“You should. If they don’t get what they want from him, they’ll come after you.”
“No reason to. I don’t work for my family anymore. There’s nothing I can do.” I could pummel the shit out of Dessy. That would bring me great joy.
“He’s your cousin.”
“He killed the woman who was going to be my wife. He stopped being family then, Des. You know that. You were there.” In the car. Next to Ash. Both high as fucking kites. They thought they’d hidden Leila’s body until we found them at the side of the road, covered in her blood that they hadn’t realised was there.
“They’re going to go after me.”
“And that should bother me why?”
Dessy looked at his feet. He was shit scared, which should’ve brought me endless joy. “You know Colm’s going to get you to help.”
“I don’t work for Colm.”
“Everyone works for Colm.”
I shook my head, pissed off with this fucking unwanted interruption. “Who is it?”
Dessy shifted about, looking behind me. “New guys. New people who want in. They’ve taken a couple of patches and Ash was worried.”
“Ash didn’t need to be worried. Colm’s already said…”
“These aren’t some dickhead scallies, Tom. There’s money.”
It wasn’t the shade we were standing in that was making me feel cold. “Who is it?”
The name he gave me made me wish I hadn’t bothered getting up this morning. Things just got complicated.
Chapter Eight
Jameson
Icouldn’t stop thinking about Tommy.
When I was sixteen, I’d crushed hard on a boy two years above. He’d had sandy blonde hair and played rugby until he got kicked off the team. He smoked, dabbled in drugs and slept with whoever he chose because he was that boy. The one everyone wanted to either be, or be fucked by.
Including me.
He knew my name, but he didn’t know me. I was Lala’s sister or Livi’s daughter, or one of Gav’s kids. We’d been at the same party one night. Lala was queen bee; the daughter of a high court judge had passed out on the floor, and someone was having coke delivered like it was the drink instead of the substance.
He was called Finn, and for all of two minutes we’d been alone in a room while I tried to find a blanket or something for the girl on the floor and he was searching for his jacket. I’d remembered feeling as if I was being watched, studied. I knew Finn was in the room, but I doubted he knew I was. I was just another person, another body, and while he’d have known someone else was there, it didn’t matter it was me.
But when I turned around, he was looking at me. Staring. His eyes weren’t predatory, and the only thing that made me wary was how my skin had seemed to have become some active organ. Every nerve was awake, and although Finn was on the opposite side of the room, it felt as if he was touching me.
My eyes had met his, and I felt as if some force had knocked me backwards, the room becoming impossibly small.
Finn had licked his lips and taken a step towards me. He’d been about to say something when the door had opened and one of Lala’s friends pretty much fell through it, yelling his name and holding up a bottle of tequila.
Whatever had been between us had evaporated, spilt tears in the sunshine.
That was how yesterday had felt. With Tommy. Every fibre of my skin had known he was there. Every inch of it wanted his hands to touch and ask and take, and somehow I didn’t think it would be enough.
“Jameson, will you join me for breakfast?” Livi appeared at the doorway to my room, dressed in a white kaftan, her dark hair effortlessly beautiful as usual. “I wanted you and Lara with me this morning, but your sister’s already gone out.”
Or never came home. She’d phoned me from Carl’s at around midnight to tell me they were having a ‘chilled evening’, knowing I’d cover for her if Livi asked where she was. Our mother didn’t care who we dated or slept with, but she didn’t care for Carl that much. He’d been around Lara for too long, and I knew she worried sometimes it might be serious. Carl could be Lala’s lover, but not her husband. Not that she’d ever confess that to anyone.
“Sure. Will your friends be there?” Livi’s yoga weekend was about to begin in earnest. Two days of nothing but sun salutations and vinyasas and meditation. There had been a delivery of plants and a new gazebo added, the sound system extended and a fridge full of some type of water that I’d never heard of which probably contained the tears of virgin romance heroines.
