Strays

by Garrett Leigh

  Nero had figured as much. Why else would Cass hoof it all the way down to Greenwich for a conversation he could’ve had over the phone? “Is it something that will piss me off more than babysitting a sourdough starter?”

  “Probably. You might like it eventually, though. At least, I hope you will.”

  “Right. Pass me them onions.” Nero retrieved his favourite knife while Cass emptied a bag of onions into his prep box. “Dunno what could be worse than a hipster bakery, unless you’re about to suggest I teach school kids how to make sausages again.”

  Cass laughed. “To be fair, Tom didn’t know how cabbage that was when he suggested it. You can’t blame him for not knowing you’d never pass a CRB check.”

  Nero grunted and brought his cleaver down on his board with a brutal thwack. That particular incident was the only time he’d been thankful for his epic criminal record. Grubby hands and snotty noses? Fuck that. “Go on, then. Spit it out.”

  “I need you to take someone at Pippa’s for me—one of the servers from Misfits.”

  “Take him?”

  “Get him in there to work.”

  Nero tossed more meat in his pan. “I don’t run Pippa’s. Why don’t you ask Steph? Sure she’s got room for him on the bar.”

  “Actually, I was thinking he could go in the kitchen with you, if you agree to hold the place for a few weeks. Jimbo’s got his holiday coming up, so I could use you there anyway.”

  Nero had been half expecting to spend the coming months at Pippa’s, since Jimbo, the incumbent head chef, spent every summer surfing in Hawaii. “I can do that. What kind of background has this kid got? Has he done posh gastropub shit before?”

  “He’s never been in a kitchen.”

  Nero set his cleaver down. “Okay, you have my attention.”

  “I don’t need your undivided attention, mate. Just asking you to do me a solid.”

  “By having some front-of-house knobber in the kitchen with me? Why would you ask me to do that?”

  Cass said nothing, which said everything. Nero reclaimed his cleaver and finished hacking up the pork shoulder. “He’s not going to be much good to anyone at Pippa’s. Why can’t Rascal’s take him?”

  “Is that where you’d go if you wanted to keep your head down?”

  So this kid was in trouble? Great. But Cass had a point. Rascal’s was Urban Soul’s rowdy street-food canteen in South Bank—the last place anyone would go for a quiet life. “I suppose he could wash up.”

  “Or you could train him to commis for you. You said you needed a PA?”

  “I was taking the piss,” Nero said sourly. “Not asking for numpty to look after.”

  “So you’ll do it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “You’ve always got choices, Nero. You know that.”

  And there it was, the reason Nero could never refuse Cass: because without the opportunity that Urban Soul—that Cass—had given him, his choices would’ve been limited to the arsehole of nothing. “I’m not back at Pippa’s till Friday. He could start after the weekend?”

  Silence. Again. Nero eyed Cass, taking in the face and form of the friend he knew so well, but would never truly understand. “Fuck’s sake, mate. What is it, eh? You want him in sooner? Fine. Say so. You know I’ll do whatever you need.”

  “That’s not why I’m asking you. I’m asking you to take him in because I think Pippa’s is the safest place for him right now. Living and working there, he can stay indoors the whole time if he wants to.”

  Take him in . . . living and working . . . “You want him to live at the flat with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s complicated, and I’m still trying to figure it out myself.” Cass mussed his already messy hair, worrying it, tugging, in a way that left Nero torn between wanting to stop him and joining in. “All I know at the moment is that he’s in trouble and I want to help.”

  Why? But Nero didn’t ask this time. Didn’t need to when the memory of Cass scooping him from the kerb outside Feltham YOI had yet to fade, even after all these years. “Another stray, eh?”

  “One more can’t hurt.”

  Nero let the idea percolate as he tumbled garlic onto the counter. “Shepherd’s Bush isn’t a world away from Camden. If he’s in trouble there, it’ll follow him.”

  “Would you leave London?”

  “You did.”

  “I moved a twenty-minute train ride north to be with someone who loved me. It’s not like that for Lenny. He’s got no one, as far as I can tell.”

  Lenny. Nero turned the name over in his mind and tried to match it with the team he’d last worked with at Misfits, but came up blank. The fiery open kitchen at Misfits was his nemesis, and he kept his eyes down when he was there. Saved apologies later when he’d ripped someone’s head off. “Babysitting at Pippa’s, Vauxhall. Got it. Anywhere else you want me?”

  “I want you everywhere, mate. You know that.” Cass winked and slid off the counter, his smirk lightening the pensive air he’d arrived with. “But if you wouldn’t mind settling for two for a while, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Pay rise in the post, is it?”

  Cass shrugged. “If you want one. Tom said you told him to shove your promotion where the sun don’t shine.”

  “I told him to stick his posh-twat titles up his arse. Never said I didn’t want the dosh.”

  “You’ll need to explain that to him when you see him then, ’cause he’s kinda getting the feeling you still don’t like him after all these years.”

  Nero scowled. How many times did he have to explain that he liked Cass’s partner—lover—whatever—well enough, he just didn’t . . . get him? Nah. Fuck that. Jake, Cass’s second boyfriend and third link in the trio that ran Urban Soul, was waaay cooler than Tom. Nero loved him like a brother, even if Jake did call him a pirate cunt when his Tourette’s was bad. “When do I get my lodger?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ll call you?”

  “Yeah? You’ve been saying that shit for months, but my phone don’t ring.”

  “Don’t be a tart, mate. You could always call me.”

  True enough, but Nero rarely called anyone. “Guess I’ll just sit by the phone, then, eh?”

  “Got nothing better to do, I reckon, but Nero?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Keep Lenny close, if you can. Don’t let him be scared.”

  Sunday night, Nero came home to find a skinny hood rat asleep on his couch. Brilliant. He shut the front door, and the kid jumped awake like a startled hare and slid off the couch in a heap of long, slender limbs.

  “Easy, mate.” Nero tossed his keys into the bowl and hung his coat on the hook. “You’ll have to get used to me coming and going if you’re gonna sleep there.”

  And sleep there, on the couch, he’d have to, ’cause as much as Nero loved Cass, he wasn’t giving up his bed for anyone.

  Lenny, Nero assumed, got slowly to his feet and then sat back on the couch. “Are you Nero?”

  “Yup. Lenny?”

  “Yeah.”

  Nero nodded and went to the kitchen, leaving Lenny to it. He had a sourdough starter to feed, goddamn it. He was adding flour to the bubbly mass when Lenny appeared in the kitchen doorway, platinum hair, as light as Nero’s was dark, sticking up in every direction.

  “How long have you lived here?”

  Nero screwed the cap back onto the starter jar. “In Shepherd’s Bush? Or this flat?”

  “Um, both, I guess?”

  Great. Lenny the Lodger was a nosy fucker. “I’ve lived here, in the flat, a couple of years. Since Cass stopped using it. Might as well, with Jimbo kipping with his bit of stuff down the road.”

  “Cass said you were his best friend.”

  “Did he now?” Nero opened the fridge. “You hungry?”

  “Now? It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

  “So? When do you think chefs eat if they’re cooking every other arsehole’s dinner?”r />
  Lenny shrank back into the doorway, retracing the tentative steps he’d taken into the kitchen. “Oh, um . . . sorry. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I’ll get out of your way.”

  He disappeared. Bemused, Nero returned to his fridge rummaging, turning up eggs, potatoes, and a tired onion. A second raid revealed some manchego cheese. He fried up the spuds with the onions and added smoked paprika, then swirled in the eggs, leaving them to cook on a low heat while he chopped up the manchego. After sprinkling the cheese on top and flashing the omelette under the grill, dinner was done; a simple supper that was definitely enough for two.

  Fuck’s sake. Nero didn’t have much of a conscience, but letting even a stranger go hungry was something he just couldn’t do. He dished up and carried two plates to the living room, half expecting to find Lenny had gone back to sleep. But the kid was huddled on the couch, a coat bunched around his drawn-up knees.

  Nero set the plates on the coffee table. “Ain’t you got a duvet?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Left it at my old place. Didn’t want to go back there.”

  Ah. That was right. The kid was in trouble. Still, Nero was surprised Cass hadn’t kitted him out before leaving him to Nero’s mercy. “So you’ve left all your things behind?”

  “Didn’t have much, to be honest. The flat came furnished, and Cass took my books back to his house.” Lenny shifted on the couch, making himself impossibly smaller. “He offered me some sheets and stuff, but I said no. He’s done enough for me already.”

  “Yeah? Cass is like that. Grumpy twat, but he’s a fucking old woman deep down—a nutty one, like his nana.”

  Lenny said nothing. His eyes drifted to the plates on the coffee table before he seemed to remember himself and his gaze returned to the floor. Nero regarded him, taking in his wild, bleached-blond hair and perfect eyebrows. His wide brown eyes and the freckles dusted across his nose. He had a perfect mouth too, curved with a full bottom lip—

  Jesus, stop eye-fucking him. You’ve sworn off the boys, remember?

  Nero swallowed. Truth be told, he’d never been on the boys, unless a few drunken fumbles with Cass years ago counted. There’d been no others he’d wanted enough to hook up with since. How could there be when up until this moment, Cass had been the most beautiful man he’d ever seen?

  Whoa. It had been a long time since he’d dwelled on his attraction to Cass, but it didn’t take a genius to figure it had been a hero complex. Cass had saved him and given him a life, a career, a purpose, and in return, Nero had fallen a little in love with him. You sad fuck. But Nero was over that now. Had been for yonks. Didn’t even wank about it—

  “Are you okay?”

  “Hmm?” Nero returned to the present to find Lenny staring at him, his wide eyes wary. “Er, yeah. I made dinner. Eat up. I’ll get you some bed stuff.”

  He stood abruptly and went to the airing cupboard, pulling out the spare duvet, a blanket, and a couple of pillows. At the back, he found a set of covers that looked like they belonged in a hotel, clearly left over from the days Tom—Cass’s first fella—used to stay over.

  Nero returned to the living room. Lenny was poking suspiciously at his slice of omelette. “Does this have meat in it?”

  “Why?” Nero sat down. “You veggie?”

  “Yes. I’m gluten intolerant too, unless it’s biscuits. I can eat those.”

  “Fussy, are ya?”

  Lenny snorted. “Nah, mate. Just misunderstood.”

  Nero absorbed Lenny’s brief sass and matched it with his bleached hair, double pierced ears, and the scuffed Doc Martens tucked down by the side of the couch. “There ain’t no meat in your supper, no gluten either, so unless you’re one of them vegan loonies, you’re good to go.”

  “Vegans aren’t loonies. They’re saving the world.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Nero set the pile of bedding on the arm of the couch. “You can have my bed any night I’m not here, but this should do you for now.”

  “I don’t know how long I’m staying.”

  “Makes two of us. Eat up.”

  Nero grabbed his plate and sat in the armchair. He dug into his supper, making short work of it until he realised Lenny was frowning at his left hand. Took him long enough. Nero did his best to ignore it, but Lenny’s attention made the stump of his missing finger throb, like it always did when someone noticed it for the first time, until the new person in his life trained themselves to studiously not look at it, at least until they got drunk and shouted their questions in Nero’s face.

  Suppressing a sigh, Nero put his plate on the table and toyed with the idea of stomping off to bed before Lenny reached the second stage of his morbid fascination, but something kept him in his seat as Lenny visibly forced himself to look away. And without Lenny’s distracting gaze on him, memories, unbidden as always, came to Nero. Noises. Scents. Sensations he couldn’t quite decipher. The phantom pain in his missing finger became excruciating as blackness filled his mind, clouding his vision. The cosy flat disappeared, and he was back in that cellar, dank and dark. He could even smell the cable binding his wrists, the rotting vegetables, and the smoke from his tormentor’s pipe—tobacco smoke that fast became that of a burning bedsit in Bethnal Green, flashing blue lights, and more shackles on his wrists—

  “That was really nice. Thank you.”

  Nero blinked. “What?”

  “Supper. Anyone would think you were a chef.”

  The barest hint of a smile danced on Lenny’s lips. Nero reached deep and forced a tight grin of his own, though given the way the light faded from Lenny’s gaze it was apparently far from convincing. “Cass says you need a job. Asked me to train you in the kitchen downstairs. You up for that?”

  Lenny shrugged. “Haven’t got much choice. Got student loans coming out of my arse.”

  It was a tale Nero had heard before from the parade of students who floated through Urban Soul’s various businesses every summer. “Where did you go to uni?”

  “UCL, but I dropped out last year.”

  “What were you studying?”

  “Medicine.”

  “Seriously?” Nero raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look like a doctor.”

  “I’m not. I quit, remember? Didn’t even make the first semester. And now I’m here.”

  It was on the tip of Nero’s tongue to ask how the two things were connected, but he swallowed the question. Whatever had led Lenny to be sitting on his couch was none of his business. “Guess I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  He stood and took the supper plates to the kitchen, leaving them in the sink to deal with in the morning. It was his intention to head straight to bed, but something drew him back to the living room. He stopped in the doorway as Lenny curled up on the couch, his pale hair shimmering on the dark cushions, and was glad Lenny had buried his face in the back of the sofa. He’d expected to be indifferent to his new flatmate—or at least irritated as fuck by whatever bad habits he was bound to have—but he was oddly intrigued and wondered if Cass had been too. Then again, Cass had a nose for waifs and strays, and for trouble.

  Nero’s missing finger throbbed harder, and he was suddenly profoundly tired, like Lenny’s woes had bled out of him and merged with Nero’s dormant ghosts, sapping the life from both of them. Fuck this. He called time on his brooding and went to bed.

  Nero woke Lenny at dawn, shaking him far more gently than he ever had anyone else who’d had the misfortune to kip on his couch. “Up with yer. Come on. Got deliveries to put away.”

  “Wha—?” Lenny sat up, his hair a riot. “What time is it?”

  “Time to work.” Nero stomped to the kitchen and retrieved his cigarettes. He usually held out until after breakfast to light up, but something told him he’d be waiting awhile for Lenny to get going.

  He stepped out onto the fire escape, blowing smoke into the clear morning sky. Below him the city was already awake and buzzing—buses, sirens, tradesmen shouting. In
the distance, the fish supplier was idling at a red light. There went Nero’s precious few moments of peace.

  He stubbed out his half-finished fag. His head told him to go back inside, trudge downstairs, and sign for the three kilos of hake he’d ordered the day before, but he didn’t move. For the first time ever he was in no hurry to get to the kitchen, his mind lingering on the blond stray on his couch. “Keep Lenny close, if you can. Don’t let him be scared.” What the fuck did that mean?

  With a sigh, Nero went back inside. Lenny was in the bathroom, taming his wild hair, dressed only in a pair of jeans tight enough to make Nero’s eyes water. He forced himself not to stare and pulled his phone from his pocket, firing a text to Cass. Still waiting on your call . . .

  He watched the screen a moment, then remembered Cass wasn’t downstairs making coffee and grilling bangers for breakfast, and was likely asleep. Lucky him. Nero pocketed his phone and knocked on the open bathroom door. “Get a shift on. You got whites?”

  “Whites?”

  “Chef whites.”

  “Oh.” Lenny turned, revealing a skull tattoo on his chest and a pierced nipple. “I’ve got some old T-shirts?”

  “What?”

  “T-shirts,” Lenny repeated. “I’ve got trackies too?”

  Nero’s mind slowed to a crawl as he stared at Lenny. He had a chest tattoo of his own, an intricate tiger and butterfly design that spanned his sternum, but Lenny’s was far smaller and bolder, like a stamp of darkness over his heart, contrasted by his milk-pale skin.

  Lenny stepped closer. “I can wear my Docs, though, right? I’m not putting my feet in any manky old boots like Deano’s.”

  “Deano?”

  “Kitchen manager at Misfits? Sorry, I thought you knew everyone. Cass told me you’re the KM for the whole company.”

  Nero leaned on the doorframe, absorbing the faint heat from Lenny’s body even though he was halfway sure he was imagining it. “Sounds like the kind of crap Tom would say.”

  “Does it? I’ve never met Tom.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “I heard he’s pretty cool.”

  Cool wasn’t a word Nero often associated with Tom Fearnes, though he couldn’t deny the man possessed a poise and presence Nero had often envied. And he shares Cass’s bed.