What hadn’t changed wasthese kidswere still annoying as fuck. Relentless, as if Rubi was their dad.
Ivy poked me again. “Are you awake?”
I relieved her of the stick and dropped it on the floor. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re about to smoke a cigarette and that’sreallybad for you, Uncle Ranger.”
Uncle Ranger.Absolutely not. I was no one’s uncle anything, apart from maybe Rocco’s boys, but I hadn’t seen them in so long they’d probably forgotten all about me.
My tobacco was on the floor by the stick. I reached for it.
Ivy stuck her tongue out and ran away.
Liliana lingered. “Your friend slept in that bed.”
I rolled a smoke with one hand, rubbing my eyes with the other. “Locke?”
“No, the one with the helicopter.”
She disappeared without giving me a name, leaving a shiver behind her, and I’d forgotten that about Mateo’s kid. If she hadn’t been his absolute spit, I’d have thought she was Saint’s.
This fucking place.
I mauled my eyes harder, wishing I had a hangover. At least that shit made sense. I tried not to think about why I’d passed out onthisbunk when the one I usually kipped in was on the other side of the room.
This was Locke’s bunk... at least, it had been before my bro had scored himself two hot lovers for company, and I was as happy for him as I was desperate for a fucking smoke.
I didn’t like smoking in bed unless I had company, and I was most definitely alone. I rolled to my feet and drifted to the doorway, lighting my rollie as I went, emerging into the yard as the sun began to dim. Damn, had I slept all day?
“There he is. Sleeping beauty.” Rubi popped up in front of me. “Heard you’d rolled in. Everything okay?”
Rubi was a hugger.
I didn’t mind. I embraced him back, letting him squeeze the breath from my lungs. “Can’t complain.”
“Then you’d never speak, you fucking whingebag.”
He’d called me worse over the years, when we’d been on opposite sides of a brawl. When I’d been on thewrongside, cementing my boots to the ground in the futile hope that my mere presence would stop the worst people on earth killing one of the best.Locke. I hadn’t seen him yet, but I loved that big fucker.
Rubi let me go. “Dinner’s up. You coming?”
“What is it?”
“Pie. Got a freezer full of them.”
“What kind of pie?”
“Chicken. Mushroom. Ham. Leeks—what’s that face for? Fucking salad-dodger.”
I wedged my smoke between my lips. “You didn’t say anything about salad.”
“It’s an umbrella term, you fussy fuck. You want leftover pizza instead?”
Like a hole in the head, but I wasn’t about to tell Rubi I’d gone off it since I’d woken up next to a cold pepperoni with a Russian gangster’s lips imprinted on my neck.
On my fuckingsoul.
You think I am gopnik?
