Rami rolled his eyes. “She’s bonkers for lots of reasons, but…fuck, I can’t live like this, you know? I’ve only been here a few days and I already can’t deal with having someone in my face every two seconds, even faces I like.”
He tweaked Mae’s nose. She responded by thwacking her palm against his cheek.
Addie objected, jumping up and pulling her long hair.
Her shriek was deafening.
Rami sighed and clamped a gentle hand over her mouth. “Wow. Do you have hot air balloons for lungs?”
His hand swallowed Mae’s answer. She frowned deeply, but she’d met her match where it came to heavy scowling. Rami wasn’t like me. He was unswayed by her fury and lacked the compulsive need to make her happy.
She wriggled until he put her down.
Then she punched Addie and ran off.
It was his turn to screech, but I caught him before it stretched out into the kind of bloodcurdling wail Rami clearly didn’t have the patience for.
Somehow in the year or so, I’d turned into my grandad and had a pocket full of sweets. I gave Addie a Fruitella and pressed my finger to his lips. “Don’t tell your sister. Or your mum for that matter.”
“What about my dad?”
“Sure, you can tell him. He’d never snitch on me.”
“Because you’ll tell her he got drunk and took all his clothes off at the pub?”
“Something like that.”
Addie laughed and ran off, disappearing with Mae into the great outdoors they called home. I felt their freedom as though it was my own and I couldn’t fathom why Rami didn’t want it, for himself or for Charlie, but I kept it to myself. After all, it wasn’t as if I hadn’t spent my entire adolescence wishing I was somewhere else.Took fifteen damn years to learn how wrong you were.
Fifteen years and a shank to my throat.
I shivered.
Rami eyed me. “Someone walk over your grave?”
How he knew I wasn’t just cold, I had no idea.
I also had no desire to elaborate, so I turned away from the question and took Charlie outside.
He followed and, like magic, Safia appeared and plucked Charlie from my arms. “Snack time, little man. You boys want anything?”
I shook my head.
Rami did too. “You fed me, like, ten minutes ago. I don’t need to eat again until next Tuesday.”
“Don’t be a git.”
“Leave me alone then.”
Safia muttered a horrendous insult under her breath and whisked Charlie inside.
Rami snorted and made no move to follow her. “Man, I love her, but give me fucking strength.”
“You don’t think that’s what she’s trying to do?”
“I don’t need eight meals a day.”
“You might if you lived up here. It’s hard graft, especially in winter.”