Lenny. Nero turned the name over in his mind and tried to match it with the team he’d last worked with at Misfits, but came up blank. The fiery open kitchen at Misfits was his nemesis, and he kept his eyes down when he was there. Saved apologies later when he’d ripped someone’s head off. “Babysitting at Pippa’s, Vauxhall. Got it. Anywhere else you want me?”
“I want you everywhere, mate. You know that.” Cass winked and slid off the counter, his smirk lightening the pensive air he’d arrived with. “But if you wouldn’t mind settling for two for a while, I’d appreciate it.”
“Pay rise in the post, is it?”
Cass shrugged. “If you want one. Tom said you told him to shove your promotion where the sun don’t shine.”
“I told him to stick his posh-twat titles up his arse. Never said I didn’t want the dosh.”
“You’ll need to explain that to him when you see him then, ’cause he’s kinda getting the feeling you still don’t like him after all these years.”
Nero scowled. How many times did he have to explain that he liked Cass’s partner—lover—whatever—well enough, he just didn’t . . . get him? Nah. Fuck that. Jake, Cass’s second boyfriend and third link in the trio that ran Urban Soul, was waaay cooler than Tom. Nero loved him like a brother, even if Jake did call him a pirate cunt when his Tourette’s was bad. “When do I get my lodger?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call you?”
“Yeah? You’ve been saying that shit for months, but my phone don’t ring.”
“Don’t be a tart, mate. You could always call me.”
True enough, but Nero rarely called anyone. “Guess I’ll just sit by the phone, then, eh?”
“Got nothing better to do, I reckon, but Nero?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep Lenny close, if you can. Don’t let him be scared.”
Sunday night, Nero came home to find a skinny hood rat asleep on his couch. Brilliant. He shut the front door, and the kid jumped awake like a startled hare and slid off the couch in a heap of long, slender limbs.
“Easy, mate.” Nero tossed his keys into the bowl and hung his coat on the hook. “You’ll have to get used to me coming and going if you’re gonna sleep there.”
And sleep there, on the couch, he’d have to, ’cause as much as Nero loved Cass, he wasn’t giving up his bed for anyone.
Lenny, Nero assumed, got slowly to his feet and then sat back on the couch. “Are you Nero?”
“Yup. Lenny?”
“Yeah.”
Nero nodded and went to the kitchen, leaving Lenny to it. He had a sourdough starter to feed, goddamn it. He was adding flour to the bubbly mass when Lenny appeared in the kitchen doorway, platinum hair, as light as Nero’s was dark, sticking up in every direction.
“How long have you lived here?”
Nero screwed the cap back onto the starter jar. “In Shepherd’s Bush? Or this flat?”
“Um, both, I guess?”
Great. Lenny the Lodger was a nosy fucker. “I’ve lived here, in the flat, a couple of years. Since Cass stopped using it. Might as well, with Jimbo kipping with his bit of stuff down the road.”
“Cass said you were his best friend.”
“Did he now?” Nero opened the fridge. “You hungry?”
“Now? It’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“So? When do you think chefs eat if they’re cooking every other arsehole’s dinner?”
Lenny shrank back into the doorway, retracing the tentative steps he’d taken into the kitchen. “Oh, um . . . sorry. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’ll get out of your way.”
