My stomach flipped a little because he’d called me his friend. I’d never actually had a friend before. I didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
“The pothos is Harold Jr. It was actually written on his pot. So of course I kept it. Not sure what happened to Harold Sr. Hopefully nothing terrible,” I said as Haz shoveled in more French toast.
“I named the cactus with two arms Hercules because he was strong even in the face of murder. And I named the smaller one Spike because he poked me a few times when I was climbing out of the dumpster.”
“We should introduce Cliff and Atlas to Hercules, Spike,and Harold Jr. sometime.”
“Okay.”
“Here, have some of this syrup. It’s the best I’ve ever tried.” Haz handed me a jug with a brown lid.
I poured a little on my French toast and took a bite, moaning the minute the buttery, rich sweetness burst across my tongue. “This is the best buffet I’ve ever been to.”
Haz poured some more on my plate, and I descended on the food, forgetting all my manners. Not that I had many, but I tried. While I was chomping, I grabbed the jug of syrup and tried to read the ingredients. It had to be something fancy. You ever notice how the writing on bottles and stuff is like minuscule? Like, why do they put all those words there if they don’t want you to read them? It could be poison, and I’d never even know.
After a few minutes, I gave up. It didn’t matter what this was anyway. I liked it.
For a while, the only sounds were lips smacking, juice slurping, and forks clinking against the plates. Kieran had real glass ones!
“You’d better drink your juice,” Haz warned a little while later. “Kieran will come out here and lecture us about vitamins if you don’t.”
I grabbed my glass and finished it off. Kieran had said we were family now, but he was still a little scary.
Slumping back in my seat, I heaved a breath. I was stuffed. I wasn’t accustomed to eating this much. “Who were all those people yesterday? And why were they trying to kill everyone?” I asked, trying not to burp like a dinosaur.
“About that, I’m really sorry you almost got hurt. I mean, I knew people were trying to kill me, but I didn’t think they’d come shoot up the Neon Reef. Who shoots at poor, innocent fish?” Haz shook his head. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I interrupted him. “I’m glad you asked. Sometimes it gets a little lonely,” I admitted.
Haz didn’t laugh like I thought he might. Instead, he nodded as if he got lonely too. “All those months of us living right next door, and I could have just come over and knocked.”
I nodded. “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to hang out with me.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to be lonely than risk getting rejected.” Haz agreed.
Like Ghost rejected me.
The thought punctured my happiness at being here with Haz and left me feeling like a tire with a slow leak. Soon I’d be flat.
“So it turns out Matteo Salvatore is my dad.”
I forgot all about my leak and gasped. “The head of the biggest crime family in New York is your father?”
“I pretty much reacted the same when I found out.”
“But didn’t he die?” I asked, remembering the news headlines about him.
Haz nodded. “Yeah, a few weeks ago. But I didn’t know he was my father until like yesterday.”
I snatched a strawberry off a platter and started munching as Haz explained.
“My mom, who I never knew, sent hima letter to tell him he had a son, and he came looking. He found me and ran this secret DNA test.”
I gasped, and Haz nodded.
“Once he was sure I was his son, he changed his will and left everything to me.”
Forget the leak. My eyes were going to fall right out of my head. They’d probably roll closer to Haz so they could hear the rest of the story. “You’re the heir of the Salvatore family?”
