight back in. Some evenings he went with Paolo to visit his grandparents; others, he stayed in Paolo’s flat, figuring out how to use his TV and trying to pretend that immersing himself so entirely in Paolo’s life was a good idea.
It wasn’t a good idea. Luis had ignored Dante’s text, and there’d been no others, but the sense of borrowed time was so strong, Luis woke each day feeling like it was the end of the world. Paolo’s arms around him helped, but too soon, it was always time to get up and face the day.
He hadn’t cooked for days either. Paolo never asked him why or forced him away from the dishwasher, but on the fourth Saturday since Luis’s release, it was time for him to learn the way of the pasta pot.
“You don’t have to,” Paolo said. “I’m thinking of jacking it