Page 212 of Seasons of Love
The scene I walked into in the café made me want to get my phone out and take a photo. Teresa and Mário were huddled behind the counter working on some kind of paperwork, and Joel was sitting at one of the tables with Filipe, Bruno's five-year-old little brother.
While Teresa and Mário looked up and smiled when I came in, neither Joel nor Filipe saw me, such was their focus on the picture they were coloring in. My guess was that both Bruno and David were in the kitchen working.
"No, you're doing it wrong, Uncle Joel." Filipe huffed. "Let me show you." His tiny hands took hold of Joel's big hand and pen as he helped Joel color in properly.
"Tiago, how are you doing, dear?"
Teresa's greeting turned Filipe's attention toward me, and in no time at all, both Joel and the coloring pens were discarded as he ran toward me.
"Uncle Tiago"
"Hey, Pip, shouldn't you be at school?" I asked as I picked him up.
He rolled his eyes, which made me smile. "No, silly. It's Easter break. Do you want to color with us?"
"I'm not sure I'm very good at coloring."
"I'll teach you. I'm teaching Uncle Joel, too." He leaned closer and put his little hands around my ear. "He's not very good at coloring."
I wanted to laugh at his not-very-whispery whisper but managed to keep a straight face.
"I need to speak to Uncle David, but I'll come back after, okay?"
"Okay," he said as he wormed his way down to the floor and back to Joel.
I put my hand out over the counter to shake Mário's hand, but Teresa came around to give me a hug. Considering Teresa didn't have any children of her own, she was the most motherly person I knew.
"Is he in the kitchen?"
"Yes, they're working on an order. Go right in. Do you want a coffee and a custard tart?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?" I replied as I kissed her on the cheek.
David and Bruno were mumbling the words of the song that was playing on the radio as they worked around each other. Bruno was covering the smaller of two cakes with white fondant while David applied small decorations to the larger cake.
"Hey, guys."
I got a collective "Hey" but only David looked my way since Bruno was focusing on rolling the fondant on the cake. The guy really had a lot of talent. Although, to be fair, since I was barely able to put a basic meal together, anyone that could put eggs, flour, and butter together and produce a cake was a genius to my eyes.
"What brings you south of the river? Did you want to go through the workshop schedule for the next couple of months?" David asked.
"Yes, that would be good, but that's not why I came. I was wondering if we could talk more about Mário's brother."
Before Christmas, David had asked Isaac for help finding Vítor, Mário's younger brother who'd run away when he was only twenty-one. The event had been a family secret until Mário had confessed to David that the reason he'd reacted so badly to the idea of David being gay was because he was afraid of losing him like he'd lost his brother.
The relationship between uncle and nephew had been very rocky for a long time, but fortunately they'd been working on it since the summer and seemed to be in a good place.
Since then, Café Lima had gone from being the place where David worked to the place we all hung out and felt welcomed by both Teresa and Mário.
With Isaac in Manhattan, there was a lot of work I'd needed to pick up, so while searching for Vítor was on my radar, it hadn't been a priority. Now, with Fred going silent and the workload stabilizing, I needed something new to focus on. Especially since my head was flickering between thinking about my brother and the hot older man I'd kissed in the bar a week ago.
"I'm sorry it's taken so long," I said, taking a seat at a small table on the other side of the kitchen so I wasn't in their way.
"Don't worry, I'm in the center all the time, remember? I know how busy you are, especially now without Isaac there. So, what do you need to know about Vítor?"
"Start at the beginning. What happened before he disappeared?"
"On his twenty-first birthday, he went to a gay bar in Lisbon. I don't know which one. He was seen kissing a guy by someone who knew his dad." David looked at me then, his expression one of anger.
