“G'morning, Ly!” Veronica waved a half-eaten muffin in his face when he emerged from the kitchen's back door.

“Good morning, Veronica. Did you pay for that?”

“I paid with my good company!” She grinned. “Anyway, your brother's being weird.”

It had been a good two weeks since the incident, and as much as Lyril wished to forget the initial circumstances of their meeting, Raphael’s regular presence at the café had become part of a very pleasant routine. He’d even brought a friend along to study with.

“You say that like it's something new,” mumbled Lyril as he put his apron on and emerged into the main room behind the bar. “Radames, why are you face down on the bar?”

Unhelpfully, Veronica added, “He was like this already when I came in!”

“He's back,” Radames mumbled.

“What? Who?”

Radames raised his phone. A notification was visible on the locked screen, still unopened, and it started with the words 'I know it's been a long time, but I was hop...'

Lyril frowned. “You're not going to answer, are you?”

Radames groaned, and Veronica rolled her eyes. “You already know how weak our dear little Radames is to those beautiful brown eyes of Diego's...”

“I would think that after three years in a row of this guy just deciding to leave without so much as a hasty goodbye you'd have blocked his number...” as he spoke, Lyril arranged some cakes and croissants in their display with unusual vehemence. Instead of an answer, he heard Radames tap on his phone.

“Told you!” yelled Veronica, who had climbed up to sit up on the bar. “He answered.”

“Radames...”

His brother raised a finger, “Shh! I am a grown man who can make his own choices, and what I am doing right now is making my own choice! I can quit anytime!”

“What about Amir?”

“What about him? I just said hello.”

Veronica snatched his phone. “No, he didn't! He's invited him over to the café!”

Lyril dropped a box of filters.

*

It was the afternoon of the next day when it happened.

Radames had been so nervous the entire time that it got to a point where Lyril personally sent him to the break room to put a wet cloth over his forehead, and had Daelan take over his brother's shift. As if he didn't already have too much on his plate, Raphael, his beautiful eyes, and his rather short friend Amir were studying in one of the booths – although Lyril wasn't sure if studying was correct when Amir was casting glances towards the bar every minute or so. It was his brother, Lyril knew; the two of them had gone back and forth flirting for the past two weeks, and from what he knew, had even gone on a date. Bitterly, in his heart of hearts, Lyril had hoped that this would be a step closer to his brother deleting Diego's number, but it seemed that that particular place in his brother’s contact list wasn’t about to vanish anytime soon. Not to mention the thoroughly undeserved place in Radames’s heart.

The timing was so obnoxious that Lyril was certain that the next tinkling of chimes above the door announced Diego’s arrival before he had even looked up.

Sure enough, there he was: poised and smiling in the doorway, a hand raised in casual greeting, hair a little too messy for it to have been entirely accidental. The light caught the intricate, delicate silver jewelry on his ears (Lyril could only hope that it’d get tangled in his stupid hair). His button up shirt was as white and as bright as the sun and his stupid cargo pants and even more stupid expensive mountain shoes were pristine. Unfortunately that ruled out Lyril kicking him out on the excuse he was trailing in mud.

He made sure to glare as hard as possible as Diego strode towards the bar.

“Hey, Ly. It’s been a while.” Diego sighed, beaming as he took in the surroundings of the cafe. “I’ve missed this place.”

“Lyril. And I’ll give you ‘it’s been a while’,” Lyril muttered, scrubbing vigorously at the counter top.

“Rough day? How have you been?”

“You don’t care and I certainly don't care how you are, so let's just-"

That was the moment that Radames chose to shoot out of the break room “Ishehereyetpleasetellmewhenhe—” and, spotting Diego smiling warmly at him (Lyril hated him ever the more for how soft he looked when his brother was in the room), slammed on the proverbial breaks.

“Oh— hello, I mean, hi, Diego.”

“Hi yourself, stranger.” Diego opened his arms, and Radames, grinning as stupidly as Lyril felt when he looked at Raphael, ran to embrace him.

Amir was craning his neck from the booth in the corner, frowning.

Poor guy, thought Lyril.

He focused his attention on helping Daelan with the queue for a few minutes, not forgetting to cast glances at Radames and Diego, who had sat down to talk. They were both laughing and smiling as if the last time Diego was here hadn't ended in tears.

Radames came back after a few minutes and whispered, “He's agreed to our dinner invitation!”

Lyril piled a few strawberries into a mixer as he hissed, “What dinner invitation?”

“You know, you, me, Diego, my new boyfriend—”

“One thing is subjecting me to his company, but dragging Amir into this mess? That is a whole new level of low, Radames. Last I heard, Amir wasn't even your boyfriend.”

“Technically no, but I'm sure if I ask him as a favor—”

The blender drowned out his brother's next words, but he followed Lyril around while he kept mixing the drink, passing notes for orders from Daelan and trying to point out the pros of the situation.

“—And all you want is to keep an eye on him, right? Well—”

“I'd rather just withdraw my half of this invitation, I'm not having him in the apartment, Radames—”

he looked down at the latest note from Daelan, which read 'please argue quieter'.

“Alright, let's invite more people then! Veronica's in, she'll always agree to come when there's food involved, and Daelan, would you like to come to a nice dinner at our place?”

Daelan's face turned slightly pink and he looked down, quickly mumbling that he had other things to do tonight before he turned to pass on a cookie from the display.

Lyril wished he had the same excuse.

“Well, I'll have Amir bring Raphael just so it won't look all weird—”

“No!”

Radames raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, no?”

“I-I mean,” Lyril stammered, “there's really no need to make more people look at the chaos this family descends to whenever Diego comes to town.”

Radames shushed him and hurried to greet the man in question, who had come back by the bar to collect his drink. About half an hour later Lyril's phone vibrated, and when he had the chance to look, all it read was '8PM. Amir+Raphael – YES. Ver – MAYBE. DON'T BLOW THIS FOR ME'.

“Problems at home?”

Lyril looked up and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Raphael leaning over the bar, sliding his empty cup of coffee across.

“N-no, I mean, well, my brother is being—... well, himself, I guess, and, uh...” he trailed off.

Raphael rested his chin on his hand lazily. “I heard we're seducing an old boyfriend. Amir's thrilled.”

Lyril's shoulders slumped. “I'm really sorry about all this. Radames isn't usually so fickle.”

“I see.”

Well, that was encouraging. His tone made Lyril deflate even more. Afraid to look up, he muttered in the direction of the bar: “You’d think, after years of this crap, again and again - hi Diego, bye Diego, hi again, nice to see you emerge from your caves, pity you didn’t get trapped by a rockfall, we’re all so glad you’re back… but I’m sure you don’t want to hear all that,” he added hurriedly, remembering his audience.

Raphael seemed thoughtful. “What a nice world it would be if we could choose to stop loving someone. Even if we know it's just a black hole of despair, we still continue to yearn.”

With that, Raphael left a bill on the bar and started to leave.

“See you tonight.”