4. Diego #2
He threw his arms first around Obie, and before Diego could even start to feel jealous, he threw his arms around Diego’s neck and pressed their bodies together.
Frankie was always careful to keep their bodies a respectful distance apart when hugging, but Diego didn’t want to be respectful.
He was going into business with this man and he was going to give him a real hug.
He wrapped his arms around Frankie’s lower back and pulled him flush against him, burying his face in Frankie’s neck, taking in his warm, almost sweet scent.
At first, he’d thought Frankie smelled like the sweet coffee he was always drinking, but eventually he’d come to realize that was just how Frankie smelled – like a whiskey laden cup of coffee, drunk while he and Frankie snuggled against each other on the couch.
“We did it,” Frankie whispered right in Diego’s ear. Frankie must have been able to feel the way Diego shivered from head to toe, seeing as how they were pressed together, but he didn’t comment on it. He just held Diego until he was finally ready to let go.
Obie drove them over to the site he’d seen go up for sale, and somehow it was absolutely perfect.
It had been a comedy club, but that had been going out of fashion, at least in their city, and the tenants had terminated their lease without warning.
The owner had spent some time, and a lot of money, trying to refurbish the place, but had apparently given up halfway through, leaving a semi-deconstructed bar in the front room and a stage in the back room.
Obie had been watching the space for a while, planning to bid on it and do a complete gut job to open a second tattoo parlor.
He’d reached out to the owners a while ago, but then he’d switched to wanting to help finance Frankie and Diego’s cafe and forgotten about the space.
A week ago, the owner had reached back out, informing Obie he was willing to rent the space for cheap so long as the new tenants took care of the rest of the refurb and any upgrades they wanted to make.
Frankie walked into the middle of the space and spun in a circle. “It’s perfect, isn’t it? It’s absolutely fucking perfect.”
Diego didn’t have quite the imagination that Frankie did, but even he could see the potential for the space.
Right by the front door was a small alcove they could use as a cozy seating nook.
A little farther in and on the right was the bar, which they would obviously repurpose for coffee, and more space for seating.
In the back was the barebones stage, more room for seating, and a backroom once used as a green room.
Now, it was large and empty. Diego envisioned turning it into a storage room and office.
Frankie had begun doing research into industrial kitchen appliances and had decided all he would really need was a set of ovens, an industrial sized mixer, a sink, and a fridge.
It looked like there would be enough room to build a wall, a door, and an exhaust vent in the corner to create a small kitchen.
What Diego wasn’t expecting was an additional door leading off of the backroom.
“Hey, Obie? What is this?” he asked as he approached the door.
Obie scurried forward with surprising agility and blocked Diego from approaching the door.
“Oh… well… this is sort of a little bonus surprise. I only found out about it a few days ago and didn’t want to say anything in case the loan didn’t come in time to put an offer on the space, but there is actually a small two-bedroom apartment upstairs. It comes with the space.”
Diego was floored; Frankie looked just as shocked. “Do… do we need it?” Frankie asked looking between the other two men.
Need? No. Want? Maybe?
For a fleeting moment, Diego let himself imagine waking up with Frankie, not in his bed like his prior fantasies, but in the same apartment. They would come downstairs together to prep for the day and go upstairs together at the end of the night.
“Trust me. When I opened the shop, I was there almost 24/7. The little studio wasn’t ideal, but it was a life saver. Before you make any decisions, why don’t we take a look?”
They obediently followed Obie up the backstairs and arrived at another door. Obie jingled the key ring they’d retrieved from a lock box out front, and opened the second door.
The space was definitely utilitarian. The entryway led directly into the living room, which was separated from the kitchen by a small butcher block island. The counter had enough space for a few appliances, and there was a decent looking fridge, oven, and range.
The rest of the apartment was ordinary but cozy. The bedrooms were rather disparate in size with the smaller of the two being only a little bigger than the small kitchen, but still large enough for a bed, a desk, and maybe a dresser.
“I’m assuming this would be my room as the undergraduate?” Frankie joked. He walked around the periphery of the smaller room like a jailed man counting out the dimensions of a cell.
Was Frankie considering moving in? With him?
“I would be happy to take the smaller room. I don’t have a lot of stuff.”
“No, D, I don’t have a lot of stuff. You have your beautiful clothes and all your accessories.”
Ah yes. His accessories, including his packers, dildos and other fun toys Frankie had once stumbled upon in his bathroom when looking for a spare toothbrush.
Diego turned away from Frankie to try and hide his blush. “If… you were uncomfortable in the smaller room, but still wanted to move in, I would of course be happy to take it.”
Frankie walked right up to Diego and stood a few inches in front of him like he had the night after graduation at the bus stop.
“You want me to move in with you that bad, cabbage?”
Diego rolled his eyes. Of course, the answer was yes, but Diego wasn’t stupid.
He knew moving in with his soon-to-be business partner and best friend, who he wanted to be more than a friend, was risky.
“I think Obie made some good points about how much easier it would be if we lived above the shop, so I think it would make sense for you to live here. But I would never want you to do something you didn’t want to do. ”
Frankie looked around the room one more time and then, with a small huff, led the way back downstairs to meet Obie.
From there, things moved faster than Diego could have ever anticipated.
There was about a month of back and forth with the landowner, but they finally signed the lease at the end of April.
Diego’s lease on his apartment was up in just under three months, and while he’d been planning on re-signing it, there was something about the cozy apartment above the cafe that called to him.
He would probably have to sell a few pieces of furniture, but it seemed like a small price to pay.
Frankie didn’t own any furniture, just the one-and-a-half suitcases worth of things he’d lugged to and from Europe as well as a few new kitchen items he’d acquired over the past year.
Fortunately for him, this meant he would be able to move in at any time with pretty short notice.
Still, Diego couldn’t get a straight answer if Frankie was going to move in.
Since he was subleasing from Seth, who said he only needed a one-week notice at the most, everyone agreed it was fine if he took his time deciding.
They got access to the space the second week of May and spent the entire month and most of June cataloging all of the repairs the cafe and the apartment required.
Diego focused most of his efforts on the apartment while Frankie, Obie, Seth, and Penelope spent their time on the cafe.
They all had full-time jobs, and Diego and Frankie were working extra hours so they could begin paying their monthly installments to the landlord and the bank.
One sweltering day in July, they rounded up all their friends, bought a few cases of beers and ciders and enough pizza to feed an army, and moved Diego into the apartment.
That night, while they lay sprawled out on Diego’s couch, Frankie declared it was time to put all their focus on the cafe.
Diego looked around at the piles of boxes and trash bags he’d used to move, thought of the new budget he was trying to launch at the bar, the extra shifts he was picking up at the coffee shop… and grudgingly agreed.
For the next several weeks, Diego did his best to split his time between the bar, baristaing, and sprawling on the floor of their new cafe picking out paint colors and deciding on renovations with Frankie, and Obie when he dropped by.
Once Diego had fully unpacked the apartment, Frankie began to spend more and more time there as well.
Depending on the night, Frankie could be found sitting at Diego’s feet while they both worked on documents on the coffee table, curled up on the couch with Diego while they talked, or bumping into each other in the small kitchen while he tried new recipes and Diego “helped.” Most of his assistance involved accidentally brushing his hand across Frankie’s back as he passed by, bumping hips, and exchanging sidelong glances at each other as they took turns sucking sweet jams off of spoons or licking crumbs from their fingers.
As the days flew by, Frankie ended up crashing on his couch one too many times, so by the end of September, Diego finally gave up and furnished the second bedroom with a daybed and a small dresser.
Frankie didn’t officially move in, but he started leaving spare clothes in the closet, and Diego began finding Frankie’s socks and t-shirts mixed in with his own laundry.
Every time he found these items he let himself momentarily fantasize about what it would be like to have their clothes permanently mixed together, neither one of them caring where a sock or particular pair of shorts ended up because they would all make it back to their closet in their apartment.