For a long moment, he did not speak. I sensed his struggle and gave him time, lighting a cigarette for him and placing it between his lips.
He took a deep drag. “I have to leave. Take the rubbish to landfill.”
I read between the lines: he was taking the dead bodies to be disposed of. “You will come back?”
“In a few hours, but he needs to go home before then.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll take him?”
“I’ll try. He is stubborn.”
“You’re worse.”
“Am I?”
Saint relaxed a little and sat down, extending his legs in front of him. “I think so. It suits you.”
“Why have you thought about that?”
“I don’t know.”
I nodded and stubbed out my cigarette. There was a bin nearby but I wanted to know if he still carried the bag in his pocket for the sake of the songbirds.
He did. I let him pluck the butt from my fingers and tuck it away.
“I love him too,” he said.
“I know this.”
“It doesn’t bother you?”
“Only in the sense that you do not believe he should love you back.”
“Cam loves everyone.”
“Not like he loves you.”
“Not like he lovesyou.”
I hummed and tilted my head back, gazing at the stars above us on this clear and frosty night. “I will take him home,” I said. “To the cottage on Beach Road. We will wait for you there.”
“Why?”
“Because he needs both of us.”
Saint turned to face me. In the darkness, his face was a chiselled mess of angles and insecurity. “I’ll come, and whatever happens, it needs to be about him, but...” He stopped to fight with himself.
I waited, but he did not speak again. Instead, he took my hand and placed it on his bare forearm.
The contact burned as bright as the explosion the Sambinis had set off on a nearby industrial estate to distract the police. My fingers squeezed the warm, unyielding flesh of their own accord, and I rubbed my palm over Saint’s skin.
He shivered, pleasure sparking in his complex gaze, and I felt it in the pit of my stomach. It unnerved me, but I smiled.
Saint deserved to feel good, perhaps as much as he deserved Cam’s heart.
31
