“Youwhat?”
“I walked, okay? None of my friends take the bus anymore and I wanted to go to the shop.”
“What shop? There’s one right here.”
“Yeah, but you told me not to hang around there without you, so what am I supposed to do if I need girl things?”
“Ask Mum. She can pick up what you need on the way home from work. Or you can just ask me. I’m not a caveman, G. I’m aware you have periods.”
Gianna scrunched her face enough to make herself seem like the five-year-old Benito had been too busy slinging to truly know. “Don’t ever say those words again.”
“Why not? You think you need to be shy about shit like that?”
“No, but I thinkyoushould be. Ew.”
Benito laughed, and it felt good. The brief moments he spent with Gianna were always like this. She was fire and fury. Light and dark. All rolled up with an attitude he could only dream of. He pitied the fool who ever laid claim to her heart. “Don’tewme. You shouldn’t have walked home without telling me. What if something had happened and I was sitting here waiting for the bus the whole time?”
“Nothing happened, Beni. I was literally with my entire school. Everyone walks home this way. Why do you worry so much?”
Because I’ve hurt enough people to deserve it. “I don’t worry. I just want you to be safe. Especially now it’s winter and it gets dark so early. I know I don’t get to tell you what to do, but call me next time, okay?”
“Okay.” Gianna pulled her coat tighter.
Benito tugged the zip higher as fresh sadness settled into the pit of his stomach. She was going to go inside soon, and he already knew today wasn’t gonna be the kind of day when he could face going with her. He was claustrophobic just thinking about it, choking on the herb-scented air of Rosetta’s stuffy eleventh-floor flat. A place he wanted to be even less than his own mother wanted him to be there. “Do you have homework?”
Gianna’s face scrunched again. “Yeah. Science, and some maths I need to download an app for. Do you think...?”
“What?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”
Benito wedged two fingers under Gianna’s dainty chin and tipped her face up until she met his gaze again. “What?”
She shrugged. “I need an iPad. Or a tablet, or something. All my homework gets uploaded onto apps these days and my phone is too ancient to handle it.”
Benito swallowed a sigh. He’d give Gianna the moon if he could cut it down from the sky, but a new iPad was a leap he couldn’t make on the trickle of cash he brought in from his Uber shifts. After rent, car payments, and all the bills he’d never worried about until now, he was barely eating. He could only afford the gym because he’d got six months half price when he’d signed up.
Happy, Asa? You wanted me on my knees, didn’t you?
Bitterness scorched an oath from his gut to his throat. He pictured the blank face of the man who’d sealed his fate—and Gianna’s—and fury burned so hot he couldn’t breathe. His hands tightened to fists again, clenching Gianna’s coat.
“Beni?”
“What?”
She blinked at him. “You’re being weird again.”
Benito stared, searching for an anchor in her wide brown gaze. It didn’t have to be tangible, only enough to tie him down to the world. “Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking about work tonight. I have to drive a long way.”
“Where are you going?”
“Uh, to the airport... in London. Gatwick, I think.”
It was a lie. Benito hadn’t been that far south in months, since the barrel of a gun to his temple had warned him what would happen to him and Gianna if he did. But Gianna believed him.
She had no reason not to.
“Listen,” Benito said when she didn’t speak. “Let me think about the iPad, okay? I don’t think I can do it this month, but I’ll get you one as soon as I can afford it, I promise.”