Lucky: The Series, page 34
“If he’s worried about you, it probably isn’t because you’re grumpy, mate.”
“Uh-huh.” Cash lit his smoke and drew deeply on it, like an ex-smoker who’d never truly wanted to quit. “Dom’s interested in the land, by the way, in case you were wondering. I don’t know how it all works, but I told him about the hunt. He’s a tough bastard, man. Goon won’t get on his land if this all plays out.”
Knowing what little I did about Dom as a defensive football player, I could believe it, but right now, the land deal was about as far from my mind as it was ever going to get. I stuck my rollie in my mouth and took a chance on squeezing Cash’s tense arm. “Tell me why I upset you so much.”
“It’s not you.”
You self-absorbed brat. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. My conscience did the scolding for him. I squeezed harder and tried again. “Okay, tell me what it is…what sabbing does to you.”
A long silence stretched out. As the minutes ticked by, I began to fear that Cash would shut me out again. That I’d have to leave him here, like this, and go back to my soulless family home, and then back to a life—to my real family, in many ways—that had somehow come to feel empty when Cash wasn’t there.
Then Cash sighed again, and something in him seemed to give. “I was like you,” he said, voice so low I had to lean closer to hear him. “For a long time, everything I did was what you are doing now, but it was different in one way.”
“What was it?”
“I wasn’t alone. Everything I did, every cold, wet night I slept outside, I had someone with me…at my side, at my back. Wherever I needed them to be.”
I swallowed hard. The thought of Cash with someone else turned my stomach, but it had no right to. He was so fucking special. Of course there’d been others before me. And what even was I to him? The couple of nights we’d tumbled into his bed were outnumbered by the angst that seemed to haunt us. There was no contest. I was nothing. “You had a partner?”
He nodded. “Zander. He was my boyfriend…more than that, I suppose. We were together for three years, totally immersed in sabbing. We did everything together, the good and the bad.”
“So what changed?”
Cash flicked the end of his smoke into the fire pit with perfect, detached accuracy. “He was a rat.”
My heart punched my ribcage. “A rat? An informant?”
Cash shook his head. “Worse. He was a fucking copper.”
Cash
It was the first time I’d said it out loud without puking. Time really did heal all wounds. Or maybe it didn’t, because keeping my dinner down meant nothing while Rae was staring at me like I was an unpinned grenade.
Fuck this.
I started to stand, but movement at the bottom of the garden stilled me. Shula. And she wasn’t alone.
My fiery vixen visitor brought me to life in ways I couldn’t describe, but her mate’s presence in my dilapidated garden had always soothed me. He was a nervous boy, but solid and wise. And he only came on my worst days.
Beside me, Rae snatched a breath and nudged me in the ribs. I turned to him and pressed a finger to his lips. “Just watch.”
Rae’s hand closed around my elbow, then he stilled, and it seemed as though his heart beat in sync with mine as we watched Shula and her mate go about their business. Dom and I hadn’t got home till late, but Lucky had brought some sunshine to my day when he’d greeted us with the Google-researched fox picnic he’d prepared in my absence. Peanuts, leftover cooked potatoes, and the tiniest scraps of raw chicken. I usually let the foxes find their own meat to save me having it in my fridge, but I’d let Lucky have this one.
Shula ate like a queen while her mate nibbled and scurried to and from the bushes, stashing food for later. He was so resourceful he made me feel lazy watching him, and I was almost relieved when they’d had their fill and crept away.
When they were gone, Rae turned to me, his eyes so bright I forgot why he was here. “That was amazing. I haven’t seen a safe fox up close in years.”
Of course he hadn’t. Sab life had often meant the only time I saw wildlife was when it was being hunted. My memories of these wonderful creatures confined to photographs someone else had taken. I smiled and gestured for him to sit down again. “Shula and Po have been coming to the garden for a while now. I don’t feed them every day, but Shula comes pretty close sometimes when I’m not outside. One night she came right up to the patio door.”
“Shula…that means fire, right?”
“It does. How do you know that?”
“I grew up with a nanny obsessed with The Archers.”
“You had a nanny?”
Rae rolled his eyes and reached for the tobacco pouch. “I lived in Hampstead. Of course I did. What does the male’s name mean?”
“River.” I brought my mind back to the present, fighting a thousand questions about Rae’s childhood. “He’s a complex character, though. I thought he was nervous at first, but he’s logical, you know? A thinker.”
Rae lit up his smoke. “You reckon he’d get more to eat if he didn’t think so much?”
“Maybe, but perhaps that would just get them both killed.”
We weren’t talking about foxes anymore. Or maybe we were and I was the terminal overthinker.
I claimed the tobacco pouch and lost myself the ritual of rolling the smooth paper between my fingers, of burning my lungs with carcinogenic tar. I’d smoked more in the last few months than I had in years. Rae was bad for my health. It all was.
Rae touched my face, his thumb smoothing the skin beneath my eye, palm brushing the healed cut on my cheekbone. “How did you find out?”
Fuck. We were back to that. I closed my eyes to Rae’s touch. “In court. I got done for aggravated trespass, vandalism, grievous bodily harm, all kinds of crap they trumped up with his help. He testified against me…against the whole gang, and I had no idea until he stepped into the witness box.”
Rae made a noise low in his throat. “That’s insane.”
“Yeah.”
“Was he the only one?”
“Only what…mole? Fuck, I don’t know. We had close ties to an anti-fracking crew in the same town, Greenpeace and all that. I swear, if you’d been in court you’d have thought I was Pablo Escobar or some shit, not some bloke who’d rather sit in an icy river all day than let the toff cunts kill foxes.”
“And now you fix cars for rich people?”
I winced. “Don’t do me with irony…not today. I needed a job—criminal records don’t do well for jobs in environmental science—and I’ve been elbow deep in cars since I was a kid. It made sense, and when my uncle offered me a lifeline on this place, it seemed like fate—a reason, like I needed another one, to get out of sabbing for good.”
“What happened in court? I mean, apart from your life imploding. Were you convicted?”
“On some counts.” I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth. “They couldn’t swing the GBH, but they had me on camera squaring up to a red coat, so they did me for assault instead, as well as the trespassing bullshit.”
Rae nodded, his dark gaze thoughtful. “I have a few of those on my record, but I’m sorry about your boyfriend. It’s the worst betrayal, and I can’t imagine how it felt to find out like that. I’m assuming you never saw him again?”
I snorted. “Not for lack of trying on his part. He pretty much stalked me for a while—phone calls, emails, texts, all anonymous, of course, but I knew it was him. And I thought I loved that fucker…before I knew, but after I realised what a sneaky bastard he was. Like, he’d have a separate phone he said was for his mum to get hold of him without worrying he’d ditched the number, but it was always off. And he disappeared sometimes. Say he was running the citronella trails, but then I’d find out someone else had already done it. I didn’t think—” I stopped, breathless, and taken aback at how much had spewed out of my mouth when I’d kept it buried deep for so long. “Fuck.”
Rae leaned closer. “What?”
I opened my mouth. Shut it again. Gazed at him, but didn’t really see him. My eyes hurt, and my throat stung, but there was something else. Something about Rae I couldn’t quite decipher. I’d been talking and talking and talking, as though a dam had broken somewhere in my soul, and Rae had simply…listened. I had that privilege with Lucky—and Dom—if I’d ever chosen to use it, but Rae was different. He’d lived the life, was still living it. He got me like no one else ever could. “Away from all that, when it was just me and him, it felt like he’d…raped me, you know? Because he wasn’t real. It took me a while to get over that.”
“I’m sorry,” Rae whispered.
I blinked. “What for?”
“For trying to force you back in. If I’d known—”
“What? You’d have left me the fuck alone? Or sent me packing when I offered you the stingers? Piss off. I know you, Rae…as a sab, at least. You’ll give it all until you’ve got nothing left, just like I did, and collateral damage is part of the game.”
“Cash—”
“No.” I stood up. “We’re having this conversation, and I hate you for putting me here, but no foxes died that day. And that’s all we need, right?”
Chapter 17
Rae
Cash stepped around me and went into his house. I debated letting him go, but I was done with us leaving each other in the lurch when shit got real.
I followed him inside, ditched my coat and shoes, and took him by the hand. Leading him to the bedroom was a fucking cliché, and unhelpful at the moment, so I tugged him into the living room.
He had the kind of couch that looked like crap, but was the most comfortable thing in the world. Lucky’s cat appeared from nowhere, settled onto a cushion, and observed us owlishly as I gestured for Cash to sit.
I sat behind him and ran my hands over his back, warming his cold skin as much as I could, hoping he felt everything I did with each pass over his lean muscles. I didn’t speak, because there wasn’t much I could say. He was right. I had feelings for him I couldn’t describe, but we were connected to a higher cause, and I couldn’t, hand on heart, swear I wouldn’t have put him through that hunt, even if I’d known where his reluctance had come from.
Selfish prick? Maybe. But the old Cash would’ve done the same, and I knew this Cash understood.
Seeing him so hurt still cut deep, though, and I was angry too. The police had never been on our side—public-funded security for cold-blooded killers—but I’d never suspected they lay among us. Never considered one of us was sharing a bed with them. Loved them. Believed them to be someone they weren’t.
I dug my thumbs too hard into Cash’s shoulders.
He flinched.
“Sorry,” I muttered, and slid my hands down to his waist instead, and under his clothes.
His smooth skin grounded me a little, but still my mind whirred, until he turned to face me, his expression profoundly tired. “I’m sorry too, if it’s any consolation. I wish I’d explained myself from the start, but…I didn’t trust you, Rae. I couldn’t see it until now, but I saw him every time you looked at me and asked me to do the things I used to do. It scared me.”
It still does.
I knew it like I knew water was wet, and despite a bone-deep commitment to sab life, I couldn’t stand it. I wrapped my arms around Cash and pulled him close. A long hug turned into me coaxing him to lean against me. Eventually, his head found its way to my lap and he fell asleep while I rubbed his neck and gazed in wonder at Netflix on his big TV. I kept the volume barely audible and dozed in front of Sense8. The night faded to dawn, and there was frost on the ground when Lucky roused me the next morning.
Cash was still asleep. Lucky glanced down at him and set a mug of tea beside me. “I’m glad you’re here.”
And then he was gone. The front door opened and closed, and we were alone again…presumably, at least. I had no idea where Dom was.
I switched the TV to a news channel and made a half-hearted effort to catch up on current affairs, but my mind was elsewhere. Cash’s story had horrified me, and the hurt in his beautiful eyes would haunt me forever, but the flicker of trust he’d gifted me had solidified something I’d known from the very first night we’d spent together: I cared deeply about this man, and I couldn’t handle him being in pain. What that meant going forward, I had no idea, but it meant something.
It had to.
Cash woke with a jump around eight. His eyes widened as awareness hit him, then a flutter of conflicting emotions seemed to pass through him. And for once, I was fairly certain I could read him: he was pleased to see me, but the trip down memory lane he’d embarked upon last night still hurt like a bitch.
I pulled him close and kissed him before he could speak, no heat, just comfort and friendship. I’m here.
Cash melted against me, briefly and wonderfully liquid, then he pulled back with a sheepish shrug. “Sorry I passed out on you.”
“Don’t be.” I stretched my arms above my head. “It was definitely your turn.”
“Truth. What time is it?”
“Eight-ish. Lucky’s gone. I don’t know where Dom is.”
Cash cast me a questioning glance. “Why are you telling me where my housemates are? Do you think they’re the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning?”
“What do you think of when you wake up in the morning?”
Cash smirked a little. “Recently, that would have to be you.”
Warmth flushed my cheeks. “Sorry about that. There must be nicer ways to start your day.”
“Like thinking about Dom and Lucky fucking downstairs? You’re a funny dude.”
“I’ll take your word for that,” I replied, though I could think of worse things to imagine than Lucky and Dom fucking. There was something enchanting about the pair of them.
Cash nudged me. “I’m not taking the piss, mate. I think about you all the time. I’m in a weird place right now, but I’m glad I met you…even when I wish I hadn’t.”
There was a compliment in there somewhere, I was sure of it, but Cash was still sleepy enough to deserve a pass on interrogation. I let it go and rolled off the couch, tugging him upright once I was on my feet. “I have to be somewhere in a little while, but I could go for some breakfast somewhere if you have time?”
“I’m off today,” Cash said. “But I don’t feel like going out. I can cook?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I can.”
Cash’s kitchen was nothing like a campfire, but his big ring burners were similar enough to my tiny gas stove that I could bodge scrambled eggs.
He laughed at me. “Have you forgotten how to live in a house?”
“Must’ve done.”
“How often do you visit your parents?”
I poked at the eggs with a wooden spoon. “Often enough so they don’t come looking for me.”
“Are you close?”
Now there was a question. The easy answer was no, that we had nothing in common, and they weren’t interested enough to make any attempt to understand me, but that shit worked both ways. And as long as they were alive, I had a safe place to sleep anytime I wanted it. “Close enough.”
Cash eyed me over the rim of his coffee mug, and his next question was predictable. “Do they know what you do?”
I turned the heat off under the eggs and stuck four slices of toast in Cash’s swish toaster. “Yes. My parents don’t always understand me, but we don’t lie in our family. My dad is big on the truth being the path of the least pain.”
“Do you agree?”
I wasn’t sure how me fudging breakfast had led us here, but I gave the question the consideration it deserved. “Mostly. My mum was mortified when I got arrested on an old criminal damage charge outside my cousin’s wedding last year, but I think it would’ve been worse if it had happened down the road and she was the last to know.”
“What does she think?”
“That I’m a lunatic who needs to get a real job.”
“And your dad?”
A faint chuckle escaped me. “I don’t actually know. He’s not as vocal about his disapproval as my mother.”
“My mum was like that…vocal, I mean. Loud and Irish, if I pissed her off, the whole world knew.”
“She’s dead?”
Cash nodded. “For a long time now.”
“Were you close?”
“We’re Irish, man. Didn’t have much choice.”
I retrieved the toast, buttered it, and brought the food to the counter where Cash sat, still dressed in last night’s clothes. “What about your dad?”
Cash’s open expression faded, and he was suddenly fascinated by my clumsy arrangement of eggs and Hovis. “He’s a wasteman, as in loser, not a legit bin man. Haven’t seen him in years.”
“He doesn’t know you were a sab then?”
“Mate, he wouldn’t be able to tell you my eyes were fucking green.”
The thought of anyone living their life not absolutely bewitched by Cash’s hypnotic forest-green gaze was incomprehensible to me. I opened my mouth to say so, but his expression silenced me. I was pushing my luck.
We ate in silence for a little while, the weight of unspoken words heavy in the air. I searched the tangle of aborted sentences for one I could finish, but nothing came together. My time with Cash was precious, and finite. Did I want to sully it by dredging up the past?
“You said it wrong, you know, same as Dom did about you the other day.”
“Hmm?” I glanced up from pushing the last of my breakfast around my plate. “Said what wrong?”
“You asked if my dad knew I was a sab, past tense…just like Dom thought it was something you could do without involving me if we—”
“If we what?”
Cash shrugged. “If we stayed in each other’s lives.”
That was one way of putting it, but I hated that he’d chosen his words so carefully. My heart cried out for more from him. Something, anything, to help me decipher how he felt about me. And then shame hit me like a truck. This was the most open he’d ever been with me, and it still wasn’t enough. Could I be any more fucking selfish?
