“In here? The window’s bigger in the bedroom.”
“I wouldn’t know, mate. I’ve never been in your boudoir.”
Lenny’s grin turned impish. Nero glared and left the room, intending to get straight on with his work, until he remembered the cigarettes in his pocket. Fuck’s sake.
He went back to the bathroom. Lenny’s grin remained, even as Nero tossed the box in his face. “Your eyes flash when you’re pissed off.”
“I’m not pissed off.”
“No? Would hate to see you when you are, then.” Lenny slid off the windowsill. “Thanks for the fags.”
He slipped past Nero and disappeared into the living room. Nero breathed a strange sigh of relief and loss, but his conflicting emotions were short-lived. Lenny was back in a flash, brandishing a tenner and still that goddamned grin. “Thank you.”
Nero took the money and stuffed it in his pocket, rummaging around for change. He found a quid and flipped it in Lenny’s general direction. “No worries. I’m going downstairs, unless you need anything else?”
“Downstairs? To work? I thought you weren’t in till five?”
“I’m not in the kitchen until five. Got plenty of shit to do before then.”
“Like what?”
“What do you care?”
For a moment so brief Nero thought he’d imagined it, Lenny scowled, but then it was gone and he smiled again, though his eyes had lost much of their humour. “I was just being polite, mate. Don’t mind me.”
Lenny left the bathroom. A few seconds later, the door to the fire escape scraped open. Had Lenny ventured outside? If he had, it would be the first time he’d seen the sun since he’d been holed up at Pippa’s.
The urge to go and check was strong. Nero pushed it down and left the flat, grabbing his clean whites on his way out.
Downstairs, he changed in the staff room, then trudged to the kitchen, claiming the back corner sequestered for menu development. His meeting with Jake replayed in his head, and lacking the inclination to hoof it across the city to Greenwich to pinch more of their sourdough starter, he got to work brewing a fresh one of his own. Flour, water, a handful of grapes to kick-start the fermentation process—there wasn’t much to it, really. Nero mixed it up in a plastic oil drum and took it to the dry store. It would need culling and feeding every day, but for now, he was done.
Next up, he had to figure out what to do with it when it was ready. Urban Soul could dress any building up as some fancy hipster shite, but for it to mean something this time around, they’d need bread, and lots of it. Nero knocked up a rye dough and left it in the fridge to brew overnight. Then he threw together a simple white dough that he could divide and experiment with seeds and flavourings later when it had completed its first rise. He was mixing a batch of soda bread when Steph came to find him. “Heads-up. The boss is here.”
Nero turned his back on her. The boss was code for the bloke who kept Cass and Jake on the straight and narrow, both at home and at work, and Steph had a penchant for crawling up his arse, all the while running around like God himself had come to call. Idiot. Despite Nero’s grudging respect for Tom Fearnes, God, he was not.
“Afternoon, Nero.”
Nero suppressed a sigh and tossed a glance over his shoulder. “Tom.”
“Cheerful as ever, I see.”
“I’m all right.”
Tom chuckled, deep and low. “Good. That’s what I came to find out.”
“You came all the way down here to see little old me?”
“Actually, I was passing, but I would come and see you if you needed me to. You know I would.”
Nero grunted. “Did someone get you a cuppa?”
Tom ventured closer and waved a mug. “What are you up to here? Is this for the Vauxhall project?”
“Yup. Sourdough won’t be ready for a few weeks, but I’ve got farmhouse dough I can play around with.”
“What’s this?” Tom pointed to the loaves Nero had shaped during their short exchange.
“Soda bread.”
