Saint pointed south. “That way.”
It was as much as I was getting from him.
We hit the road again, leaving Devon behind and slipping across the Cornish border.
Embry was Cornish. He’d spent so much time on the move he didn’t often sound it, but I loved it when he got lazy drunk and it slipped into his voice. Or those precious moments after he came. I’d never popped wood on my bike before, but thinking about that while winding through the bendy roads was a whole new world.
My dick ached like a motherfucker when Saint finally pulled up again. I wasn’t horny, just fucking sad.
We buried the weapons. Then found a beach to sit and chill before we rode back, a weird ritual of sorts that we’d fallen into over the years.
Weird because Saint hated the sea, so naturally he kicked his boots off and waded right into it.
“You’re tapped in the head, mate.” I heckled him from dry land. I didn’t mind getting wet, but even in high summer that shit wasfreezing.
Saint ignored me, turning his face to the sky. I gave him some space and drifted further back, finding a dry spot to take a seat.
I dug my phone from my pocket, checking for messages from Rubi and the burner we’d given Juana.
There were none.
Nothing from Embry either, but I wasn’t surprised. I’d expected his silence. I deserved it. But he didn’t, and the notion that he was punishing himself by ignoring the random messages I sent him in the middle of the night made me sick to my stomach.
I tapped another one out. Erased it and started again. The vague club rumour was that we’d fallen out because he was banging someone else. Possibly Rubi. It explained their absence, but to anyone who knew them it was fucking ludicrous, so it wouldn’t hold up long. None of it would.
“I’ll put the Reading charter on your mum. But we can’t hide a pregnant woman forever. She’s going to need prenatal care soon, and your kid should be in school.”
Cam had said it like I didn’t know. Like he had no clue it was my motherfucking dream. Liliana in school. Juana having a baby in an actual hospital with midwives and nurses looking after her. But then, I’d never told him. I’d never told anyone, and now the souls I loved the most were holed up in Alexei’s bachelor pad and I was here, watching Saint commune with broken shells and seaweed.
He came back as I was rubbing the ache from my chest. He eyed my hand.
I dropped it. “Did you get your ten-metre badge?”
Saint lowered himself to the sand without comment, watching as I murdered a text message. “Call him.”
“No, thanks.”
I never called anyone. I just quietly died of the irony that an illiterate idiot would rather text than pick up the phone.
Saint watched me struggle for a while, then sighed and pulled out his own phone. He swiped at the screen, then brought it to his ear. “Is she awake?”
He nodded at the answer he got and held out the phone. “Talk to your kid.”
“Papá?”
Her voice hit me before I knew what I was doing.
“Lili.” I scrambled to my feet and left Saint in the sand. “How are you doing, pretty thing?”
I spoke in a broken mix of English and Spanish—she was much better at being bilingual than I was.
She laughed, like she always did when I fucked the words up. “I’m okay. I’m staying up late with Rubi. We’re watching a film with a skeleton king and a naked man.”
I knew exactly what they were watching. It was the crappest film in the history of crap films, but Rubi, Cam, and Nash were nineties kids and they loved it. They watched it with Ivy all the time. “Masters of the Universe? I don’t think He-Man is naked.”
“He looks naked. I like the little furry thing and the girl with the blue gun, though.”
“You’re not bored?”
