He chuckles. “Then your wish is my command.”
I smile at him. He’s so easy to breathe around. Maybe spending my time with him wouldn’t be so bad – but he did just let Fiz smack my ass without saying a word. His allegiance is with them, as it should be. I shouldn’t let him get too close.
I thank him again for the coffee, and as I turn to leave, he opens a cupboard. A glimpse of a blue packet stops me dead in my tracks.
Oh my.
“Are they?” My voice is shaking, my mouth practically drooling already.
Alfie glances over his shoulder at me, frowning. I lift a finger to point inside the cupboard. He looks, then back to me. “What?”
Biscuits. Hobnobs.
Biscuits.
I haven’t had a single fucking biscuit since Lewis was alive.
Now my eyes are filling with tears. Over biscuits.
I clear my throat, try not to sound like I’m about to go completely feral for a packet of Hobnobs. “Whose biscuits are they?”
He spots the packet and grabs them, “Oh, Fiz’s.” He extends them to me. “Want them?”
I shake my head. “God forbid. Who knows what that animal would do if I took his snacks.”
Alfie chuckles. “El, you’re practically foaming at the mouth. He’s cleansing, he can’t have sugar like biscuits for another two weeks. He only eats them when he’s high and gets the munchies anyway. I’ll replace them before he even notices.”
Why am I on the brink of crying?
I swallow hard, take the packet from his hand and give him my warmest, most grateful smile. “Thank you.”
He winks at me, a half-smile on his lips. “No worries. Have what you want, honestly, if you can eat, then eat. It doesn’t matter what right now.”
I can only keep smiling at him, lest I burst into a million droplets of tears.
I wander back upstairs, clutching the biscuits to my body like some loot I’ve just robbed. He calls me El, he gives me biscuits, he’s looking after me.
Don’t,the darkness hisses, like I’ve just threatened to throw myself off a cliff.
“Oh, stop,” I hiss back under my breath. “How can you not expect me to savour this?”
Just don’t.
I huff. I think I could grow to really like Alfie. He seems safe.
No.
“I’m just saying.”
Don’t.
“Yeah, yeah, not part of the plan.”
There’s no harm in fantasising about these things, though, right?
I scurry back to Caden’s bedroom and snuggle down onto the floor, one blanket I’d found in Caden’s armoire arranged beneath me and another wrapped around my legs. With shaky hands, I undo the packet and my mouth falls open. Chocolate.Sugar. Goodness. The one thing Lewis always brought me while I was locked up in the cell.
I bring the first biscuit to my mouth.
