“I see that.” I grabbed a piece off the plate and sank my teeth into the salty meat. “Rowan is going to be so mad. He wants to be the only one showing off his culinary skills.”
“Rowan can suck me bollocks. Today is Flynn’s turn to shine.” Flynn tossed a sausage in the air. It hit the light fixture and bounced on top of the fridge, where it rolled off the back and behind the appliance. “Oh, you wanker.”
“Shower’s free!” Jane called as she padded through the living room, a towel wrapped around her torso and another tying her hair up like a turban. She gripped a wriggling Connor in her arms.
“Flynn and Blake made breakfast,” Kelly yelled back.
“Give me five minutes. I’ve got to put on my face.” Jane’s bedroom door slammed shut.
“Don’t be surprised if I’ve eaten yours,” Kelly called back, grabbing another piece. She smiled at me. “I love bacon.”
“I know.”
The look we exchanged said a hundred things that had nothing to do with bacon. A lump rose in my throat.
Will it ever stop hurting?
Everything I did reminded me of my adoptive parents and what had been stolen from us. With Kelly here, it was a hundred times worse. Just seeing her face made it hard to breathe.
I guess I only had to look around me to know the pain never went away. Corbin still carried the guilt he shouldn’t have to feel over his brother’s death. Arthur still missed his mother with every fibre of his being. And Rowan…I couldn’t evenfathomthe extent of his loss.
Flynn must have seen my expression change because he leaned across the table and tried to feed me a sausage. Laughing, I swatted his hand away. Kelly crunched another piece of bacon, and just like that, I was dragged back to the present.
Which carried a whole new set of problems for me, but at least Kelly was smiling. That was until I snared another piece of bacon and Flynn pinched my ass. She frowned and averted her eyes. My stomach thudded.Got to remember, you’re only dating Arthur.
“I had a brilliant idea,” Flynn announced, totally oblivious to the change in atmosphere in the room.
“Did your head explode?” Blake asked.
“Ask me bollocks. All my ideas are brilliant. Before we head out today to look at stuffy ‘proper’ art, do you ladies want to hunt out this Banksy upstairs with me?” Flynn raised his eyebrow, clasping his hands together and leaning toward me with a coquettish pout.
More than anything, I wanted to crawl back into bed and try to steal another hour of sleep. But no way could I say no to Flynn when he looked like that. “Sure,” I shrugged, grabbing another piece of bacon. “I’m interested to see what all the fuss is about.”
Kelly slid off her stool, her voice flat. She didn’t look at either of us. “No thanks. I think I’ll take advantage of the shower while it’s free. Contrary to popular belief, you boys take even longer in there than I do, and there’s five of you to get clean.”
Flynn curtseyed, holding the edges of his apron out. “You wish you looked this good, doll.”
Kelly smirked as she dug a dress out of her bag and headed for the bathroom. “You’re going to make some long-suffering woman an annoying husband one day, Flynn.”
I kind of agreed, except for the fact I wanted that woman to be me. “When do you want to go up?”
“How about now?” Flynn tossed down his apron. “We can just leave the food here for the others. Blake wants to come, too.”
“Sure.” I grabbed Arthur’s torn Blood Lust hoodie off the back of one of the chairs and pulled it on. We clambered up two flights of stairs, passing more graffiti, torn Victorian wallpaper, and some dark stains on the carpet I didn’t want to investigate too closely.
When we emerged on the top floor, I sucked in a breath in amazement. It looked like a scene from a post-apocalyptic film set. The staircase opened out into a vast room – the full height obscured by a crisscross of large industrial steel beams. Two huge windows lit the space at either end, casting grimy light across a hardwood floor littered with debris. Judging from the overturned trash bins, dusty printers, and broken swivel chairs, it had once been an open-plan office, but it clearly hadn’t been rented in some time. My sneakers scuffed a thick layer of dust, sending clouds swirling around us.
No artwork, though. The walls were a bare mess of peeled white paint and dusty red brick.
“Here.” Flynn pointed to a dilapidated kitchenette. A metal staircase led up into the ceiling, and I could see a steel mezzanine up there. Flynn took the stairs two at a time, his excitement infectious. I clambered up after him. At the top, he helped pull my body over a rusted step onto the mezzanine. A couple of bean bag chairs – their upholstery stained and torn – faced each other with a table between them. A single coffee cup sat on top, a brown stain in the bottom the remains of the last drink.
“Holy Mother of Jesus,” Flynn whispered, his hand on his mouth. “There it is.”
There, hidden in the rafters so it was completely obscured from the ground, was a stencilled painting of a man in a business suit poking his head out of a hole in the roof. A sign hung around his neck that read. “0% interest in people.”
“I dig it,” Blake said from behind us. He leaned against the balustrade, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Hey, how come there’s a piece of paper in here?” He frowned at my ticket stub.
“Arthur and Corbin took me out to a concert last night,” I said. Blake’s eyebrow rose. A weird, slightly-pissed look crossed Flynn’s face. “It was that band they’re obsessed with – Blood Lust. It was fun.”
