“You’re not bored?”
“With you?”
“I meant in general, but okay.”
Benito snorted out a laugh. “Trust me, mate. Nothing about you is boring, but even if it was, I think I’d still love it. I think I need boring in my life right now.”
Mickey tried not to overanalyse Benito’s words. He kept his gaze on the landscape around them and nodded. “I’ve felt that before. Don’t go too far the other way, though. Too much quiet... it’s as destructive as chaos.”
Benito shot him another sideways glance. “Is that what’s going on with you? Too much quiet?”
“Maybe. My bosses keep asking me to go to London and have dinner with them near the office or to their big houses in this posh village they live in, but I never go.”
“Why not?”
Mickey frowned. “They’re too happy, I suppose, with their boyfriends and husbands, and I just don’t know what to do with it. Sometimes I think I only function properly when everything is a fucking struggle.”
“You don’t think it’s because you don’t know any different yet?”
“Yet?”
Benito fixed his dark stare on the horizon. “Is this so hard for you?”
“What?”
“Being here. Me and you.”
Mickey thought about his answer for less than a second. “No. This is, like, utopia for me. Like we’re in another world being regular people doing regular shit.”
Benito shrugged. “Maybe we are.”
* * *
Benito fought for breath, sweat beading his skin and running down his spine. He squeezed his eyes shut and bunched his screaming muscles.Just one more.
He wrestled the loaded bar bell and won, raising it from his chest, then dumping it back on the rack. Panting, he sat up, heart thumping, head swimming. It was his fourth set, and he already regretted it, but putting his body on blast was the best alternative he had to fixating on his growing obsession with Mickey.
Growing obsession? Like it wasn’t sky high before?
Whatever. Benito moved to the leg press and inflicted the same punishment on his quads that he had on his upper body. Lactic acid screamed through his thighs, and he gritted his teeth, a quiet grunt escaping him.Don’t think about him.
Fuck.
Benito wasn’t sure he even knew how. Since Bletchley Park, they’d spent three more entire days together, wandering around, eating, talking. Mickey thought he was terrible at being ordinary, but despite the fact there wasnothingordinary about him, he was the best company Benito had ever had. He sucked up every mundane moment they shared like a sponge and bottled the feeling to soak in when they were apart, and hemissedMickey so much it hurt.
They hadn’t fucked again, though. Or even kissed. Not even after the late-night dinner they’d shared at the weekend. Benito didn’t know why. All he knew for certain was that Mickey had made no move to close the distance between them, and Benito hadn’t either.Andthat the heat between them still raged as hot as ever, sonothingabout the impasse made any fucking sense.
Impasse. You learn that word from the history channel?
Of course. Benito didn’t even try to silence Mickey’s voice in his head. He liked it. It stopped his treacherous self-esteem wondering if Mickey was burning off steam in Freefall rather than the gym, because the rational human he could be when he really triedknewhe wasn’t.
An hour later, Benito limped out of the gym and to his car with every intention of driving home for a nap. It was ten in the morning. He’d worked all night long, seen Gianna onto the bus, and hit the gym straight after. He was so tired he could barely focus, but hunger outweighed fatigue. Breakfast—and his last text from Mickey—seemed a long time ago.
Benito drove to Fenny Stratford and pulled up outside the Italian bakery Roberto’s family had once owned before he’d run it into the ground. A new family fronted it now, and they weren’t even Italian, but Benito didn’t care. The chicken, mushroom, and mozzarella paninis were too good for principled food choices. He bought two and picked up some cannoli for Gianna. He hadn’t planned on stopping by Rosetta’s place but somehow found himself outside Barnfield Court ten minutes later.
Twat. You were only here three hours ago.
Story of his fucking life.