He disappeared. Bemused, Nero returned to his fridge rummaging, turning up eggs, potatoes, and a tired onion. A second raid revealed some manchego cheese. He fried up the spuds with the onions and added smoked paprika, then swirled in the eggs, leaving them to cook on a low heat while he chopped up the manchego. After sprinkling the cheese on top and flashing the omelette under the grill, dinner was done; a simple supper that was definitely enough for two.
Fuck’s sake. Nero didn’t have much of a conscience, but letting even a stranger go hungry was something he just couldn’t do. He dished up and carried two plates to the living room, half expecting to find Lenny had gone back to sleep. But the kid was huddled on the couch, a coat bunched around his drawn-up knees.
Nero set the plates on the coffee table. “Ain’t you got a duvet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Left it at my old place. Didn’t want to go back there.”
Ah. That was right. The kid was in trouble. Still, Nero was surprised Cass hadn’t kitted him out before leaving him to Nero’s mercy. “So you’ve left all your things behind?”
“Didn’t have much, to be honest. The flat came furnished, and Cass took my books back to his house.” Lenny shifted on the couch, making himself impossibly smaller. “He offered me some sheets and stuff, but I said no. He’s done enough for me already.”
“Yeah? Cass is like that. Grumpy twat, but he’s a fucking old woman deep down—a nutty one, like his nana.”
Lenny said nothing. His eyes drifted to the plates on the coffee table before he seemed to remember himself and his gaze returned to the floor. Nero regarded him, taking in his wild, bleached-blond hair and perfect eyebrows. His wide brown eyes and the freckles dusted across his nose. He had a perfect mouth too, curved with a full bottom lip—
Jesus, stop eye-fucking him. You’ve sworn off the boys, remember?
Nero swallowed. Truth be told, he’d never been on the boys, unless a few drunken fumbles with Cass years ago counted. There’d been no others he’d wanted enough to hook up with since. How could there be when up until this moment, Cass had been the most beautiful man he’d ever seen?
Whoa. It had been a long time since he’d dwelled on his attraction to Cass, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it had been a hero complex. Cass had saved him and given him a life, a career, a purpose, and in return, Nero had fallen a little in love with him. You sad fuck. But Nero was over that now. Had been for yonks. Didn’t even wank about it—
“Are you okay?”
“Hmm?” Nero returned to the present to find Lenny staring at him, his wide eyes wary. “Er, yeah. I made dinner. Eat up. I’ll get you some bed stuff.”
He stood abruptly and went to the airing cupboard, pulling out the spare duvet, a blanket, and a couple of pillows. At the back, he found a set of covers that looked like they belonged in a hotel, clearly left over from the days Tom—Cass’s first fella—used to stay over.
Nero returned to the living room. Lenny was poking suspiciously at his slice of omelette. “Does this have meat in it?”
“Why?” Nero sat down. “You veggie?”
“Yes. I’m gluten intolerant too, unless it’s biscuits. I can eat those.”
“Fussy, are ya?”
Lenny snorted. “Nah, mate. Just misunderstood.”
Nero absorbed Lenny’s brief sass and matched it with his bleached hair, double pierced ears, and the scuffed Doc Martens tucked down by the side of the couch. “There ain’t no meat in your supper, no gluten either, so unless you’re one of them vegan loonies, you’re good to go.”
“Vegans aren’t loonies. They’re saving the world.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nero set the pile of bedding on the arm of the couch. “You can have my bed any night I’m not here, but this should do you for now.”
“I don’t know how long I’m staying.”
“Makes two of us. Eat up.”
Nero grabbed his plate and sat in the armchair. He dug into his supper, making short work of it until he realised Lenny was frowning at his left hand. Took him long enough. Nero did his best to ignore it, but Lenny’s attention made the stump of his missing finger throb, like it always did when someone noticed it for the first time, until the new person in his life trained themselves to studiously not look at it, at least until they got drunk and shouted their questions in Nero’s face.
Suppressing a sigh, Nero put his plate on the table and toyed with the idea of stomping off to bed before Lenny reached the second stage of his morbid fascination, but something kept him in his seat as Lenny visibly forced himself to look away. And without Lenny’s distracting gaze on him, memories, unbidden as always, came to Nero. Noises. Scents. Sensations he couldn’t quite decipher. The phantom pain in his missing finger became excruciating as blackness filled his mind, clouding his vision. The cosy flat disappeared, and he was back in that cellar, dank and dark. He could even smell the cable binding his wrists, the rotting vegetables, and the smoke from his tormentor’s pipe—tobacco smoke that fast became that of a burning bedsit in Bethnal Green, flashing blue lights, and more shackles on his wrists—
“That was really nice. Thank you.”
Nero blinked. “What?”
