3. Edo

“Luke, chaval, where have you been?”

Luke gave a thin smile and collapsed onto a barstool, letting his briefcase fall heavily at his feet, but he was clearly trying to pretend nothing was wrong, “Working, you tosser, where have you been?”

He looked tired, the sort of bone-deep exhaustion that hits after working too hard, and thinking too much and not sleeping enough. He had dark bags under his eyes, almost black enough to be bruises, and he was paler than Edo had ever seen him. His clothes were wrinkled.

Edo grinned, the way he always did, and chose to ignore the state of him, “Entertaining the lonely, of course.”

There had, in fact, been a rather lovely girl who had wanted him to… Well. Edo shifted slightly, grabbing a glass to ignore the memories. Damn, that had been a good afternoon.

Luke’s smile didn’t even hit both corners of his mouth, “Of course.”

He hadn’t seen Luke in over two weeks, which was a very long time for two of them. Even when Sofia had still been in his life Luke would come round to the Old Boot for a pint and a plate of chips or a quick catch up.

“How’s work?” He asked, pulling a pint for him.

He knew Nick had had a couple of conversations with him, but he had remained remarkably tight-lipped about them, so he hadn’t pushed. Officially, he didn’t know how Nick felt about that, because he always shrugged and said he didn’t know Luke well enough to be crushing on him. But unofficially? Edo begged to differ. Nick was definitely a relationship kind of guy, so it had been difficult for him to walk away after a night of sex (apparently awesome sex, if his blush every time that night was mentioned was anything to go by) and a morning after where they’d discovered they had things in common (because he and Linda were awesome and kindred spirits and one day he was going to tap that) with only a number and no certainty of any future with this guy. Such a romantic, in his own way. It was probably screwing with his head a little bit, especially after Richard.

Nick had been happy for the first few days when the contact had happened, but now they clearly weren’t talking and though he tried to hide it Edo could tell that he was upset. After all, he’d known Nick longer than anyone else in London, if he couldn’t tell what the boy was feeling, nobody could.

Edo had texted Luke a couple of times himself, but got nothing back, so he’d not tried again, waiting for Luke to come to him instead. And here he was.

Luke shrugged, taking the offered drink, “Busy. Moving up in the world of marketing just means more work for me.”

He’d figured that Luke had got that promotion he had been talking about, because Luke was focused and hard-working and a good guy, often bringing in work to do while he waited for his friends in a booth by the window. That was a possible distraction.

“New corner office with wide floor-to-ceiling windows, beautiful secretaries at your beck and call, calling you ‘sir’… S’alright for some people, isn’t it?”

More likely he was avoiding his old haunts for a little bit while he wrapped his mind around living without Sofia. Edo knew Sofia hadn’t really approved of him, in all his foreign, tattooed, good-looking glory. She probably compared him unfavourably to Luke, who had all of the home-bred, English charm of a successful career man. Who was also fit as all hell. What? Edo was perfectly capable of admitting he was not the only good-looking guy in the room.

But Luke came back to the pub and spent time with him anyway, made small talk and asked questions and wanted to be friends, despite the occasional glare from Sofia, when she deigned to step foot in the pub.

“She hasn’t called you back, has she?” He said, somewhere between concerned and relieved.

“No. And I don’t think she will.”

“Oh?”

Luke didn’t even look at him, just continued to stare into his glass as though it would solve the mysteries of life for him.

“Yeah.”

Nick had been wearing a similar expression when he’d said goodbye to him last night. This was ridiculous. Both of them were pining, even if they didn’t realise it.
Edo glanced around to make sure no other customer needed him before diving into the conversation.

“Are you ok with that?”

Luke looked up this time, forehead gently creased, “I think so. She left me a letter, trying to explain.”

Edo nodded, not wanting to interrupt the train of thought.

“She said that she doesn’t love me. And I can deal with that.” He ran a finger round the rim of his glass, “And she’s with someone else now. Fine, I can deal with that too. It’s weird, not having her around, but it’s ok. I don’t miss her, really,” he looked up, frowning. Frustration, or reliving something, “I miss having someone around, but let’s be honest, that hasn’t been her for a while now. I’m not angry, I don’t resent her, only how she did it, how she left.”

And that was that. Fact. Pure statement of fact. No wonder he’d stayed away whilst trying to work this through.

“And that’s alright. She was right, we were living in a routine and I just don’t need her like I used to.”

Edo nodded again, watching Luke’s expressions shift as he explained himself.

“My mum says I’ve always been in it for the long run – sports teams, societies, clubs, friendships, relationships. I lived with Sofia as if she was going to mean the world to me forever and Sofia just didn’t. Feel like that or live like that. And she just doesn’t, and I don’t,” he paused, staring at his glass again, “I don’t want her back.”

“Good for you.”

Luke jerked his head up to look at him, “What?”

“Good for you. I think you’ll be better without her.”

“Yeah,” he said, wrapping a hand around his pint and cracking a smile, a real one, “Yeah. I think so too.”

There was a moment of silence, in which Edo acknowledged that Sam was looking pointedly at him, then across the room to where the Coopers had finished their meal and made a vague but just as pointed gesture towards Luke, who was staring at his glass again. He really was tired.
Sam sighed and went to deal with the empty plates himself.

“Hey Edo.”

“Yes, chaval?”

“Thanks for listening.”

“No problem. Anytime.”

Luke gave him another smile and glanced over his shoulder at the booth he usually sat in.

“You expecting people?”

“Lucas, Mitch and Tash will be by in a bit. I got blackmailed into coming here, but they’re not wrong, I guess. Socialising is good for you,” he said, imitating Tash, “You can’t hide in that flat forever!”

“She’s right, tío. Some fresh air and some hot babes, you’ll be fine in no time.”

Luke laughed and got up from the barstool, “Well, I know I can always come find you if I need a night out.”

“That you can.”

Luke walked over to the booth to wait for his friends, “Could you bring over a plate of chips, please? I forgot to have lunch today.”

Sam gave him the side-eye as he put the order through to the kitchen and Edo smiled winningly at him.

“Is your friend ok?”

“He will be.”

“Good,” said Sam wiping down a section of the counter, “He came in last week on one of your days off and looked like he was contemplating drowning himself in his pint.”

Edo looked over to where Luke was rifling through his briefcase, searching for something.

“Yeah, he’s going through a bit of a tough spot, his girl left him, but he’ll be fine. Better than before, even.”

“If you say so, mate.”

Dan pushed a plate of chips through to them from the kitchen, “Order up!”

Edo took them over, stealing one, mainly because he could, grabbing ketchup, salt and cutlery as he went past and decided that while Luke was his friend, Nick was closer than that and he should do what Linda called protecting their own.

“Hey, Luke?” he said, putting the plate down in front of him.

Luke looked up from his jumble of papers, “Yeah?”

“I’m happy that you know how you feel about Sofia, but I need to make sure you know what you’re doing about Nick.”

Luke fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat, “I don’t know yet.”

He nodded, “And that’s cool, but don’t string him along. If you like him, tell him. Don’t make him wait for something that might never happen.”

Luke bit into a chip so that he couldn’t answer. Cheeky bugger.

“You both deserve good people and if it’s each other that’s awesome, but if it isn’t then that’s awesome too. Just make sure you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even know if he wants to see me. I haven’t really been around.”

Yeah, Edo knew. An unhappy Nick was strange and disturbing and wrong, and something the Epiphany staff had had to deal with in the past week.

“Text him. Easiest and most effective way to get hold of him at this time of day.”

A table on his left raised eyebrows at him until he went to deal with them. A table with two girls, and it wasn’t a date because neither was wearing perfume. Excellent.
He put on the most charming smile he could and took their order.

When he looked at Luke, the guy was staring at his phone, concentrating. He bit his lip when he pressed send.

The girls were lovely and indulged him in a bit of casual flirting, but left without leaving their numbers. Ah well. Such things did happen, even to Edo.

Luke got a text back about half an hour later, after his friends had arrived and ordered food. Judging by the look on his face and the noise his friends made at the sight, it was probably Nick.

“Hey Edo,” said Mitch, in his badly regulated indoor voice, “Luke’s getting a date! Give the man something appropriate to drink, yeah?”

So Edo was making his way over with a ‘Sex With The Bartender', because he was clever like that, when he got a text too.

Mitch roared with laughter when he told them what the drink was and he stayed long enough to mock Luke for the grin that he couldn’t hide, then excused himself to check his phone.

It was from Nick.

Thank you, hermano.

Hermano. Brother. Oh, Nick.

You’re welcome. I call dibs, the first child gets named Edo. The Magnificent.