Redemption - Garrett Leigh Page 0,46
he’s only messaging me to wind me up. I already told him no.”
“Why did you tell him no when you hadn’t asked me?”
“Because I have zero intention of asking you.”
Luis took Paolo’s hand and towed him out of the fridge. Back in the warmth, he lifted Paolo as if he weighed nothing and deposited him on the counter.
Paolo laughed too. “Dick. Don’t manhandle me.”
“Why? It’s the same as you answering that question without asking me.”
“It’s really not.”
“It really is. Why is it okay for you to tell your granddad I won’t come and see him when you haven’t even asked me?”
“Dude, it’s not your responsibility.”
“It doesn’t need to be if I want to do it. It can just be fun.”
“Your idea of fun is hanging around an old folks’ home? Jesus, you’re not right in the head. I hate those places.”
“You wouldn’t have liked prison either, then.”
“Did you?”
Luis’s gaze turned thoughtful and then so distant that Paolo shook him gently to bring him back. “It’s a complicated question,” Luis said. “Of course I hated it, but being outside isn’t that different sometimes.”
“In what sense?”
“Nothing specific. I just don’t feel all that free.”
Paolo was missing something. He knew it like he knew water was wet, but figuring it out scared him. He liked the bubble they’d created around themselves. The cocoon of days and nights where Luis’s secrets didn’t matter. He used his legs to draw Luis in, then wrapped his arms around him in the tight hug Luis had needed the very first day he’d walked into the cafe. “I’m sorry you don’t feel free.”
Luis visited Toni every night for a week while Paolo caught up on sleep, the accounts, and everything else he’d let slide. He cooked dinner, washed the bedsheets, and played FIFA for the first time in months. It was like a holiday, and Luis was the sunshine.
“I think you got sick because you’ve been doing too much,” Luis mused one night. “If it was a bug, I’d have got it too.” He had his eyes closed while Paolo was tracing pictures on his bare skin. It was late and they’d have to sleep soon, but Paolo didn’t want to. He wanted to stay awake like this, with Luis, forever.
He laid his head on Luis’s chest. “Maybe. I’m glad you didn’t, though. But you know I would’ve taken care of you if you had, don’t you? Like you’ve taken care of me?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Whatever.” Paolo wasn’t going to debate that point again. Luis wasn’t good at being told he mattered, and Paolo didn’t know how to fix it. He lay still a moment, listening to Luis’s heartbeat against his cheek, a steady metronome that fought the chaos he so often saw in Luis’s eyes. He’d seen it today, in the supermarket that was a world away from the corner store Luis usually shopped at.
“I can’t choose. There’s too many.”
“Don’t choose then.” Paolo snagged a tin of tomatoes from the shelf. “Just take the nearest one. And I don’t know why you’re buying these anyway. I literally have a thousand kilos of them at home.”
Luis’s frown had deepened, and he’d walked away without the tomatoes, leaving Paolo bemused. It had taken him a while to figure out giving Luis everything he needed was as suffocating as taking it away.
Paolo sat up. “Can I ask you something?”
Luis cracked a wary eye open. “Okay.”
“You can say no if you want, even before you know what it is.”
“I didn’t say no.”
“I know, I’m just saying— You know what? Never mind.”
Paolo lay back down. Luis nudged him until he looked at him again. “Just ask me the question. What kind of arsehole do you think I am?”
“I don’t think you’re an arsehole.”
Luis made a gesture that was as impatient as he ever seemed to get.
Paolo took the hint. “What’s it like being outside after so long in prison? Most days, I forget about it, then random shit seems to freak you out, and I wondered if they were connected.”
Luis sighed. “Are you talking about the tomato thing again?”
“And the park thing.”
“What park thing?”
“You didn’t like it when we walked home through the park the other day. It was like you’d never seen the sky.”
“It’s a big park.”
“So?”
“I haven’t been in open space like that for a while.”
Paolo crawled up Luis’s body and kissed him, throwing a leg over his waist for good measure. With Luis’s dick hard beneath him, it was easy to forget they were having a serious conversation. Too