He gripped Mickey’s chin. “You’re not a fucking freak. Don’t ever say that shit around me again, or we’re gonna have a problem. You feel me?”
A thousand rebuttals danced on Mickey’s tongue, but he swallowed those too.
Just for this moment.
* * *
“I don’t understand how you could forget the password when your password for everything is Sullivan.”
Gianna glowered and strode ahead of Benito, her precious iPad tucked under her arm.
Suppressing a grin, Benito jogged to catch up and caught her shoulder. “Whoa, there. Don’t run off. It’s busy up here.”
“So?” Gianna cast a baleful glance around the crowded shopping centre that smelled of bad burgers and stale coffee. “It’s Milton Keynes, not Oxford Street. It’s not like I couldn’t walk to your flat if we got separated.”
“How about we don’t get separated in the first place and you stop being shitty with me because you fucked up?”
“Don’t swear.”
“Whatever,” Benito retorted, but without the edge Gianna deserved. It was hard to be angry with her. He relied on her for the good emotions in life. “Don’t be a brat then.”
“I’m not. And you’re wrong about the password thing. It’s a passcode, for your information, so I can’t use Sullivan.”
“Yes, you can. Just use the numbers that correspond to the letters.”
Gianna’s sharp gaze flattened. “What?”
“You don’t do that with your phone?”
“I use my thumb for my phone.”
“And the number? You have to have one when you set it up.”
“I can’t remember it. Beni, youknowI’m rubbish at numbers. Don’t be a dickhead.”
“Don’t swear.”
“But—”
“Don’t. It’ll get you in trouble eventually.” Benito glanced ahead. The Apple store was twenty metres away, a queue snaking out of the doors. A sigh escaped him and he reconciled himself with the reality that this was going to take forever. “Listen, I’m going to get in the queue. Take my card and go buy some cookies from Millie’s, okay? When you get back, I’ll show you how to spell Sullivan’s name with numbers.”
Gianna wasn’t convinced, but she took the card anyway and stomped to the cookie stand while Benito took their place in the line and kept a sharp eye on her and every face that seemed to look at her a second too long. In his pocket, his second phone buzzed like it had been doing ever since he’d retrieved it from his glovebox and turned it back on. He ignored it and tried to quell the sharp paranoia rising in his chest.
It’s all in your head. You’ve let talking to Mickey feed your own fucking demons.
True story. And the parallels between Mickey’s past and Benito’s present made him sick to his stomach.
That and the barefaced lie he’d told Mickey.“I don’t do that shit anymore.”Fuck. If his night had gone better, there was every chance he’d have told that lie with the scent of packaged product still lacing his skin. With mud beneath his fingernails from burying the dirty cash with another fractured piece of his soul.
Your soul? Yeah, right. Until Mickey, you didn’t give a fuck who got hurt in the game. Don’t grow a conscience now.
“Beni?” Gianna was back. She handed him a white chocolate walnut cookie with a conciliatory half-smile. “I got your favourite.”
“I don’t have a favourite.”
“I know, I know, you don’t like sweet things, but you might like this one—it’s got nuts in. They’re healthy, right?”
Nothing about Benito’s life was healthy right now. He took the cookie and ruffled Gianna’s curls. “Thanks, squirt. You ready to figure this passcode mystery out?”