“Why?”
“Why not?”
He pulled out a chair and gestured for me to park my arse. Then he rose and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me with Rubi and his droll fucking stare.
I sighed. “What?”
Rubi kept staring as the scent of bacon drifted from the kitchen. Kept grinning, like the cat I’d had to offer eleven food choices to before I could leave my house.
“Just say it.” I snatched the nearest vape and treated myself to a lungful of nicotine. “And then shut the fuck up.”
“You got laid.”
“Did I?”
“Course you did. Nothing else makes you this chill.”
“How do you know I’m chill?”
“You didn’t punch anyone between here and the car.”
“I haven’t punched anyone in ages,” I countered. “You’rethe one with the recent hooligan points.”
Cam emerged as I dropped that nugget, a glare already threatening his nice side. “The fuck is he talking about?”
“Fucked if I know.” Rubi leaned back in his seat. “Probably off his tits on paracetamol.”
Cam’s scowl intensified, but it didn’t go anywhere. And he didn’t ask any more questions as he set a plate in front of me and clapped my shoulder. “Eat.”
He meant it with love, but I knew an order when I heard one, and I contemplated a breakfast that was more food than I’d seen in—fuck, I didn’t even know. Weeks, probably. I hadn’t been hungry, but I was now, and I fell on my plate with enough enthusiasm that Cam’s glare disappeared.
Rubi’s smirk remained, but I could live with that. I mean, he wasn’t fucking wrong, was he?
I cleared my plate.
Cam grinned. “You want more?”
“Fuck, no.”
He chuckled and took the plate away.
Came back with coffee and by then, Rubi had wandered off. “I’ve been worried about you.”
“I’m all right.”
“Can see that. Doesn’t mean you have been. Anything you want to talk about?”
I eyed him through the vapour of the stolen vape. “Not really. Nash tell you about the Juana thing?”
“Everyone’s told me about that, one way or another.”
“Even her?”
I was joking, but awkwardness blanketed the room. Juana had been attracted to Decoy the first year she’d been here, but for whatever reason, she spent more time with Cam these days and she was no more immune to him than the rest of us.
With a lethal grin, Cam lit a cigarette and offered me the pack.
I thought about it way too hard. Vapes were shit. But the incisions in my belly still throbbed and pulled enough to stop me lighting up. “Nah, you’re all right.”