Saint cracked an eye open. “Yourself. The effect you have on people. You’re in a good mood and the whole world feels it. If you don’t believe me, take a fucking look.”
His goodbye was a vague thumb jab at the window. Shaking my head, I left him to it, dumped the bags in my room, and went back downstairs, already over my commitment to wash some clothes and irrevocably drawn to Mateo.
I found him in the bar with Cam, in the private alcove we rarely used as Cam reckoned it made us pound shop Krays if the whole council holed up in there.
Tonight he didn’t seem to care.
He was huddled with Nash in the corner, while Rubi and Mateo laughed at something on Rubi’s phone.
“Here he is.” Rubi reached for me as I slipped past the quiz machines that gave us some semblance of privacy.
We embraced while Mateo looked on with his molten gaze, then I slipped between them to examine Mateo’s face.
“What’s the verdict?”
“I’m not dead,” Mateo deadpanned.
Rubi snorted. “And he still has half a brain cell. Want a drink, father?”
Did I? After a crazy few days, getting lit on rum with my boys was a tempting proposition, but... we were technically at war. On high alert for an attack or incursion at any moment.
Meaning, we couldn’t all get shit-faced, and it seemed most of the room was already there.
“I’m good. Is there food?”
Rubi nodded to the table where Cam and Nash were. “Nash ordered Marios.”
I followed his gaze and belatedly noticed a stack of pizza boxes and pasta containers. My stomach rumbled like a motherfucker. Mateo laughed and the low, rich sound was pretty much worth starving myself to death in his presence.
With one last lingering stare at his face, I left him and Rubi to it and investigated the dinner on the table. I found Mateo’s favourite spicy meatball pasta and passed it over without asking if he wanted it.
Our fingers brushed. A shock of heat rushed me, and Rubi’s amused gaze was a harsh reminder that we were no longer alone.
You will be soon. He sleeps in your bed every night, remember?
As if I could forget, but we spent those nights with an ocean between us, and despite the demon slaying I’d done in that faceless hotel room, I couldn’t see a way out of the rest of it.
You haven’t tried.
Man, I was a shit therapist.
I forced myself away from Mateo and drifted back to the food, ignoring Cam’s watchful attention until I couldn’t. I waved the cannelloni I saw him eat most often when no one felt like cooking. “You want this?”
He sat back on the old couch, shaking his head. “Nah. I just ate two pizzas. Hide the green one for Saint, though, yeah?”
“Consider it done.”
I buried the container under the rest and grabbed a pizza box for myself. My soul cried out for Mateo, but Cam reeled me in first, shoving up to make room. “Is there a reason you’ve got a spring in your step while Nash and Rubes look half dead?”
“I didn’t drive. Took myself a four-day nap.”
“Course you did. Everything okay?”
“Far as I know. I just saw Saint. He was... cheerful.”
It was the best word I could find to describe the Saint I’d encountered upstairs.
Cam laughed. “Still stoned off his box?”
