The woman put her hand over the receiver and reached behind a computer monitor. She passed Nero a scrap of paper and a tangled coil of leather, and then gestured to a set of double doors. Through there, she mouthed.
And then she went back to her phone call.
Nausea roiled in Nero’s gut as he tried to make sense of the artisan jewellery he’d never seen before—a necklace and a bracelet—but they weren’t Lenny’s, were they? At first glance, he was certain not, but as he peered closer and turned the pendant over and over, his heart said different. He stared at the brushed silver tiger, so tightly entwined with a butterfly-themed sugar skull. Goddammit, it was Lenny and Nero, forged together, like they had been ever since Nero had found Lenny squatting on his couch. “Where did you get these?”
The woman glanced up impatiently. “They’ve got your name on. Says here that you should have them.”
“Says where?”
But the woman merely pointed again to the double doors and buzzed him in.
Nero shoved his way through the doors the moment there was room enough, his brain echoing with the last time he’d heard those ominous four words: “You should have these, Nero. Your granddad always wanted to give them to you. We just never found the right time.”
Rosa Fierro slid two cameo rings across the plastic prison table. “They aren’t worth much, but perhaps you can use them to start a new life when you get out of this place.”
If only. The rings had been stolen from his cell a few days later, and Feltham YOI hadn’t been—still wasn’t by all accounts—the kind of place where anyone gave a shit. Even Nero hadn’t cared much. What good would a couple of rings have been when the only man he’d ever looked up to was gone, taking his wife with him just a few months later? And all that remained now was the reason they had been given to him in the first place—because Tito was dead.
Oh god.
He’s dead.
Lenny’s dead.
Nero moved blindly into the emergency department. He gave Lenny’s name at another reception desk and, like magic, more doors opened, but he felt no relief, only panic-laced grief—grief that he deserved. After all, losing Lenny was no more than Nero deserved. He’d taken a man’s life with no remorse. What right did he have to expect his own to remain so vibrant?
His heart had never hurt so much, even when they’d told him Tito had died. His hand flew to his chest, like he could push the pain back, like he could plug the widening cracks before they fissured, and broke him apart. Lenny, please. I love you.
“Nero?” Tom’s voice was distant, like Nero was underwater, and his hand on Nero’s arm was surreal.
Nero pulled away from the unfamiliar touch. “Don’t.”
Tom ignored him and grabbed his other arm. “Nero. Come on. You need to come with me.”
He’s not dead. Nero stood in the small waiting room, cramped with coppers, hospital staff, and Tom, talking in the soft, respectful tones that washed over Nero as he missed every word . . . all but three: he’s not dead.
The relief that washed over Nero was dizzying, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel like a dick for jumping to such dramatic conclusions. Besides, if his belated take on what had landed Lenny in hospital was anything to go by, his fears hadn’t been that far-fetched.
“Do you know when he’ll be discharged?” Tom asked the doctor standing close to Nero.
“In the morning, I’d imagine. We need to stitch his leg and observe that bump to his head. I’m not anticipating any problems, though. He’s in good shape, considering.”
“Considering what?”
Tom and the doctor swivelled their eyes to Nero, staring at him like he’d grown horns. Perhaps he had. Tom thanked the doctor and took Nero’s arm, guiding him out of the room he’d steered him into just minutes before when he’d found him wandering the corridor, lost in a haze of grief that had turned out to be wonderfully misplaced. “I forget how feral you and Cass get around authority. Come on. Let’s get you a cuppa.”
“I don’t want tea. I want Lenny.”
“I know, but the police are with him at the moment, and then he needs to rest. Just come and sit for a few minutes, and let me explain what’s happened. That way you can save Lenny the trouble, eh?”
The logic broke through the addled haze in Nero’s mind. He reclaimed his arm and followed Tom to a vending machine at the end of the corridor. “Start at the beginning, ’cause it don’t make no fucking sense to me.”
“I don’t know the beginning, Nero. I just know that Gareth Harvey was given bail when he shouldn’t have been, and allowed to go missing, which left him able to come after Lenny, and the other people he’d formed obsessions with. Lenny fought him off, but the police won’t tell me what happened to the others, which leads me to believe they weren’t so lucky.”
The haze returned, darker this time. Nero dropped into a nearby chair and steeled himself for the specifics he’d somehow managed not to hear the first time—the details that had passed him by after he’d realised Lenny was alive and in no danger of being otherwise. “This happened in Hampstead?”
“Yes. Lenny left Jake around eleven, presumably on his way to wherever you were—he didn’t tell Jake where he was going—but he was attacked outside the Tube station. There was a struggle, and he hit his head, but he fought long enough for security to come to his aid. He was unconscious for a while, which is why they called me—I was listed as his emergency contact when I intervened on Lenny’s behalf a few months back.”
Shivers of rage rippled down Nero’s spine. “I want to stamp on that bloke’s head.”
“Understandable, but you won’t get the chance. He’s been arrested, and I was given the impression he probably won’t be released for a very long time.”
“They said that last time.”
“Actually, they didn’t, but they also failed to inform Lenny when Gareth Harvey was granted bail, so they aren’t entirely blameless.”
Nero couldn’t speak, though he was furiously certain that there was something Tom wasn’t saying. Tom sighed and laid his hand on Nero’s shoulder.
“Listen, I know you’re angry with the police, and they made a mistake that ultimately they’ll have to pay for. For you, and Lenny, the important thing is that he’s going to be okay. Let someone else sort out the rest of it.”
“Someone like who? You?”
“If it’s necessary, yes. It’s my job to take care of you all, including you, as much as you don’t want me to.”
Nero leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. A mottled blemish on the shiny hospital floor sucked his gaze in like a vortex. “Why are you nice to me when I do nothing but fuck you off?”
“Because who you are doesn’t change who I am, and it doesn’t stop me liking you, even when you do your best to make yourself thoroughly unlikable. Now, drink this tea and get yourself together. I expected Lenny to go into shock, not you.”
Dick, but Nero didn’t mean it. He drank the weird vending-machine tea and listened as Tom explained the finer details of Lenny’s injuries, and how he’d sustained them—a blow to the head, and a gash in his leg that needed extensive stitching, a broken finger from punching his assailant hard enough to fracture his own bones. He’s the tiger, not me.
The thought made Nero smile and remember the leather and silver jewellery stuffed in his pocket. He retrieved it and held it out to Tom. “How did the receptionist get this?”
“I gave it to her,” Tom said. “The paramedics found it in Lenny’s pocket, and I thought it might reassure you when you arrived.”
Nero didn’t have the heart to tell him how epically his good intentions had been wasted on Nero’s morbid imagination. He stood, drawn to Lenny, just as a nurse approached and waved him forward.
“The police are gone,” she said. “You can sit with Lenny now.”
Nero’s imagination was clearly having a field day. He followed the nurse to a bed and peered around the curtains, half expecting to find Lenny stricken and w
ired up to a million machines. The reality was almost benign. Were it not for the slight graze on Lenny’s cheek, and the bandages on his hand and leg, he could’ve been asleep at home, in Nero’s bed—in their bed. Head flung to the side, hair flopping in his face, how many times had Nero seen Lenny like this?
Not enough.
Nero took Lenny’s uninjured hand. Lenny’s eyes opened, unfocused and devoid of emotion, until he saw Nero and gifted him with a watery smile.
“Hey.”
Nero leaned over the bed. “Hey, yourself. How are you feeling?”
“All the better for seeing your pretty face.”
“Very funny. Wanna humour me a moment?”
Lenny poked his tongue out. “I’m fine, if you must know. Hungover and stoned on codeine, but other than that, I’m fine. Can we go home now?”
“Nope.” Nero helped Lenny sit up. “Tom says we have to wait for the doctor to clear that bump to your head.”
“Since when do you listen to Tom?”
“Since I realised him doing his big-boss-manager-thang was the only reason I knew that something had happened to you. Without him, you could’ve been killed and I’d have been the last to know.”
Lenny’s playful belligerence faded. “Is that why you look like you’re about to shit a brick?”
That was one way of putting it. Nero had barely held it together since the moment Cass had banged on his door, and now Lenny was right in front of him, apparently well enough to take the piss out of him . . . Fuck. Nero’s relief made his legs feel like they belonged to someone else.
He sat down abruptly, still clutching Lenny’s hand. “Don’t laugh at me. Being civilised about this shit is sending me fucking insane.”
Lenny said nothing, just slid silently from the bed and into Nero’s lap. He wrapped his arms around Nero’s neck and pressed his face to his chest. Nero buried his face in Lenny’s shoulder. His T-shirt smelled of Cass. Nero pulled back, frowning, until he focused on the faded Judas Priest logo that was actually more likely to be Jake’s. “That’s not yours.”
“I know. I was in such a hurry to come home this morning that I stole Jake’s clothes.”
“Fucking Hampstead.” Nero’s hands curled into fists.
Lenny flinched and reclaimed the hand Nero had wrenched from his. “Am I missing something?”
The irrational rage darkening Nero’s vision evaporated as abruptly as it had arrived. He knocked his forehead against Lenny’s shoulder and then raised his head. “No, just remind me to twat Cass for buying that stupid bloody flat, will you?”
Lenny left eyebrow twitched, like it always did when Nero’s best efforts at communication fell short.
“They used to rent the place,” Nero said. “For Tom, when Cass lived at Pippa’s and they treated the house like some kind of mecca instead of their home. They were supposed to get rid of it, but they ended up buying it instead, ’cause they can never leave shit alone—”
“Whoa.” Lenny cut Nero off. “Come on. Please don’t be angry, Nero . . . not with them, or me, and not with yourself, okay? There’s nothing you could’ve done. He would’ve got to me eventually.”
Nero would never get over how startling it was to love someone who read his thoughts so absolutely, but Lenny was wrong about one thing. “I’m not angry.”
“Liar.”
Nero shook his head. “I feel guilty, not angry . . . guilty that I wasn’t with you, that I couldn’t protect you, but I’m not angry—at least, not how I used to be. Years gone by, I wouldn’t be at your bedside right now. I’d be out on the street, tearing up anyone who crossed my path until I found the bastard who hurt you, like the rage in me mattered more than anything else.”
“How you feel does matter.”
“I know, but I don’t have it in me to be so angry anymore.”
Lenny dragged his thumb over Nero’s cheekbone. “You’re different, even since I last saw you.”
“I’m different because you saw me, Lenny.”
This time, Lenny’s silence was loaded with the understanding and empathy that had saved Nero’s soul more than Lenny would ever know, and his gentle sigh felt like a dying summer breeze. “You know, I’ve been lying here trying to figure out if today actually happened? It blew up so fast, it doesn’t seem real.”
“I thought you were dead. Turns out I’m a bit of a drama queen.”
“Not really.” Lenny shook his head. “He said he was going to kill me, he was shouting it—screaming—all this weird shit about chosen ones. He had a knife, an old one, like an antique. I thought he was going to stab me, so I punched him in the face.”
“And broke your finger.” Nero brushed his palm gently over Lenny’s taped-up fingers. “We’re going to have to work on that.”
“Punching?”
“Me and Cass are quite good at it. No broken fingers between us.”
“When was the last time you punched someone?”
“Can’t remember. Cass punches people.” Nero pointed to the map of faded scars on his knuckles. “I punch walls.”
“Fair enough. Can we leave now?”
“How about we wait for that doctor?”
Lenny scowled. “How about we fuck the doctor off and get going? We’ve got a restaurant to open tonight, remember?”
TST’s imminent grand opening had slipped Nero’s mind. “They’ll manage without us.”
“How? If Tom and Cass are both here? Jake can’t do it on his own.”
Nero retrieved his phone from his pocket to text Cass. A message was already there, informing him that Cass and Tom had left the hospital, were headed to Vauxhall, and to call them anytime. “See? They’ve got this.”
Lenny’s frown deepened. “It’s not about them.”
Isn’t it?
It took Nero a moment to compute Lenny’s cryptic mutiny, but when the lightbulb came, it was blinding. The Stray Tiger, was it him, or Lenny? Or were they one and the same, pouring their hearts and souls into each other? And was that the point? That separately they were drifters, but together they’d made a home?
Nero had no idea. He pulled the tangle of leather and silver from his pocket and dropped it into Lenny’s damaged hand.
Lenny’s eyes briefly widened, and then he smiled ruefully. “Where on earth did you get those? I’ve been carrying them around for weeks, waiting for the right moment to give them to you.”
“They ain’t both for me.” Nero gently fastened the bracelet around Lenny’s wrist, and then hung the necklace around his own neck. “I love you, Lenny, now let’s get out of here and open a motherfucking restaurant.”
Six Months Later
Hampstead tube station still felt strange. Often, Lenny found himself standing across the road from it, staring through the crowds of commuters, and trying to picture the day he’d punched a man hard enough to break his own bones. Punched him. Ended him, and the nightmare he’d lived in for so long.
Not that he’d been living the nightmare when it happened, because by then he’d been in that blissful, wonderful haze of complacency where he’d honestly believed the danger was over, that he—Gareth Harvey—was safely locked up. Oh, how wrong he’d been. In the month that followed the attack on Lenny, details had emerged of the injuries he’d inflicted on his other victims, horrors Lenny still saw when his mind drifted if something—or someone—didn’t distract him.
It was Jake today. He fizzed like a firework and jostled Lenny’s arm. “Come on—wankers—stop staring. People will think you’ve caught my crazy.”
“You’re not crazy,” Lenny retorted.
“Nah, I just look it, eh?” Jake tilted his head to one side and pulled a face.
Lenny resisted the impulse to shove him, like he might’ve done Nero, and instead took Jake’s arm, and casually guided him across the road, though his attempts at subtlety were pointless. Jake always knew when he was being handled. Lenny released him. “Are you going home now?”
“Home? Hmm? Oh, home home? Yeah. I’m
meeting Cass at Euston.” Jake fished his Oyster card from his back pocket. “What about you?”
“I’m going to drag Nero from the kitchen and go to bed, unless you need me for anything else?”
“Nah, go home, mate. And thanks for today. I know I keep calling you a bell job, but what I actually mean is that you make my life a million times easier.”
Lenny beamed, though he’d learned long ago that Jake’s vocal tics, however brutal, weren’t personal, and affected Jake more than anyone else. “It’s no worries. I like being your PA. It keeps me out of trouble.”
“Does it balls, but at least it’s the good kind of trouble, if that shit-eating grin I keep seeing on Nero is anything to go by.”
Lenny couldn’t argue with that. He saw Jake onto the right train and then made his way home to Vauxhall, to the newly renovated flat he and Nero had moved into just a few weeks ago. The door was at the back of the building, but Lenny couldn’t resist taking the alternative route through TST, absorbing the dying bustle of the bakery as it shut up shop for the night, and then the renewed buzz as the business moved seamlessly to the vibrant pizza restaurant.
Nero was easy to spot, dressed in the black chef jacket Lenny had bought him for his birthday, circling the pizza oven like a wolf protecting its young. Lenny took a moment to gaze at him before Nero sensed his presence and turned around. Working for Urban Soul, Lenny had seen many chefs come and go, but none were as glorious to watch at work as Nero. The instinctive way he moved around the kitchen was a special kind of alchemy, and some days Lenny truly missed the heady summer days they’d spent holed up in Pippa’s kitchen. Some days, because he could live without the smell of cooking clinging to his skin.
“Are you hungry, or just eyeing me up?” Nero said without looking around. “’Cause if it’s the first, I’ve got just the thing.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” Nero slid a pizza out of the oven and beckoned Lenny forward. “Spelt and spinach, your favourite.”
And it was. The wheat-free pizza base TST had fast become famous for was to die for, and paired with spinach, manchego, and Spanish manzanillo olives, it was the closest thing to heaven Lenny had ever eaten outside of a tub of ice cream. Lenny tore off a piece and stuffed it in his mouth. “It’s almost like you knew I was coming.”
Strays Page 20
