“All of it. Cass knows engines as well as I do, and he reckoned it was a goner, one for the scrap heap, you know? I didn’t see it that way, but Cass’s logic made sense to me, perhaps more than my own.”
“But you worked on it anyway. Why?”
“Because I wanted it.”
“And I wanted you.” Lenny couldn’t be sure Nero had meant his cryptic words to turn them full circle, but he couldn’t deny the engine’s mystery was on par with his reticent lover. “I still want you, even if we can’t get past this . . . impasse.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Deadlock,” Lenny said around a heavy sigh. “I can’t keep asking you for something you can’t give.”
“Pass me that spanner.”
Lenny crawled to Nero’s pile of tools and fetched the spanner, trying not to let the pain of Nero’s nonanswer cripple him. Nero had said he loved him too, but what now? And how many times could they recycle this conversation?
“So, where do you want me to start?”
“What?” Lenny turned his head sharply.
Nero kept his eyes on the bolt he was attacking with his spanner. “You stare at my stumpy finger a lot, but I reckon you know it’s the missing tip of a fucked-up iceberg. And you’re right. I can tell you what happened on that day, but it don’t mean nothing without the rest.”
“Will you tell me the rest?”
“I’ll tell you anything, Lenny. You just gotta listen.”
It wasn’t the way Lenny had envisioned they’d have this conversation—Nero chipping away at the bus engine while Lenny sat cross-legged at his feet, passing him tools—but it somehow felt right. “You were born in London?”
“Uh-huh.” Nero pointed to a spanner, then held out his hand. “In my grandparents’ front room.”
Lenny passed the spanner. “Your mum’s parents?”
“No, my dad’s. We lived across the road from them in Bethnal Green until I was seven.”
“Then what happened?”
Nero did something loud to the engine. “My dad worked in a factory up the road from the estate. One day, he didn’t come home. A machine broke down and collapsed on him when he tried to fix it.”
“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”
Nero sighed. “It was a long time ago. So much has happened in between, I can’t really remember it.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Sometimes, but I don’t know if that’s because I’m comparing him to someone else.”
Dread churned in Lenny’s gut. Nero had rarely spoken of his family, save the occasional mention of his paternal grandparents and the way his lips curled around someone else seemed more ominous than Lenny already knew this conversation to be. “I’m sorry you lost your dad. What was his name?”
“Raffa.”
“I like that name.”
“Yeah?” Nero dropped his spanner and pushed himself out from under the car. He lifted his T-shirt high enough to reveal the bottom of his epic tattoo. “Maybe that’s why you seem to like this so much.”
Lenny frowned. Nero’s ink was etched on his own soul in minute detail—or was it? As he peered closer, he saw a faint, swirling script layered in the tiger’s left eye. Raffa.
Damn.
The threat of tears heated Lenny’s face. He looked away, swallowing hard to contain himself. “I’ve never noticed that before.”
