Ranger leaned forward, his curiosity natural. Instinctive. “Password?”
“There is none.”
“Not very gangster of you.”
“Gangster?” I sank onto the rug beside him, fighting an unwinnable battle to keep my gaze from his lean torso. “You think I am gopnik?”
Ranger dumped the tablet in front of him and pressed his thumb to the button, activating the screen. “I think you’re too badass to have unprotected electronics lying around your pad, so what’s the fucking catch?”
“There is no catch.” I reached over him to swipe the screen, navigating to the folder that held the music files I sporadically got round to updating. “Unless someone wants to waste their time investigating a device that holds nothing but the music I relax to.”
I found the track we’d discussed on the cold wet ground of the port. It was ambient. The mellow tones seeped out of the speakers like honey and something inside me gave way. Something that had been wound tight in my gut for weeks now.
Months, perhaps.
I rolled onto my back, closing my eyes, before I remembered the snack Ranger had disregarded.
The orange. I reached over him,again, and wrapped my fingers around it. Ranger, engrossed in my music files, didn’t seem to notice, and I enjoyed the ease of our closeness more than I had any right to.
Vitka.
I peeled the orange.
Ranger spared me a derisive glance. “You’re going to eat that?”
“You would not?”
“I like the smell. I’d rather die than put it in my mouth.”
He spoke with more gravity than he had all week.
I laughed and stole his joint. “You are a strange boy.”
“You promised me pizza.” Ranger swigged vodka. “I won’t forget.”
I did not expect him to. I ate my orange. Then I returned to the kitchen and cooked a frozen pizza for my surly guest.
He changed the album while I was gone. His pick surprised me. Despite what I’d seen at the port, he didn’t strike me as a man with such smooth taste.
I dumped the pizza on the only furniture in the room—a cluttered coffee table pushed against the wall. Lying beside Ranger again was too tempting to pass up, and despite his warning, he seemed to have forgotten about his dinner. Or was it breakfast? I had lost track of the time.
Regardless, my attention zeroed in on Ranger rummaging through his bag. A flash drive was already wedged between his fingers, a large purple crystal on the hardwood floor.
I picked it up. “What is this?”
“It’s from my nan’s house.”
“Your grandmother?”
“Nanna Jean.”
“She is dead?”
“Nah.” A fond grin twisted Ranger’s lips. “Right as rain down south. Bollocks... where the fuck is it?”
I did not know what he was looking for until he produced a bag of beige powder.
“Just a bit of mandy.” He dropped it on the floor in front of us. “I need out of my head proper, you know?”
