Mickey shivered again. He’d pressed Benito for brutal honesty, but he wasn’t ready to hear it. Or to picture Benito with a blade, ready to hurt someone as badly as they’d hurt him. “Where’s your dad?” he asked, abruptly switching subjects. “His name was on your mum’s tenancy for a while. Roberto De Luca, right?”
Benito’s gaze turned to stone. He leaned back in his chair and threaded his arms across his chest. “He’s not my dad.”
Mickey frowned. “Who is he then?”
“Gianna’s dad. He shacked up with my mum when I was eight.”
“And you hate him?”
“What makes you say that?”
“Your face.”
“You don’t know my face.”
I want to. Mickey took a sip of cold coffee. Regretted it but clung to the mug anyway to keep his shaky hands occupied. “I didn’t know you and Gianna had different fathers.”
“You’re not going to ask what happened to mine?”
No. Because he’s dead. Mickey could tell by the deep sadness glassing Benito’s soulful eyes. And he regretted bringing it up more than anything he had in a long while.
Benito blinked hard and scrubbed a hand down his face. All of a sudden, he seemed more exhausted than Mickey. “Roberto’s a nasty prick. He used to come around my mum’s place to see Gianna, but he hasn’t for a long time now. And he only sends money to stop the social taking it out of his wages. What’s it called when they do that?”
“Attachment of earnings.”
“Yeah. That. He does just enough to stop that happening, then fucks off again until next time.”
“Nice guy.”
Benito looked like he wanted to throw up. His usually warm skin turned an ashen shade of grey, and he reached in his pocket for his phone.
One of them, at least.
Silence reigned as he tapped the screen. Mickey absorbed his abrupt need for mental space but couldn’t stop staring.
Benito sighed. “Stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Dissecting my soul.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You know what it means.”
Mickey didn’t. But the sense that he was missing something about Benito and Robert De Luca was so strong it overpowered even his scratchiest cravings. “What did he do to you?”
“Who?”
“Gianna’s dad.”
“What makes you think he did anything?”
“You just answered me with the same deflective question you did when I asked if you hated him. If it was nothing, you’d say so.”
“Would I?”
“I don’t know.”
They’d hit a stalemate. Benito’s gaze flickered to the exit. Mickey’s breath caught in his throat, but Benito didn’t leave. He let out another heavy sigh and slumped forward, dumping his forearms on the table. “I do hate him. And, trust me, the feeling’s entirely mutual. He despised me from the moment he kicked me out of my mum’s bed to sleep on a towel in the spare room.”
“A towel?”
Benito shrugged like it was nothing. “It was temporary, but he wanted me out of my mum’s bed so he could knock her up and get his feet under the table.”
“How long did that take him?”
“Five years and three miscarriages.”
Mickey winced. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s history, man. That cunt is scared of me now, and I like it that way. Stops him hanging around too long.”
“Did he hurt you worse than kicking you out of your bed?”
“It wasn’t my bed, and I was too old to be sleeping with my mum anyway.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know it’s not.”
Mickey did some belated maths. If Gianna was twelve, that meant Benito was around twenty-five—the same age as Mickey. Did that mean anything?
Probably not. But the affinity between them seemed to grow with every second of heavy silence. They were different men from different streets, but perhaps Benito was right—something about them was the same. They fit.
“Would it make you feel better if I told you he kicked the shit out of me?”
Mickey blinked at Benito. “Better about what?”
Benito leaned further across the table. The warmth of his body radiated in the narrowed space between them, and Mickey felt it everywhere. His skin tingled and his nerves buzzed, aching to touch Benito, even if it was just to brush the backs of his fingers to his sharp cheekbone.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Mickey said. “It’s none of my business.”
More silence. Benito picked up a sugar packet and twirled it in his long fingers. Mickey’s heart thumped louder than it had when they’d fucked. He was as sure of it as he was about anything right now.
With Benito so close, logical thought was impossible. Under the table, his leg sought out Benito of its own accord, melding their calves together. Mickey froze, waiting for Benito to pull back.
He didn’t. Just closed his eyes for a brief moment in time that seemed to last forever and a day.
His gaze was unreadable when he opened them again. “He used to wait up for me.”
“Roberto?”
“Yeah. I was a little shit and I stayed out till all hours, but most nights I’d come home and he’d still be up, fucking seething, you know? Like whatever bullshit had gone wrong in his day was my fault.”
“How old were you?”
“Eleven, maybe? I can’t remember. I started staying out all night to avoid him, and my mum liked it that way because she didn’t want the hassle of us fighting.”
“She knew you fought?”
“Yeah, but she figured we were as bad as each other.”
“You were a child.”
“I was tall. With a fucking mouth on me. Maybe I deserved it.”
Rage like no other flared in Mickey’s blood. He wanted to tell Benito that no matter how hard he’d run his mouth, no kid deserved seven bells of shit kicked out of them by an adult who was supposed to keep them safe. But he didn’t. He said nothing. Because whatever wisdom he wanted to spout to make himself feel better, Benito didn’t need it. “He still sees Gianna?”
Benito nodded. “He’s never laid a finger on her, though.”
“That’s something, I suppose.”
“I wish he was dead,” Benito retorted flatly.
Me too. The conversation dried up. Benito folded his arms and hid his face in them. He didn’t seem particularly upset, but what did Mickey know? This was the fourth time they’d met. Benito could’ve been falling to bits inside and he’d have no idea.
Don’t touch him.
The internal warning came too late. Mickey rubbed Benito’s shoulder, then let his hand slide to his neck. He drew his thumb over smooth skin, forward and back, resisting the urge to tangle his fingers into Benito’s soft, dark hair. “I wish things were different,” he said. “I wish life was better for you, and for me, so we could fit together, but I can’t be around you if you’re still living the life I think you are, and . . . fuck, I’ve got nothing for you anyway. I’m a shit human.”