Hard, spare, and hungry — Manuel García tracks desire where it actually lives: in hands callused from work, in the quiet between words, in the scrape of a shoulder against a doorway. These are men who do not explain themselves; they act. The prose smells of sweat and diesel, leather and soap, and carries the weight of what is left unsaid.
The title story is a small wound that never fully heals. Marcus leaves for the army and the emptiness he leaves behind becomes a landscape — an apprenticeship that stops tasting like pastry, a stairwell, a knock on an old friend’s door. Kylian’s longing is literal: a body waiting to be touched, a mouth that remembers how it felt. The encounter with strangers and semi-familiar faces — Ronan, Ange — folds memory into the present until past heat and new hands become indistinguishable.
Reimagined passage: the city air tastes of fryer oil and rain; Kylian’s heart is a stubborn drum under his ribs as he turns the corner by the Salle des Fêtes. A boy in tight jeans stands framed by neon; the sight of him is a small, dangerous promise. Words start clumsy and honest — who are you, what do you want — and then the conversation loosens into touch. A hand brushes the small of a back, a laugh that smells of cigarettes, the shy press of a palm against a thigh. The world narrows to denim, skin, and a pulse that answers to proximity. Ronan’s telephone, Ange’s smile, the slow reclaiming of appetite: each meeting is a tiny initiation back into wanting.
García’s pages do not soften desire; they sharpen it. These stories leave an aftertaste: the memory of a jaw set against yours, the echo of a train’s metal on skin, the quiet arithmetic of favors and favors returned. Close the book and you’ll still feel the heat — like someone’s hand at the small of your back, guiding you toward something you were only pretending to forget.
