Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On a good day, Marti puts his chances of surviving a morning without coffee above 50/50.

Is that ideal? No. Will he be grumpy? Yes. And tired? Definitely. Daydreaming about even the crappy vending machine cappuccino he didn’t have time for before class? 100%. But he’s not going to literally keel over and faint to the ground.

Gio, on the other hand — Marti’s not so sure.

He even wakes up like he’s already dead.

“We should have stopped at the mini-mart on our walk home —” he gripes, and Marti can hear the hangover in his voice, cracked and dry.

“You could barely walk up the stairs,” Marti points out.

“I even asked: ‘Marti, does your mom have coffee?’ and you were like: ‘no, bro.’ But did I listen? Did I think of future Gio? No. And now here I am, about to die. Past Gio is such an asshole.”

Marti slaps him on the stomach, blinding flailing his arm across the bed.

“Dude, no. You might make me throw up.”

Marti sighs. His head throbs a little when he moves — especially behind his eyes, but nothing he can’t power through. He does wince at the brightness of his phone screen, though, when he fishes it out from the pocket of his jeans on the floor.

“Past Marti is an asshole too for not thinking of future Gio.”

“We’ll go to the bar,” Marti waves, unfazed.

Last night is coming back to him as he skims over the cascade of messages and snaps from Luca and Elia — both departing sometime in the middle of their bar hopping to chase other leads. Marti must have been too drunk to stop them. Gio definitely was. How the two of them managed to stay together is both a surprise and yet also nothing short of an expectation.

It seems like Elia’s night turned out fine. There’s a few snaps of him from this morning sitting in Piazza di Santa Maria with an array of pastries and coffee, sneaky enough to include just a sliver of the girl sitting across from him — her pink nails wrapped around the white porcelain of her espresso.

Luca, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Marti taps through about twenty snaps of him catching the wrong bus and getting lost. He also made it his story for some reason.

“Bar,” Gio agrees, turning over and crossing his arm over Marti’s chest with a huff, like he’s about to go back to sleep.

Last year, this would have made Marti freeze on the spot. He didn’t get to come out to Gio the way he wanted to — or before he was ready to. But during a night out with Fili they ran into Gio and well...

The questions started piling on top of each other one by one until they were too heavy Marti couldn’t breathe under their weight. Gio left it alone for a few festering days, letting it unknowingly gnaw on the back of Marti’s mind. But then one day he asked who Fili was. The next day how they met. And Marti was so sick of lying that after his first unconvincing he’s my dad’s girlfriend’s son’s babysitter’s brother (read: he was Marti’s first experimental grindr date, it just didn’t work out on a romantic level) he just didn’t have the energy to lie anymore. So he came out to Gio — Elia and Luca soon after.

And then he actually had a boyfriend for awhile, but that ended almost just as fast as it started.

Marti shakes him off with a laugh now.

“Okay, I’m going,” Gio grumbles, and he sniffs his nose and slowly starts to sit up — Marti can practically see the headache oozing out of his eyes when he scrunches them closed in discomfort at each micro movement. Like every second without caffeine brings him closer to death.

Marti feels the same — not necessarily on the hangover level, but on the coffee level.

They get dressed, and Marti’s mom asks them both if they’d like some herbal tea while they slip their shoes on in the hallway. Gio politely declines but makes a gagging sound with a finger on his tongue once the door is closed behind them.

“Caffè Letterario?” Marti asks once they’ve hit the street. It’s their usual place.

“No, bro, that’s too far.” Gio nudges his upper arm with the back of his hand, keeping it there and looking down the street. “Can we just go around the corner?” He starts heading in that direction regardless of Marti’s answer.

Within seconds he’s following Gio through the doors of a bar he never knew existed — has probably walked by every day and never gave a second glance to. It’s small, a little run down, and looks old as hell. All signs that it might actually have good coffee, considering they clean their machines.

They’re greeted by a familiar voice when they stand at the counter.

“Good morning,” Eleonora practically sings, tilting her head down with raised eyebrows like she’s pleasantly surprised.

Marti and her have become more than acquaintances lately due to proximity.

She smiles warmly at him but shoots a sideways glance over at Gio.

(Yeah, Marti’s two worlds are still on opposite ends sometimes due to Gio and his constant equal parts pining, equal parts avoiding Eva at all costs. He’s not too sure what the girls’ perceptions of him are, though. They seem to hush up about relationship stuff around Marti.)

“I didn’t know you worked here,” Marti smiles.

Ele smooths her hand over the counter. “Just on the weekends, sometimes after school” she says. “I mostly clean up and run the register, but I’m learning how to be a barista! From Nico.” She nods her head sideways to the back door behind the bar, where a guy with stacked peg racks toppled high with clean cups and saucers emerges.

“What about me?”

Marti hears his voice before he sees his face. It’s rich and low and teasing — sounds like the coffee Marti can smell.

“I was just telling my friends about how you’re training me,” Ele repeats.

“Oh,” Nico smiles, and he sets the dishes down on the counter and pops his head over the side to greet them. “Cool. Good morning, guys.”

Marti doesn’t want to think about how tired he looks. How he didn’t bother to brush his teeth or comb his hair or check to see if the clothes he threw on weren’t the same ones from last night.

This happens to Marti all the time — this fleeting and informal feeling of lust and first-impression love. A crush. Always on someone he knows he can’t have. Last week it was that guy who smelled really good in front of him in line at the grocery store. Last night it was their bartender at the second club they went to. Today it’s this cute barista.

It’ll pass, Marti just has to swallow the embarrassment of his unkemptness alongside his coffee until they get the hell out of here and he can be ugly in peace.

(And yet he can’t help but smile back at him when they make eye contact, however casual and cursory.)

Gio mumbles a polite (well, as polite as his hangover will allow him to be — sounding more like death with every passing second there isn’t a coffee in his hands) good morning back.

And Nico looks at Marti one more time before shifting his attention to Ele. “What are they having?” He asks, assuming she might have already taken their orders.

“Cappuccino,” Gio interrupts, about to collapse.

Nico chuckles, looking over to Marti with raised eyebrows insinuating the question still stands.

God he is cute — every angle of his face looks different but equally handsome; curls so wild Marti’s convinced they’ve been arranged one by one; his closed lip smile is sweet and cheeky and when it breaks out into a grin it’s utterly beautiful.

Fuck. It’s too early for this.

“Same,” Marti manages to choke out with a nod.

Nico flashes him another smile. Marti returns it a little shyer, insides flipping.

Gio manages to sharply elbow Marti in the side under the bartop, and when Marti looks over at him — about to ask what the hell — he’s got the smuggest grin on his face.

“What?” Marti shrugs his shoulders, slapping him back on the arm.

Gio just continues to chuckle.

“How’s Fili?” Marti turns his attention back to Ele, trying to change the subject.

“You saw him yesterday,” she laughs, raising an eyebrow.

This is not the smoothest morning for him.

“You know Filippo?” Nico cranes his neck back to them behind the counter, the espresso machine hissing in front of him.

“Yeah,” Marti clears his throat. “He’s my, uh. Friend.”

Nico raises his eyebrows at Eleonora, frothing the milk and placing two cups on two saucers. It’s subtle, but Marti catches it.

“More like little brother,” Ele chimes in, clearing the impression Marti just left. “Or son,” she thinks, wrinkling her nose. “But that sounds weird.”

“I didn’t know Fili swung both ways,” Nico winks at her. “Unless you’re adopted.” He looks back at Marti, topping off the first cappuccino and sliding it over the counter to Gio, who takes a sip too fast to appreciate the art on top Nico did in the pattern of laurel leaves.

“Definitely adopted,” Marti agrees, pursing his lips in a smile with a short nod.

Nico starts preparing the second coffee, tongue poking out the side of his mouth in concentration while he pours the steamed milk into the espresso — cup tilted down until it’s full to bring it back up and make the pattern with the foam. He nods at it when he’s done, proud, and sets it on the bartop in front of Marti with a bitten back grin before turning around and busying himself with something else.

On the top of his cappuccino — much different than Gio’s — is a lovely heart, consecutive ones inside of it.

Marti just stares at it for a moment before picking it up, trying to convince himself it means nothing. That Nico’s not being flirty. This is perfectly normal, totally unoriginal, very standard coffee art. He tries to glance at Gio’s again — maybe he didn’t see it correctly. Maybe his was the same, and the heart pattern is just this bar’s thing. But Gio being Gio, his drink is already gone — the dregs running down the insides of his mug to the bottom.

“Good?” Nico asks Gio, wiping down the bar top.

Gio just gives him a thumbs up when he exhales after his last sip, eyeing the pastries in the case under the glass counter.

Marti’s phone pings.

Luca:
guys
I am fucked for our exam on friday
can we cram this week?

Elia:
You mean can you steal all my notes?

Marti chuckles and types a reply.

Martino:
That you stole from me

Luca:
Okay but for real
Who can host. My sister got her first period and is really proud of it so unless you want to hear all about that…

Elia:
I’m at mom’s currently. You know how she is with guests.
@Martino your place after school this week?

Martino:
👍

“What’s so funny?” Gio asks, leaning over to peek at Marti’s phone.

“Nothing. The guys just want to study together this week.”

Gio eyes the group chat, skimming over it. “Cool. Tell Luchi I’m fucked too.”

Marti pockets his phone and finally takes a drink of his cappuccino, almost reluctantly ruining the heart on top. It’s smooth and rich and he really didn’t know how much he needed it until the warmth hits his stomach. Like liquid hangover relief. When he looks up mid sip he makes accidental eye contact with Nico — who’s been smiling to himself and probably half-listening to something Ele is telling him, leaned up against the back counter behind the bar with his arms crossed loosely.

His cuteness hasn’t faltered a bit. He looks down and his smile purses — like in the hopes it won’t grow any wider.

(It does, though. Just a little. Marti can’t help but notice before looking down with a smile himself.)

Chapter Text

“Marti? Do you still have those notes on Gauss? I think I accidentally threw mine away.”

Marti can’t help but laugh at Luca. “How do you accidentally throw your notes away?”

“I don’t know. Maybe my brother tossed them. He’s still mad I blamed him for all the porn on the computer.”

“Luchi,” Elia sighs, disappointed but not surprised. “You’re disgusting.”

They’re waiting at the bus stop to head to Marti’s like planned — backpacks slung over their shoulders, the books that don’t let the zippers close clutched clunky in their arms. The afternoons have shifted from chilly to cold as September blurs into October and the school year catches up with them. This is the first time they’ve decided to sit down and really study together this semester.

“Because you don’t watch porn,” Luca huffs, rolling his eyes when the bus pulls up. “You always pick on me!”

“Because it’s so easy,” Gio laughs, grabbing the back of his neck as they board and giving it a good shake. “No, but really. I love you.”

“Awh,” Luca mocks. “How sweet.”

“You’re not going to say it back?” Gio grabs one of the bar straps up top, hand out and eyes wide like he’s offended.

The bus jerks as it takes off, and Marti fights Elia for one of the last perpendicular seats in the middle. He manages to shove his way into it — a little bit of height and weight on his side — yet pats his lap with a smirk when he sits in victory.

Elia scoffs, but Luca takes him up on the offer; Marti bounces him on his knee like a little kid.

“I love you too, Luchino.” Marti pinches his cheek.

Luca turns his head and waggles his eyebrows. “Maybe we should date?” His voice gets playfully fake deep, like mock seduction.

Marti’s forgotten that when Luchi isn’t the butt of the joke, he usually is. In a loving way, of course. And it doesn’t help that he plays it up, plays along. At least the boys aren’t unknowingly using slurs or oversharing their vagina conquests with him anymore. A few jokes like this are nothing compared to the relief he feels now that he can make them right back.

“No,” Marti deadpans, patting his face kindly. “You’re not my type.”

Gio bursts out in a fit of giggles, getting silent as his shoulders heave and his eyes crinkle with tears. He puts his hand on Elia’s shoulder. “He’s nobody’s type,” Gio chokes through his own laugh.

Luchi flips him off. Marti pats the top of his head like he would a sad puppy.

“I miss the grumpy, brooding Marti who would slap Luca in the face for that because I can’t,” Elia side eyes them. “Where is he?”

Marti snorts. “In the closet.”

Case in point.

“I need caffeine before I can read,” Gio mentions, changing the subject as they cross the Tiber into Ostiense and near the stop by Marti’s place. “Bar?”

Elia nods. “Definitely.”

Luca too. “Yes.”

Gio looks at Marti then, eyebrows raised. “Caffè Letterario?”

Here’s the thing. To say that little heart on the top of Marti’s cappuccino yesterday morning hasn’t been lingering its phantom taste on the tip of his tongue is an understatement.

That and, well, the cute barista.

(Okay, mostly him. Nico’s small, private smile when they locked eyes is fading fast from his memory — he wouldn’t mind a refresher. His heart rate spikes just thinking about it. And while Marti’s hopes that anything can even happen are low, coffee with a view wouldn’t be bad.)

“I kind of liked that place we went to yesterday,” Marti mentions, trying to keep his voice level and not suspicious at all.

Gio squints his eyes at him, an equal purse to his lips that tips up slightly on one corner. “Okay. Why?”

Marti gapes his mouth, waiting for an excuse to follow. He hasn’t thought this far ahead. “The coffee was...” he fumbles, the seconds of silence before his reply not doing him any favors. The boys are starting to trade glances between one another. “Better,” he finishes lamely.

“Okay,” Gio smirks, looking out the window when they’ve reached their stop. “It’s closer anyway.”

The boys pile out, passing Marti’s building to round the corner towards the bar a block down. His palms start to get sweaty in anticipation, his pulse picking up.

(It makes him feel a little dumb. Nico is just a hot dude. Who drew a heart on his cappuccino. So what. Get it together.)

It’s completely empty, minus one man exiting they pass on their way in.

Just like Marti was hoping, he spots Nico behind the counter wiping it down. His apron is doubled around his waist, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

Marti’s stomach flips once, completing the rotation when Nico looks up at the boys and spots him among them — making eye contact and breaking out with a smile so bright it could rival the sun.

“Back again?”

Marti notices Luca and Elia exchange a look, but Gio nods politely.

“Yeah, hey,” Marti smiles. “No Ele today?”

The sparkle in Nico’s eyes dwindles just a fraction — one or two less stars in his pupils amplified by the corners of his mouth softening so faintly Marti’s sure he’s the only one who noticed it.

Great. Now Nico thinks he’s probably interested in Ele. Marti wasn’t going to outright flirt with Nico in front of his friends, but he didn’t want to throw his chances right into the trash, either.

He recovers quickly, though. “No,” Nico smiles, throwing the rag he was using to wipe down the bar top over his shoulder. “Sorry to disappoint.”

He fucking winks at Marti, and Marti feels stupid when all his organs decide to tie themselves together so tight it makes his face get hot.

“What can I get you guys?”

They all order a caffè macchiato, and Luca starts fighting with Elia about who is going to make the note cards while Gio tries to convince them a game of FIFA to decide is the exact opposite of studying.

Marti doesn’t really tune in. At the end of the bar, he looks over at his friends but gets distracted in his peripherals by Nico right in front of him, four porcelain cups under the espresso machine while he steams and froths the splash of milk to decorate the top of each.

Nico must notice.

“So, is Ele in your class?” He leans on the bartop, forearms crossed over it while he slouches opposite Marti.

It takes Marti’s brain a second to register that Nico is talking to him. Small talk, but still. He head-rushed in here without a plan of attack, lead by the half-thought of stealing glances at a pretty guy. At least Nico is trying.

“Uh, no,” Marti remembers. “We met because of —”

“Fili,” Nico closes his eyes, nods his head. His mouth purses into an embarrassed smile. “Right.” His cheeks actually get a little pink, like he’s embarrassed he didn’t remember.

“Oh! Are you talking about Filippo? I love Filippo.”

Marti turns his head to see Luca leaning in from the other end of the bar, his eyes dazzling.

“You know,” he continues, laughing and pointing at Marti, “when you first introduced him to us, I thought he was your boyfriend?”

“Luchi,” Gio sighs, chuckling. “Fuck off.”

They go back to arguing — now about if Luchi should be punished for his dumb questions by doing the notecards of if he is too much of an idiot to be trusted to do them all.

Nico snorts to himself, lining up the saucers on the countertop and grabbing the steaming cups once the machine has whirred off. He starts to mark the splashes of foam on the top of each one, an elegant twist to his wrist as he does so to detail designs with the frothed milk into the espresso.

“You know,” he starts — quietly enough it would go unnoticed if he didn’t have Marti’s attention over the commotion of the boys. (Maybe that was the idea, because he smiles when Marti turns back to him.) “That’s what Ele asked Fili the first time she met me, too.”

“How do you know Fili?” Marti presses, curious. His brain isn’t quite sure what to do with that information.

Nico starts sliding the finished coffees in front of the boys, Gio first at the far end of the bar. “I volunteer with him.” He says it nonchalantly with a shrug of his shoulders.

Gio mutters a genuine thanks in Nico’s direction before downing his own in one hasty gulp.

Nico doesn’t elaborate, but there’s only one place Marti knows Fili spends the majority of his time outside of work at — organizing events at Lazio Pride.

The gears in his brain start spinning, an equal rotation in his stomach. Marti wonders if that was a hint.

“Enjoy,” Nico says, pushing the last cup in front of Marti.

Looking down, Marti’s caffè macchiato is adorned with a little foam heart almost too pretty to drink.

Covertly, he looks out of the corner of his eye to the line of the boys’ drinks on the bar. He can’t say for certain what Gio’s looked like since it’s now gone, but Elia’s and Luca’s are certainly decorated more plainly.

Just a nice swirl of foam and espresso.

Chapter Text

The muffled beeping of Marti’s alarm wakes him up gradually, each faint ring growing louder like a push into consciousness and more annoying than the last. When his eyes peel open, there’s definitely too much sun behind the curtains — his room is brighter than normal for this sound.

He overslept. He’s going to be late. Fell asleep with his phone under his pillow again, dozing through it.

Marti remembers last night vaguely: pathetically spread eagle on his back, eyes darting between staring at his ceiling and to his phone screen — typing and deleting a million messages to Fili in their open chat. Everything from the dubiously inconspicuous and out of character do you need help at Lazio pride? I’ve been thinking of volunteering to the blatant so I met your friend Nico the other day.

But he couldn’t bring himself to press send on any.

Checking it, he groans. The chat is still open with half a word left undeleted, his phone reads 7:50.

His first period starts in ten minutes, and there’s no point in running for the bus when he won’t be allowed to join class anyway. He’ll just have to pray Gio or Elia takes notes for their study session later — god knows Luca won’t.

He could sleep in for a little longer, he guesses.

Or.

(God, why is the cute barista down at the corner bar — the one he’s barely had a conversation with — the first thing on his mind after waking up?)

He could go get coffee.

That thought is actually tempting enough to get him out of bed right then and there.

Marti spends an extra minute in the shower, an extra minute flossing his teeth (which he never does), an extra minute picking out a shirt. He tells himself it’s simply because he has the time to, no other motivations or implications.

The fact that his morning coffee might be paired with a bright smile from the other side of the counter he wouldn’t mind impressing has absolutely nothing to do with it. (And this time without the cloud of a hangover or the boys’ antics to humiliate him or distract him.)

A butterfly flaps its wings in his stomach when he thinks about it. Just a single flutter.

Unlike most of his minute-long crushes, this one has turned into more than a few hours worth of daydreams since the weekend. Maybe it’s the fact he knows where to find Nico. Maybe it’s the hint he dropped yesterday Marti still can’t decipher clearly through his own desires. Maybe it’s that smile, that look, that sliver of possibility.

There’s an undenying pull in him to just get to know Nico. He can’t explain it away, and he doesn’t want to.

Either way, Marti actually thanks his yesterday self for not bothering to press send or plug his phone in last night.

He makes sure his hair is fully dry in one last mirror check while he backtracks into the apartment once he’s already locked it behind him, halfway down the landing. Forgot his backpack. He slings it over one shoulder.

The air is crisp and the sky is grey when he steps outside — perfect for coffee and conversation. And you know what, if they get talking Marti just might say fuck it to school today all together.

(He might be overly optimistic — getting too ahead of himself. This tends to happen a lot; harmless fantasies are a direct side effect of a new crush.)

Behind the bar, though, once Marti’s swung the door open, is a stranger where he was hoping to see Nico.

He tries to keep his shoulders from slumping. The butterfly in his stomach sighs.

There is one familiar face there, though. Her long red hair unmistakeable.

The barista slides a small cup towards Eva, standing at the far end of the counter.

“Late?” Marti asks her, crossing his arms over the bar with a smug smile, as if he’s not just as late himself.

It doesn’t surprise him. They’ve gotten coffee during first period on more than one occasion when the classroom door has been shut in their face. That was last year, though.

She doesn’t notice him until he says it, turning with a surprised smile over the first sip of her caffè macchiato.

“Classic,” she nods, rolling her eyes. “I slept through my alarm.”

“Same.”

Marti orders a cappuccino, weirdly relieved when it gets set in front of him with just a simple swirl of foam and espresso — no fancy heart in sight, not even if he squints.

“I thought you and Gio were more, uh, Caffè Letterario people,” Eva practically sings, dragging out the name of the cafè with a little shoulder wiggle almost like she’s making fun of him.

That bar is pretty hipster, in her defense.

And she knows because she used to frequent it with them.

(Makes sense why they never bump into her there anymore — she’s probably always here with Ele.)

Marti snorts. “Yeah, I guess. This is just closer.” It’s only a little bit of a lie.

“And Gio’s not here to drag you just a block further,” she tuts, the teasing continued. Subtly, she looks over Marti’s shoulder with a nervous expression as if she’s actually expecting him to walk through the door. She recovers quickly, though. “This place has better coffee, in my opinion, if you’re willing to sacrifice the ambiance.” She accentuates the French on the last word, continuing to drag their old spot.

Marti smiles over the first sip of his drink, creating some silence. He’s missed her quite a bit — when Gio and him aren’t glued at the hip (which, let’s be real is quite often) the only time he has to say hi to her is in brief passing at school; sometimes her and Ele will be trailing out of their house when Marti trudges in to see Fili, but those moments are short too — not nearly long enough to catch up.

“I didn’t know Ele worked here,” Marti comments, changing the subject with a double agenda.

He’s fishing. Or, well, trying to. He’s come to the conclusion that he could try to pry some information out of either Fili or Ele. Fili he can’t trust as far he can throw to keep a secret (hence why Marti deleted every message he typed out last night, none of them bland or unseeming enough to not give him away and hint that something was up) and Ele isn’t here. So Eva will have to do.

Eva finishes her drink and nods. “Mhm. She started when school started.”

“Does she like it?” Marti prods.

Eva gives him a sideways look, her brows drawing together like she’s on to something.

(He thought he was being rather indirect but apparently he’s easy to read.)

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Marti says too defensively, voice getting higher at the end. “I was just wondering if she talks about… work… is all.”

Eva’s smile purses, her eyes get fiery. She turns her body towards Marti and tilts her head, red hair dripping down her neck in straight sections.

“She’s my friend too, kind of,” Marti continues, trying to save himself the suspicion but apparently digging himself farther into a hole. “And she never mentioned anything to me. Just wondering what the big secret is all about. Shit.”

He chuckles, hiding behind another sip of his coffee with red cheeks.

“You’ve seen Nico, haven’t you,” Eva smiles at him. The corners of her lips slowly draw up with a nod and a smile like she knows she right. It’s not a question.

Marti fumbles. “Who?” His wince after he asks it is enough to give him away.

Eva rolls her eyes. “Niccolò,” she emphasizes. “The guy who works here with Ele.” Gaping, her hand twirls in the air and gestures around the interior of the bar.

“Okay,” Marti huffs, caught. He might as well own up. “Yeah. I have. So?”

“You don’t care about Ele’s job,” Eva pokes him in the chest, smirking. “You just want to know what I know.”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing,” Eva shrugs, clearly lying. “Maybe you should ask Ele about her job yourself.”

“Eva —” Marti practically begs.

He just wants to know if he has a chance, is all. If Nico is single or even halfway interested in guys. If his flirty coffee hearts are just Marti reading way too far into a situation.

She groans animatedly, head flung back — interrupting him. She comes back to look him in the eyes with a smile, though, clearly endeared by Marti’s fluster. “She doesn’t talk a lot about Nico,” she says decidedly.

And with that, she pulls out her phone and begins tapping furiously on the screen with a growing smile.

“Eva. What are you doing?”

She bites her bottom lip, tapping the lower corner of her phone with a dramatic swipe of her pointer finger like she just pressed send on a juicy piece of gossip.

“Nothing,” she comments, pocketing it. “C’mon. Or we’re going to be late for the bus.”

Chapter Text

Filippo:
hello rose 🌹
do you have weekend plans?

Marti’s phone pings with the message on the bus back home from school, the boys in tow for their daily study date at his place. It took two full days just to create the note cards (the FIFA breaks probably didn’t help), but maybe at this rate they won’t fail their test on Friday.

Marti taps out a reply as they pull up to their stop — his feet have already memorized the cobblestones once they step out, and he herds the boys around the corner instead of into his building. He’s trying to make caffè macchiato after class a routine, playing up Gio’s caffeine addiction to his advantage. He may have also said no when his mom asked if he wanted her to grab any coffee from the grocery store (she’s more of a tea drinker anyway) just in case.

Nico might not have been there yesterday morning when he ran into Eva or that same evening when the gang piled in, one-by-one in line at the bar — but Ele was there, helpfully yet suspiciously dropping that Nico had the day off... even though no one asked.

It’s surely not a suspicious message from Fili, but he really only calls Marti Rose when he wants something. Or — something along those lines.

Martino:
nothing set in stone
but I might ditch you for the boys if your plans sound like trouble

Filippo:
reported and blocked

Martino:
ok ok tell me 😁😁😁

Filippo:
friends and I are having a lowkey aperitivo friday night
thought maybe my failed tinder date would like to try his hand again?
surely you have recovered from julio by now
julius?
julian?
i’ve forgotten his name already

Martino:
ugh don’t remind me 😒
but i’m not looking

Filippo:
sorrysorrysorry
at least maybe you’d like a break to look at some eye candy??
eye candy that will think you’re eye candy??
i’m already sick of your little friend’s clitoris stories and i’ve met him once
how do you do it

Martino:
Luchi? 😂

Filippo:
yes him

Martino:
okay sold i’ll join on friday

Filippo:
yessss 🙌

Marti’s actually too distracted — smiling down at his screen — to notice his feet carrying him inside like muscle memory when Gio holds the door open for him, the bell to the bar chiming.

Filippo is definitely an acquired taste, but for some reason they click well. On a friendship level, of course. Their date was a disaster; Marti has just about erased the whole thing from his memory. He makes a mental note to remind Fili that no matter how hilarious he thinks it is in hindsight, the details of it are off the table for sharing. That is, if he hasn’t already blabbed to his friends about it.

(Now Marti wonders just what he’s walking in to on Friday.)

When he pockets his phone, an equally smile-worthy sight is smiling back up at him.

It nearly knocks the breath out of him.

Is it bad that Marti’s only seen Nico twice in his life and yet yesterday without even just a passing glance at him felt like so long?

His good mood almost overrides his nerves. Maybe the shock value helps, too. Nico looks cuter than Marti remembered with his wild hair and his pointy cheeks; his smile giving the butterfly in Marti’s stomach a friend — double the flutter as they flap their happy wings.

Marti wonders if Filippo’s definition of eye candy will even compare.

“Hi,” Nico says brightly to him at the end of the bar in his usual place, looking down the line of boys before coming back to eye him up. “Caffè macchiatos…?” He trails in an ask, routine already starting.

They all nod, and he does a cute spin on his heel with a dip of his head, gracefully scooping up four saucers and four cups from under the bar with delicate clinks.

Marti hasn’t stopped smiling to himself, and it grows until he feels self conscious about how big it probably looks on his face. He turns to half-tune into the boys — who are chatting about the weekend already — but out of the corner of his eye he watches Nico in front of him finish preparing their drinks.

A stray curl falls from its careful place on his forehead down to his nose, and he huffs at it with lips scrunched to the side to blow it away. His face crinkles in the cutest concentration.

Marti feels the anticipation build, and now there’s a weird sort of anxiety brewing inside him as he realizes he’s expecting a flirtatious shot of espresso that’s not guaranteed.

Once Nico’s done lining the saucers on the bar, he faces the the espresso machine and waits for it to finish warming up, tapping his fingers on the counter in front of Marti with a bitten lip.

There’s a weird energy in the air — like the letters of words are floating around, waiting for either of them to arrange them in an amorous order.

He wonders if Nico feels it too.

But before Marti has the brain power or before Nico has the courage to break the silence, the tension is slit with a beep from the back room — the dishwasher just finished its cycle.

A little disappointedly, Marti hears Nico let out what seems to be a sigh of relief before heading through the double back doors to check on it, out of sight.

“Marti, are you down for Friday?”

Gio is elbowing him in the ribs, snapping his attention back to the boys.

He has no idea what they’re talking about now. “Hm?”

“Luchi proposed that if he fails the test, he’ll buy us all beers in San Cosimato. But if he passes and one of us —” Gio gestures between himself, Elia, and Marti, “— fails, then we’re drinking his leftover stash of Peccio’s beer all night at his house.”

“Okay,” Marti agrees, then winces. “Wait. What time? I might go hang out with Filippo.”

“Oh!” Luca snorts enthusiastically, leaning over from his far position at the bar. “That sounds better. Let’s hang out with Filippo.”

“You can’t just invite yourself, dumbass,” Elia rolls his eyes, slapping him on the back of his neck lightly.

“It’s just aperitivo,” Marti waves them off, eyeing the back door. “I can meet you guys there after.”

Elia starts questioning Luchi’s logic, coming up with multiple scenarios like what if they all pass? or what if they all fail? and what happens then, but Marti’s attention has half-shifted to the swinging back doors where Nico emerges with a few stacks of peg racks, harboring steaming clean cups and saucers from the dishwasher.

And then fully shifted — along with everyone else — when there’s a heavy, ringing crash while Nico loses his footing and drops them all, porcelain shattering on the tile in sharp strikes.

He manages to catch himself on the bar top, saving his buckling legs so he doesn’t fall to the floor.

And before Marti realizes, he’s is rounding the corner of the counter to help without thinking, bending over before the shards of broken mugs have finished spinning on the ground. Kneeling down carefully, he starts to gather the wider chunks in his hand.

“You don’t have to —” Nico starts, his voice a little broken in the fluster of it as he stoops down next to Marti.

But Marti waves him off. It takes until now for his brain to catch up with what his body just did, his hands a little wobbly in embarrassment. Which, he shouldn’t be — helping someone shouldn’t elicit that response, his thinks. Maybe it’s just the velocity in which he sprang up, coupled with the sudden smack of Nico right next him — bodies angled towards each other with faces close and bent down, hands skirting around each other to pick up the broken pieces of porcelain.

In the haste, they both reach for one at the same time and Marti jerks his hand away quickly after his fingers have already wrapped around it.

“Fuck,” he winces, the inside of his palm stinging. Marti opens his hand to see a thin gash on the backs of his knuckles, the blood pooling.

“Ah, shit.”

Nico’s hands vibrate nervously for a second, back and forth with an indecisive mind of their own; not knowing the first step in the long list of things to do now. Deciding to stand and leave the mess on the floor, he props open the back room door for Marti with a nod of his head to follow him inside.

“I’m so sorry,” Nico starts, fumbling in the small kitchen. He spins once and turns the tiny sink on, gesturing for Marti to start washing his wound while he opens an unseeming cabinet above it. “The floor was wet and I slipped. That was like, all of our espresso mugs...” he mutters more to himself. “My dad is going to kill me. But thank you for helping, you didn’t have to do —”

“Your dad?” Marti laughs, leaning forward to rinse his hand under the faucet and watch the water go from crystal to pink. His adrenaline is too high to feel any pain — Nico is still leaning over the basin of it right next to him, digging through the shallow shelves of the cabinet above.

He can smell him from here — no surprise like coffee and sugar. Can see the stubble on his chin like little dots from his shave this morning. Can hear the nervous swallow in his throat before he speaks.

Marti starts to feel like he stood up too fast as the senses hit him.

“Yeah,” Nico smiles, voice softening and relaxing with a big sigh out — like he’s glad for the shift in conversation, maybe worried that Marti might be mad. “This is his bar. Well, it was his dad’s — my grandpa’s. Probably a few more generations before that, too. It’s been in the family for awhile.”

“That’s cool,” Marti says on command, internally cringing at his lame reply. It was the first thing out of his mouth. Also, his hand has been under the water this whole time as he gawks at Nico, probably all prunes now. Definitely just standing in Nico’s way. He takes it out and turns the water off just as Nico closes the cabinet, supplies in hand.

“Yeah,” Nico says softly, steadying himself with a little tilt of his head. “It’s alright.”

Behind the bar, he’s a bit taller than Marti on the step up. It never occurred to him that level, Marti actually has a few centimeters on him.

It makes him even more cute, if that’s possible.

“But, um,” Nico starts again, holding out a tube of something and squinting at it. “Here’s some antibacterial whatever — and,” he drags out, handing it to Marti’s good hand. “A bandage. Sorry, I’m not a doctor.”

“It’s okay,” Marti laughs, patching up his own hand. “You make coffee, which is an equally important public service.”

He feels his cheeks get hot after he says it and wonders how his brain was lucid enough in the proximity of Nico to form a full sentence, let alone a halfway clever one.

It makes Nico laugh, though, which is a tiny victory that stirs the butterflies in his stomach at the sound of it — full and low and bright with bouncing shoulders and a smile that shows all his teeth.

“Sorry, again,” Nico bites his lip to tame it, moving towards the door to the front of the bar and holding it open. “That you got hurt. But thanks for the help.”

Marti moves through it, passing him with close bodies in the frame. He’s probably too keenly aware of it — how he would probably be the one to put his arms over Nico’s shoulders in a hug, how Nico would be the one to look up at him in a kiss —

He stops the thought, getting way way way too far ahead of himself.

Eleonora is sweeping up the rest of the mess when they return, raising an eyebrow at both of them. “I figured I should clean this up before…?” She trails, dumping the contents of the dustpan into the trash bin while nodding her head over to the line of boys.

“Yeah, I got it,” Nico moves around her, stepping to the side first so Marti can get back on the other side of the counter.

Nothing has changed, really — the boys are still talking over each other and in no rush to get back to Marti’s and study.

A quick glance at the clock on the opposite wall informs Marti that the whole ordeal had only lasted about four minutes. Which at first makes all the sense before it makes none, because you could have told him he was back there with Nico for an hour and he probably would have believed you just the same.

His common senses feel heavy, slow and saturated — still soaking in the little details of Nico.

Gio, though, shoots Marti a sideways glance once he slips back behind the bar before including him in the conversation.

“You okay?”

Marti nods. “Just a little cut on my hand. It’s fine.”

Gio purses his lips, a sly raise to his eyebrows. His eyes are smiling, but he looks over Marti’s shoulder instead of directly at him. “Okay.”

“Ele, will you…?” Nico trails, both hands full as he starts marking the caffè macchiatos in a rush, making up for the lost time.

He jerks his head to the ones he’s finishing as he sets them down, and she scoops them up and slides them over to the boys.

She’s about to grab the last one in his hand, but then backtracks with a puckered smile when she peeks over at the top of it.

Marti realizes he’s not being very subtle while he watches, and his heart starts to pick up speed at their interaction — even faster when Nico neatly places the tiny cup on the saucer in front of him with a fragile clink.

Ele starts dragging Nico into the back room immediately after, and Marti makes out a hushed and excited did you do it? and an even lower, quieter yes!

“Enjoy!” Nico shouts with a raised hand just as the door swings closed behind them, the echo of it muffled.

That was commotion enough to make even the boys go quiet, turning to each other with puzzled expressions before downing their drinks with shrugged shoulders in less than a hot second.

Marti finally looks down.

But where he’s expecting a delicate, foamy heart to decorate the top of his caffe macchiato he instead sees a precise twirl of white frothed cream and dark brown espresso in what can only be described as the number 6. Too careful to be a mistake — with a smart serif on the top. (How Nico gets the designs so neat and tiny, Marti will never know.)

But he’s also slightly disappointed at the sight. Mixed with confused.

“Bro,” Gio whispers faint but excited with a sharp elbow in Marti’s side. He’s peeking over and pointing at his drink.

“What?” Marti tries to keep any letdown out of his voice.

Gio just gapes his mouth with a cheering smile, eyes darting down and then up, back and forth again.

“What?” Marti emphasizes, not annoyed but just impatient.

Gio knows, so he drags it out with a long stare at Marti who may or may not be starting to put the pieces together himself.

“He’s giving you his number.”