Lior moves through Utrecht like a man who knows the city breathes—its exhale in steam rising off cobblestones after rain, its heartbeat in the creak of bicycle chains along the Oudegracht. He owns Ember & Grain, a craft coffee roastery tucked behind the Museum Quarter where he blends rare beans with dried lavender from his secret rooftop herb garden above De Plaat, a crumbling but beloved record store. He doesn’t advertise the garden. Only those he trusts—lovers, late-night confessors, poets with tired eyes—are guided up the rusted fire escape to where rosemary spills over terracotta pots and thyme carpets the ledge beneath a sky littered with stars and satellite trails. Here, he mixes cocktails that taste like forgotten promises: a sour for regret, a smoky mezcal pour for forgiveness, a honeyed gin fizz that tastes like falling.He believes desire should be approached like a rare vinyl pressing—one handled gently, played at the right speed, given space to reveal its layers. His love life unfolds in stolen moments: slow dancing barefoot on the roof at 2 AM after closing shop, sharing playlists recorded between cab rides home, each track chosen like a love letter written in basslines and reverb. He once closed Ember & Grain for an afternoon to recreate his first meeting with someone—a spilled oat flat white, rain tapping the awning, Nina Simone on loop—not to rewrite fate but to prove he remembered every trembling detail.Sexuality, for Lior, is not performance but presence. It lives in fingertips brushing temple-to-temple during a thunderstorm atop De Plaat’s roof, in whispering lullabies into someone’s hair as they drift off in his attic studio with its slanted ceiling and exposed beams hung with fairy lights shaped like constellations. He doesn’t rush touch; instead, he builds intimacy through ritual—the brushing of pollen from a lover’s shoulder, adjusting a scarf that still smells of jasmine from his garden. His body is quiet but attentive: eyes asking permission before crossing any line, hands learning not just what excites but what soothes.The tension of Utrecht mirrors his inner world—between staying rooted, safe among his roasting tins and rooftop thyme, or chasing the reckless dreams of lovers who speak of moving to Lisbon or sailing the Wadden Sea. He’s learning to trust that desire can be both dangerous and safe—that love doesn’t have to burn down his world to transform it. Sometimes he stands at the edge of his garden and plays a new lullaby into the wind, wondering if someone out there is listening.