Strays

by Garrett Leigh

  “No?” For a short moment, Nero’s dark gaze was hurt, but the emotion was gone too fast for Lenny to feel bad, replaced by the vague irritation that seemed to be his constant companion. “Fuck this.”

  “Wha—” Lenny’s feet left the floor as Nero lifted him by his collar. The half-finished restaurant blurred, and his back collided with the bare brick wall behind him. “Nero!”

  “What?” Nero demanded. “You think you can act like a fucking brat and I’ll put up with it because I like you so much?”

  The confirmation that Nero did actually like him was enough to stifle any retort Lenny may have made. “You like me?”

  Nero stared like Lenny had four heads. “What do you think?”

  “Thinking is all I’ve got. You’re not much of a talker, remember?”

  Being slapped with his own words seemed to briefly amuse Nero, then he let Lenny slide down the wall, and ducked his head, claiming a kiss that stole every ounce of breath from Lenny’s lungs.

  A firebolt of heat hit Lenny’s groin. He groaned as Nero pulled away, and pictured him naked, and then with the only person he knew Nero had slept with—Steph. Lenny had never been sexually attracted to women, but Steph was beautiful—all hips and curves. Throw Nero into the mix and—

  Wow. Combined with the fact that Nero wanted to bottom, it was a hell of a picture. Lenny swallowed. In all the excitement of leaving the flat, he’d forgotten the earth-shattering moment that had kept him awake most of the night: Nero wants to bottom. As thrilling as the idea of that was, Lenny just couldn’t see it. Nero Fierro was the man in charge, not the guy who bent over and begged for it.

  Nero tilted his head to one side, like he’d felt the party going on in Lenny’s jeans. “Not enough, eh? You’re still not going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what— Oh.” Lenny came back to earth with a bump. Nero had only kissed him to get his attention, not to ravish him against the brick wall Lenny was supposed to be bringing to life with the paint kit he’d abandoned in Camden. And he wants to know why you’re sulking, dickhead. “I don’t want you to leave Pippa’s.”

  There. He’d said it, and out loud it sounded even more pathetic than it had in his head.

  “Leave Pippa’s?” Nero frowned, apparently mystified. “You mean when this place opens?”

  “Well, duh,” Lenny said, before he remembered he was trying to curb the sassy brat Nero had no patience for. “And you’ll be leaving before that, won’t you? To set up the kitchen and train the team?”

  “I haven’t said I’ll do it yet.”

  The echo of Lenny’s own thoughts did nothing to calm the panic-laced strop building inside. “But you will. I think Cass set this up especially for you—to give you a place of your own. Why wouldn’t you take it?”

  Nero said nothing. For the first time since they’d met, Lenny could truly see the cogs turning in his usually inscrutable mind. “Cass wouldn’t set this up for me. He’s a good fella, but they like me roaming around the other kitchens too much. Saves them the trouble.”

  “Not true. We only don’t see them because they don’t need to come when you’re there. It’s you that won’t settle.”

  “That right? What makes you the expert?”

  Lenny shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to brood over you recently. And I hear things. Everyone knows how tight you and Cass are. If you don’t believe he’d set a business up just for you, you’re bloody dense. Admit it . . . you love all the Mediterranean food you’ve been doing for this project, don’t you?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  That Nero didn’t deny it gave Lenny a boldness that was, perhaps, foolish while he was caged in Nero’s strong arms. “Cass told me that every Urban Soul business was dedicated to someone, whether they knew it or not. Bites is for the old ladies who raised him. Misfits is Jake’s. I reckon this one is for you.”

  “You’re fucking mad.” Nero pulled back with a shrug. “And daft, ’cause, Lenny, mate, there ain’t nothing stopping you from coming to work here too.”

  Nero walked away then, leaving Lenny with a painful boner and little option but to suck it up and trail after him like a lost puppy. A stupid lost puppy, because why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? There was no reason for him to stay at Pippa’s without Nero, or indeed, at all. He was gone now, and he’d taken with him a cage that had been far less pleasant than Nero’s arms.

  Lenny caught up with Nero by the back door. “You want me to work in the pizza kitchen with you?”

  “If you like. You’re a good enough chef.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  Nero chuckled, warming the room with a humour that was far too rare. “I meant that it would be entirely up to you what you did here. I could use the help with the food styling when we pull the basic menu together, but that don’t mean you have to work in the kitchen. I hear things too, and word is you were the best server Misfits had. They were gonna offer you a step up before shit hit the fan.”

  That was one way of describing the clusterfuck Lenny’s life had become, and he couldn’t deny the buzz being out on the restaurant floor gave him. The kitchen had an adrenaline-laced energy all of its own, but he craved interaction, damn it, even if working at Nero’s side was an addiction he’d struggle to quit.

  “Do you think the big bosses would go for it?”

  “For you working here?” Nero nodded. “I’m pretty sure they’ll give you a job wherever you want, as long as there’s room, which there is here, ’cause as far as I know, ain’t no one works here yet ’cept me and Efe.”

  “So you have taken the job?”

  “Piss off. Here, stop your stirring and come look at the garden.” Nero opened the back door and shoved Lenny outside. “I’ll buy you dinner after if you can behave yourself long enough.”

  Lenny glanced around the bizarre hipster café. “I can’t believe you talked me into coming back here.”

  “Thought you said you hadn’t been here before?”

  “I meant Camden in general.”

  “Oh.” Nero poked suspiciously at the chocolate-marshmallow sundae he’d bought Lenny for his dinner. “I thought you were too hyped up from your sugar rush to care.”

  He had a point. Months ago, Lenny had watched the Cereal Killer Café set up with eager anticipation, but life had moved him on before it had opened, and he’d forgotten all about it until Nero had gently coerced him off the Tube in Camden. “This is lush. Sure you don’t want to try it?”

  “I’m good. There’s a tapas place round the corner. I’ll get something there.”

  “Works for me.”

  They left the cereal bar behind, bought Nero some spicy potatoes that seemed to cheer him up to no end, and drifted to a nearby park. They ate in companionable silence until Lenny noticed Nero’s scowl return. “What’s up? Still fretting about that bus?”

  Outside the warehouse, they’d made plans for Nero to work on the abandoned bus while Lenny painted the walls, but he hadn’t seemed hopeful that he could get it running without having it towed. “A bit,” Nero admitted. “It’s going to take a lot of money to make it into something that pays for itself.”

  “You don’t think the bosses will pay?”

  “I don’t know if I want them to. I kinda . . . I think I want to do it by myself, maybe.”

  “Okaaay.” Lenny scraped the last of his cereal-studded ice cream into his mouth. Urban Soul paid well above average wages, and Nero was about as senior as it got outside the holy trinity of men in charge. Add in the fact that rent on the flat above Pippa’s was minimal, and it wasn’t inconceivable that Nero had cash to throw at a derelict minibus. “So what’s stopping you?”

  Nero shrugged. “I’m crap at making decisions. I’d probably fuck it up.”

  The logic made no sense to Lenny. Nero never fucked anything up. He ran the kitchen with an iron fist, managed Lenny’s impromptu chef career, ran a million errands for Urban Soul every week, and— Ah. “You mean you’re shit
at making decisions for yourself . . . because you spend your whole life running around after everyone else.”

  “I like it that way. Keeps me out of bother.”

  “How much bother could you get into with that old bus? It doesn’t even start.”

  Nero shrugged again, and his nonanswer didn’t matter, because the bus was hardly the point. Beneath it all, Lenny was fairly sure Nero’s reluctance to take the project on alone stemmed from the fact that he didn’t believe he deserved the rewards it would bring.

  “I think you should do it,” Lenny said. “Say it does go tits up, how bad could it be? You’ve lived through worse, right?”

  “Lenny, mate, you won’t ever know what I’ve lived through.”

  The sun always seemed to shine brighter in Shepherd’s Bush than it had in Camden, and this morning was no exception. Warm rays filtered through the half-closed curtains as Lenny dragged his teeth along Nero’s collarbone, absorbing the answering low moan that turned his bones to molten heat. Mornings weren’t Lenny’s best time of day, but he’d woken with Nero’s dick in his hand and there was nothing bad about that.

  He worked his way to Nero’s chest, tracing the dark ink with his tongue. Nero shivered and arched into the touch, then rolled them over, baring his own teeth against Lenny’s neck.

  Lenny’s eyes fluttered, though Nero’s bite was gentle. He’d noticed that this morning—that Nero seemed more careful than he had the first time they’d done this a week ago, more aware of who he was with, whose lips he was bruising, whose body he was pressing so hard into the mattress. And he kept his eyes open too, like he didn’t want to miss a moment.

  Lenny fumbled with Nero’s shorts, shoving them down his hips, a gesture that, in recent days, had become Nero’s cue to flip them again. But this morning, it seemed, Nero had other ideas. He freed Lenny from his underwear, letting his dick spring back and slap his stomach. For a protracted moment, he gazed down at it, apparently fascinated, then he sat up, his leanly muscled legs straddling Lenny’s waist.

  “Jesus.” Lenny threw his head back and thrust up, his cock seeking out whatever Nero was prepared to give him. “Don’t do shit like that if you don’t mean it.”

  Nero chuckled darkly and met Lenny in the middle. Then he dropped his chest to Lenny’s and pressed their foreheads together. “What makes you think I don’t mean it?”

  Lenny groaned again. “You don’t seem the riding type.”

  “No? My thighs not strong enough?”

  As if. Even half-addled by the urge to drive his dick deep inside Nero, the tight, unyielding grip of Nero’s thighs around his waist was unmistakable. He’s gonna be the death of me. “Just . . . keep going.”

  Nero obliged, grinding down on him again and again, and it wasn’t long before they rang in another heady summer morning with the kind of release Lenny had often dreamed of when he’d had only his hand for company.

  “Fuck.” Lenny dropped back on the bed, chest heaving, and his belly a sticky mess of his and Nero’s come. “What the hell are we doing?”

  Nero lay down beside Lenny, wearing his sheen of sweat considerably better. “Literally? Or is this one of them trick questions you already got the answer to?”

  Lenny loved the way Nero’s caustic cockney accent wrapped around the wrong words, making his grammatical imperfection utterly perfect. “I don’t know what I mean.”

  “Fair enough. You hungry?”

  Lenny groaned. “Food? Really? Already?”

  “Morning, ain’t it? That’s breakfast time in these parts.”

  “I’m a Londoner too, you know.”

  “Yeah, but you’re posh.”

  “I am not posh.”

  “Posher than me.” Nero rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Though I s’pose you ain’t a toff like Tom.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, I’m trying to be nice.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re deflecting the question, but that’s fine. I’m not sure I want you to answer.”

  Nero shot Lenny a frown. Lenny turned his back on him and sat up. His heart burned for Nero, and though Nero’s every touch told him the feeling was reciprocated, he wasn’t in the mood for Nero’s reticence. Not today, when he had to do something he’d never done before: work a shift in the kitchen without him. Fears of hawkish eyes and creepy hands had faded since Lenny had identified him for the police on a photograph they’d brought to Pippa’s, but that didn’t make working the grill without Nero’s watchful guidance any less daunting—like one fear had replaced another.

  Great.

  “You won’t be on your own today,” Nero said. “Cass is in.”

  “That makes it worse,” Lenny snapped. “I don’t want to fuck up in front of him after all he’s done for me.”

  “So don’t. Get in there and do it the same as you always do.”

  “As you always do. I’m just the passenger.”

  Nero’s arms came around Lenny from behind, drawing his back to Nero’s chest. “Yeah? And how do you think I feel every time we go to bed? I ain’t got a clue what to do with you.”

  Lenny snorted. “It doesn’t show.”

  “So? Don’t mean I ain’t fucking terrified when you get your dick out.”

  The comparison was fairly ludicrous, but for some reason it made more sense than Lenny could say. He slid off the bed and dropped between Nero’s legs, taking his still half-hard cock in hand. “If that’s the case, I should probably teach you the way you taught me.”

  Nero swallowed. “How’s that?”

  “By making you watch.”

  A little later than planned, Lenny left Nero in bed—when has that ever happened?—and drifted downstairs with Nero’s gravelly moans lingering in his mind. Fuck, he’s hot when he comes. Well, all men were, really, but Nero was in another league—captivating, enthralling, and the fourteen hours Lenny had to spend without him now felt like a year.

  Lenny got changed and went to the kitchen. He pushed the door open and the haunting strains of Morrissey vocals reached his ears. The Smiths? What the fuck? Then he remembered Cass, the only man who’d dare breach Nero’s unwritten code of fevered silence in the kitchen.

  “Morning, kid.”

  Speak of the devil. Lenny turned to face him. “I’m not a kid, you know. I just dress like one.”

  “Nah, with that blond hair you look like that lad from the Milkybar advert. Anyway, come here. I haven’t seen you for ages.”

  Cass enveloped Lenny in the kind of hug that would’ve turned him to mush had he not had Nero’s embrace to compare it to. Lenny laid his cheek on Cass’s chest. It was firm and warm, but he felt nothing close to the inferno Nero’s arms often wrapped around him. “Your heart skips,” he said absently.

  “Yeah?” Cass released Lenny, still grinning. “Must be giddy with excitement.”

  “If you say so,” Lenny deadpanned, channelling Nero before he caught himself. “They’re called ectopic beats. Not stressed out, are you?”

  “Nope. Was pissed as a fart last night, though, if that makes any difference.”

  “That could do it.”

  “If you say so.” Cass cocked an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Anyway, that’s enough of that nerdy bollocks for one day. Nothing wrong with me that not getting arseholed won’t fix. You ready to roll?”

  As he’d ever be. Lenny trailed Cass to the main-line section and went to work setting up the kitchen according to Cass’s rules, which turned out to be vastly different from the regimented order Nero demanded. Gone were the neat lists, penned in Nero’s gorgeous handwriting, and in their place came the radio, lots of bad singing by the team of chefs who arrived throughout the morning, and a million cups of builder’s tea. And then, as Cass got ready to fire up the chargrill, a power cut stopped the whole kitchen in its tracks, plunging it into darkness before the dim emergency lights came on.

  Cass fruitlessly jiggled the ignition switch on the grill. “Fuck’s sake, the gas too? How does that even ha
ppen?”

  Lenny had no idea. He guzzled the last of his most recent mug of tea and carried on slicing cod into neat fillets Nero would’ve been proud of.

  Cass disappeared, presumably to investigate. Lenny took advantage of his absence to allow his mind to drift back to his early morning encounter with Nero. Blowing him had been incredible, but he couldn’t help wondering how it would feel to slide his own dick into Nero’s mouth. Nero seemed more at peace with touching Lenny than his comments about stage fright implied, but as hard—ha—as Lenny tried, he still couldn’t picture Nero as a submissive lover. Would he let Lenny fuck his mouth?

  “Ah, Nero said you were a dreamer.”

  Lenny jumped a mile and, for the second time that morning, spun around to find Cass grinning at him like a friendly snake. “Am not.”

  The retort was out before he remembered Cass was his boss, not the man who’d trained him, cared for him, and ultimately shared his bed with him, but Cass’s grin merely widened, and Lenny realised that he lacked the irritable edge Nero wore like a second skin.

  Lenny finished chopping the tomatoes for the fish stew Cass was planning to make with the cod. “Did you fix the power?”

  “Nope. Got the generator going, but we’re fucked for gas.”

  As he spoke, the lights came back on and the extractor fans whirred to life. Lenny glanced around the kitchen, trying to remember which appliances required gas. “So what do we do with no grill or burners?”

  “Fry shit. Bake shit. Make salads. At a push I can dig the portable hob out of the cellar, but it’ll only do one of us.” Cass banged on the counter and called the chefs close. His plan was simple. “Old-school fish and chips with the cod. Debs, take your peas and whizz ’em up for mushies. Jolen, roast up that chicken and make a Caesar salad. I’ll do some steak tartare shit with that filet. Still need a veggie option. Lenny?”

  Lenny blinked. “Huh?”

  Grinning, Cass ruffled Lenny’s hair. “Can you fudge a veggie main for me? And fast? We haven’t got long to put this together.”

  “Erm . . . okay?”

  “Good. Get to work and find me when you’ve got it sorted. Sooner the better, so we can get the menus printed.”