Dídac laughed and kissed him.
“Yeah, that’s off the menu… until I’ve had a chance to recover. How about paella? It’s Thursday, isn’t it? Thursday’s paella day in most Barcelona restaurants.”
“No, it’s Friday.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I still know a couple of places where we can get a decent paella.”
“You’re on,” Kim mumbled, his face in Dídac’s hair as he kept kissing his neck. He turned Dídac and leaned in, his tongue once more caressing Dídac’s throat. The younger man reacted, losing himself again in that delicious feeling, unable to resist Kim’s sensual assault. Finally, on the verge of getting hard all over again, he pulled his throat away, and found Kim’s lips with his own, kissing him back passionately, but this time more softly, savoring each warm touch.
“And the ghost… Margarida,” Kim asked, pulling away for a moment. “Do you think she saw us?”
“I think she’d approve,” Dídac chuckled. “Working with Lorca, I’m sure she’d have seen more than a few scenes like that.”
They looked around the room, taking in the old props, dusty costumes, and bits of defunct stage sets, at any moment expecting to see the great dame of the twentieth-century theater world slide around the edge of a stage flat and smile beguilingly at them. Kim shivered.
“Come on, let’s get out of here. I’m hungry.”
They dressed again, not without further pauses for lingering kisses and slow hugs. Finally, Dídac eased open the door quietly, listening for any movement in the Reading Room, or on the stairs. There was none. They left, quietly descending the stairs, almost tip-toeing melodramatically as they passed the offices. Someone was working within, but they didn’t look in to see who it was. The last thing they wanted was to be joined by anyone else from the theater for lunch.
Out on the street, in the automatic act of putting on his shades, Dídac checked his phone.
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“A text from Laia.”
He showed Kim the single-word message: Lunch?
“When did she send it?”
“About… just as we were heading upstairs. We often have lunch together after rehearsal.”
“Just say you had something on.”
“Yeah, but she’ll think it strange I took so long to get back to her.”
Dídac frowned, thought for a few moments and then fired off a text.
“I’ll see her this evening, and—”
“Spill all?”
“Ah, I’m not… Are we a secret?”
“Not exactly, but it might be a bit early to post the wedding banns.”
“OK, I’ll be discreet.”
“Come on, take me to lunch.”
22
“So, tell all… Why are you sitting there smiling so widely it’s pushing out your ears?”
Laia and Dídac were in that month’s restaurant mecca—eating a meal together being one of their favorite things to do. This one, Sahara, a Moroccan eatery, had commandeered a Modernista conservatory—apparently it used to be part of Count Güell’s youngest son’s playboy pad back in the early twentieth-century. Its exquisite, stained-glass barrel-vault ceiling, depicting the four seasons as muses above, defined the space, while several sensual, larger-than-life marble sculptures of female nudes were arranged throughout, along with artificial hedges, separating the restaurant into smaller groves of tables.
Laia had managed to confirm the booking just that afternoon as it was tough to get a table. It had become free fortuitously just when Dídac had something to celebrate. Even so, at the back of his mind, his conscience nagged him that he had agreed to be discreet.
