Page 8 of Back Room Host

“Hey, Luca!” Sara greeted, lounging on the light gray sofa and watchingBridgertonon the huge flatscreen. “What are you doing here already? Don’t you have to work?”

I stood in the hallway, grimacing.

“No! Not again!” she sighed, hitting pause. “What was it this time?”

“A hot chocolate?” I guessed, even though I knew very well.

Sara rolled her eyes. “Pretty soon, you’ll have to find another line of work, because your reputation will precede you and no café will hire you anymore.”

“I know,” I groaned.

Sara had only moved in here three months ago. After I had avoided her for two months, she eventually sought out a conversation. She thought we would live past each other due to our schedules, but I simply preferred to be alone. Unfortunately, she studied psychology and smelled a deeper reason behind my distant behavior. Since then, she treated me like her little brother; meanwhile, I was two years older than her.

“Are you watching?” she asked, tucking a brown strand of hair behind her ear.

“I need to take a shower.” I was sure she hadn’t missed how I was shivering all over. I headed straight for the bathroom, stripped off my wet clothes, and stepped into the shower. Sara’s words echoed in my head. Unfortunately, she was right. I was indeed running out of options; I had already been through so many cafés. Maybe it was time to look into the club scene. They surely were always looking for bartenders.

After taking a shower, I wrapped a towel around my hips and gathered my wet clothes. I left the bathroom and headed straight for the small room where the washing machine was located. Except for my jacket, I threw everything in and went to my room. Shortly after, I stood there in sweatpants and a hoodie, staring thoughtfully at my desk. My closed laptop was urging me to finally start writing a concept for my film project, but the curved monitor was tempting me with video games. My gaze wandered to the punching bag.Or a little workout?

But first, I went to the kitchen and glanced at the fridge. Was I hungry? No idea. My eyes fell on the open milk.

Hot chocolate. Don’t we have some cocoa powder here somewhere?

I opened the overhead cabinet and indeed found chocolate powder. I grabbed a saucepan, poured in some milk, and put it on the stove. While I made sure it didn’t get too hot, I kept glancing at the flatscreen on the other side of the living room wall. Sara was fast-forwarding through the credits ofBridgertonand channel-surfing when Hector came around the corner.

“Hey, Luca,” he said, opening the fridge. “Everything okay?”

“Hey, yeah, all good.”

Sara cleared her throat, which Hector noticed. He frowned and silently asked me what that was about.

Just in time, I removed the overflowing milk from the stove just in time. “I guess I’ll have to start looking for a new job.”

Hector didn’t seem particularly surprised by this. He grabbed a ginger shot from the fridge, shook the bottle, and drank it in one go. Meanwhile, I poured the hot milk into a cup and added two spoonfuls of chocolate powder. I paused as Juri came to mind.

He put in two whole packets.

I added two more spoonfuls and stirred.

“Any more and the spoon will get stuck,” Hector commented with a laugh, tossing the empty bottle in the trash. “Since when did you start liking it so sweet? I thought you weren’t into sugar.”

“Yeah …” I admitted absentmindedly. “Maybe it’s time to try something new.”

As the hot chocolate cooled, I leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed my arms. Hector rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands thoroughly at the sink. As he dried them on a fresh towel and turned back to me, I noticed he was freshly shaved and had styled his brown hair with gel. For his age, I thought he had held up pretty well, and I was sure that twenty years ago, when he was my age, the ladies had been chasing after him in droves.

“Are you going out?”

“Later,” he replied, his voice almost drowned out by the noise coming from the flatscreen. “I’m not sure yet if I’m staying here overnight or going home after,” he continued, speaking louder. “Still have to figure it out. And how about you? Have you put your ideas down on paper?”

As if I wanted to dodge that question, I shook my head and turned back to the hot chocolate. “What ideas?” I asked despondently. “There are so many. I can’t even sort them out.”

“And what are you working on right now?”

“Honestly? I don’t think …”

“You’ve been living here for two and a half years. Has there ever been anything that didn’t interest me?”

He was right. Besides, I had known Hector before I moved in here, as he was a close friend of my parents. By now, he knew me really well and knew almost everything about me. Not that I was an open book, but over time, a few things had happened that I inevitably had to explain.

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