Strays

by Garrett Leigh

  “Um, I guess?”

  “Anyway . . .” Nero gave in and reached for the rum bottle. “I started to go a bit mental. I saw him everywhere, even when he wasn’t there—in my sleep, in every shadow. Drove me round the fucking bend, until one day I woke up and something snapped, you know? I couldn’t take it anymore, and some weird compulsion took over, so I got up and went to his house.”

  Lenny swallowed and closed his eyes. “What did you do?”

  “I burned it down.”

  “You burned it down?”

  “Yup, and him with it. But I didn’t know it at the time. I thought he’d be at the bookies. I didn’t know he was inside. You’ve got to believe me, Lenny. I was a fucked-up kid, but I didn’t want to kill no one.”

  Lenny took a deep breath and opened his eyes. He waited for shock—revulsion—to wash over him, but none came. How could it, when he looked at Nero and saw nothing but a frightened, traumatised young boy who’d acted out of terror? “I believe you.”

  “Yeah, well. You’re probably the only one. I got done for manslaughter and sent down for twice as long as he did for everything he done to me.”

  “You went to prison?”

  “Young offenders, actually—Feltham, same one as Cass.”

  “Were you in at the same time?”

  “No. He found me when they kicked me out. I was sitting outside with a bag and nowhere to go when he pulled up and offered me a job.”

  “Couldn’t you go back to your grandparents?”

  “No. They both died while I was inside.” The cool distance in Nero’s tone wavered. “My granddad first, then my nana. She didn’t last long without him.”

  “I’m sorry, Nero.”

  “Me too. I missed their funerals, and I didn’t really grieve for them until Cass took me to an ink studio and told me to carve something into myself that brought me to life again.”

  “Ink?” Fuck. Massive it might’ve been, but Nero had only one tattoo. “So it’s not about you?”

  Nero snorted. “Course it ain’t. What that word . . . narcissist? Yeah, I ain’t one of them, am I?”

  Lenny should’ve known Nero wouldn’t have let an interpretation of himself be plastered over the walls of the Vauxhall project. There was still much to learn about him, but he wasn’t that man. Fuck no. “I’m sorry. I’d have asked first if I’d known what it meant.”

  “You did know what it meant, just not what it meant to me. And I like that. You don’t have to know it all to know what matters.”

  Lenny absorbed that, and let it flow into the part of his soul that would always belong to Nero. “So your granddad was a bit of a tiger?”

  “Not in the slightest—it was the other way around. My nana was the tiger. My granddad was a delicate man, an artist, really. He worked for a funeral director in Hackney, engraving gravestones. The butterfly reminded me of the ones he’d done for stillborn babies. He’d spend weeks on them, and it broke his heart—” Nero’s voice cracked. He reached for Lenny’s hand and squeezed it so hard Lenny thought his fingers would surely snap. “What I did to that cunt finished him off, I’m sure of it, and that’s what I’ll never forgive myself for. I don’t care that I killed Malcom, and that ain’t gonna change.”

  The raw emotion in Nero’s voice turned to defiance, but it was wasted on Lenny. How many times had he wished for his stalker’s death, despite only suffering a fraction of the hell Nero had endured? A man had died at Nero’s hand, and the notion that he’d deserved no better was easier to accept than Lenny could quite believe.

  And the relief came now too. Relief that he’d made some headway into truly knowing the man he loved so much. Relief that Nero’s tormentor could hurt him no longer—in person, at least, because there was no doubt that he haunted Nero’s dreams. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Nero shook his head sadly. “I know I’ve hurt you, because I’ve hurt people before, good people, who really cared about me.”

  “And you wanted to hurt me.”

  “What? No, I didn’t—”

  “Yes, you did. Bad relationships breed bad habits. They’re hard to break, even when you find that one soul who loves you more than anyone else ever will.”

  Nero’s gaze faltered. “Do you still love me?”

  “You’ll have to try harder than that to get rid of me.” Lenny spoke to himself as much as to Nero, like his head needed to hear what his heart already knew—that nothing and no one could come between them as long as they both cared enough to fight.

  But his thoughts were cut short by Nero’s kiss, hard and searching, and his strong hands lifting Lenny up like he weighed nothing.

  “I didn’t know I needed you until you found me, but I do need you, so much, Lenny. Come to bed with me . . . please?”

  Lenny’s back hit the mattress, driving the air from his lungs in a startled gasp. But shock had no time to register as Nero’s heated palms cupped his face, and his lips met Lenny’s in another of the bruising kisses that had carried them upstairs, tumbling them through the flat and onto the bed.

  Is this really happening?

  God yes, and there was no doubt about where it was going. They were going to fuck, and despite how many times Lenny had imagined it, it was clear Nero had his own ideas of how it was going to go down.

  Nero claimed Lenny’s mouth again and again, making short work of removing his clothes, then he shoved Lenny up the bed, splaying him, so he was prone, and inserted himself into the cradle of Lenny’s legs. He dropped a palm on either side of Lenny’s head. “I want you.”

  Lenny drank in the perfect contradiction of Nero’s shyly bold smirk. “Any way you want me, I’m yours.”

  “I know.”

  Those two little words meant everything. Lenny stretched his neck and pressed his forehead to Nero’s, gently rubbing nose to nose. “Then have me.”

  It was, apparently, all the encouragement Nero needed. His touch grew rougher, braver. His clothes followed Lenny’s, littering the floor, and when they were both naked, bare to the last of the balmy summer heat, it was like nothing bad had ever happened to either of them, because there was nothing else, only them, now, together, like this.

  Nero stared down at Lenny, his pupils blown with desire, his hand around Lenny’s cock, and his fingers, God, his fingers probing where Lenny wanted them most. Lenny groaned, arching his back, his breath sharp, rapid, and airless, as Nero’s fingers moved with precision, stroking and twisting, rubbing on the bundle of nerves that set him on fire.

  “Fuck, are you sure you’ve never done this before?”

  Nero grinned. “I do have my own body to play with, you know.”

  A bolt of pleasure ripped through Lenny. Damn. He’d never imagined Nero touching himself. “Oh God, I can’t handle you.”

  “Try.” Nero withdrew his fingers and walked on his knees up Lenny’s body, straddling Lenny’s chest. He tapped his cock on Lenny’s lips. “I dream about sucking you sometimes. I never thought I’d like it so much.”

  Lenny believed him. Nero on his knees in that damn fucking cubicle would stay with him forever.

  He opened his mouth, granting Nero entrance, and swallowed him until Nero’s dick scraped the back of his throat. The urge to gag was intense, but he fought it, and Nero’s pleasured half-moan made his eyes roll. He sucked harder, working his tongue along every ridge and vein, committing it all to memory, until Nero pulled away.

  Nero sat back on his heels, tugging Lenny up with him. “I’ve got johnnies, and I think Cass left a family-sized bottle of lube in the bathroom.”

  “He did,” Lenny panted out. “And it’s good stuff. Get it.”

  Nero scrambled off the bed and out of the room, returning in a flash with condoms and lube. He tossed them on the bed beside Lenny and reached for the condoms while Lenny went for the lube. “Ready?”

  Lenny nodded, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, his heart jumping with every inch Nero moved closer. He’d long ago lost any fear of bottoming,
instead coming to crave the heady-dark burn of being stretched and filled, but this was different—this was Nero—and Lenny could hardly breathe for wanting him. He was dizzy with arousal, half-mad with it. His body tightened, anticipating Nero’s sheathed cock breaching him, but at the pivotal moment, Nero’s rough hands gripped his hips and flipped him over.

  “On your knees.”

  Nero left enough space between them for Lenny to wriggle free, but fuck that. Lenny didn’t want space between them, he wanted—yearned—the sensation of Nero pressed against him. He reared back, seeking Nero’s chest. Nero found him and wrapped his arms tight around him, one at his waist, one at his throat, like Nero couldn’t get close enough to him without climbing inside his skin. “Is this what you want?”

  “Yes—shit, Nero. Do you want me to beg you to fuck me?”

  “You might have to beg me to stop.”

  It was a world away from the scene he’d planned—all those nights Lenny had lain awake, picturing the moment he’d lay Nero down and fuck him—but whatever had turned their dreams upside down made such perfect, illogical sense, that Lenny could barely stand it.

  He dropped his head and closed his eyes, steeling himself for the stab of discomfort that could only be seconds away. Nero handled him with strength and grace, but he’d never done this before, never eased his dick inside another man in the seamless slide that took practice to get right.

  “Oh!” Lenny’s fingers curled around the sheets as Nero’s dick eased home, but instead of stinging pain came the intense rush he’d dreamed about in that distant other world before Nero, the world where he’d had no idea what it meant to want someone so absolutely as he did Nero. As pleasure sent him soaring, he truly understood for the first time in his life that who put what where meant nothing. “Damn, Nero.”

  Nero’s arm tightened around Lenny’s throat, and he cupped Lenny’s face in his hand, jerking it back for a kiss that was no more than a breathless brush of lips. Then he rocked his hips, driving his cock in and out until coherent thought left Lenny. That first, long, piercing stroke had been mind-blowing, but this? Fuck, it was insane. “Harder, God . . . oh, harder.”

  “Yeah?” Nero gripped Lenny’s hips and fucked him deeper, faster, pushing him down until his chest hit the mattress and his face mushed into the duvet. “Oh God . . . I didn’t know it could feel this good. This ain’t gonna last long.”

  Any disappointment in Lenny’s brain was quickly overwhelmed by an imminent orgasm that would wait for no one. Fuck. Already? But the need to come was unbearable. Lenny bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and fumbled for his cock, praying he wouldn’t fall apart before Nero blew inside him. God, he needed him to come, needed to hear him, feel him. I need him to come for me.

  Nero’s rhythm faltered and his breaths grew ragged. He dug his blunt nails into Lenny’s hips. “Lenny—”

  Whatever he’d been about to say was cut off with a strangled moan. His dick swelled and pulsed inside Lenny, and Lenny’s vision turned white. The world stopped. Nero drove deep and came with a yell, and Lenny tumbled over the precipice he’d been teetering on ever since they’d first kissed all those weeks ago. He shuddered and cried out, cursing, trembling, and then screaming Nero’s name as he spilled on his hand and the sheets below him.

  He opened his eyes to find they had toppled to the side and landed in an ungainly heap of tangled, sweaty limbs. “Jesus.”

  Nero’s only response was a low hum. Lenny reached for him and found his chest. He laid his palm over Nero’s thudding heart and counted the beats, absently this time, without the worry of recent days, when the heat beneath Nero’s skin had made him so anxious. “You weren’t supposed to be so good at that.”

  “Eh?” Nero cracked open a lazy eye.

  Lenny shrugged. “I thought you wanted me to fuck you?”

  “I do, not because I didn’t know how to fuck you, though. I ain’t a one-trick pony, am I?”

  Clearly not, if the haze still clouding Lenny’s vision was anything to go by. “Why do you want to bottom, then? If it’s because you’re craving pain, you’ll be disappointed, ’cause I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want you to hurt me.” Nero’s gaze focused on something Lenny couldn’t see before he looked at Lenny. “You fucking me is just what I see when I close my eyes.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Tonight? Lenny, mate, I didn’t stop to think about it, what I wanted, what you wanted, even. It happened, and isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? I don’t want to spend the rest of my life organising who puts their dick where.”

  Put like that, Lenny could hardly argue, and the notion of spending the rest of his life with his dick anywhere near Nero warmed his chest. He took Nero’s hand. “Still, are you sure you’ve never done that before?”

  “I’ve never done it with a bloke.”

  “Oh.” Oh, indeed. Again, the thought of Nero with a woman was oddly thrilling, despite having no desire to be with one himself.

  Nero sat up and stroked Lenny’s sweat-dampened hair back from his face. “I keep forgetting to tell you how much I like this.”

  “The colour?”

  “Yeah. It suits you. Cass told me you had pink hair when he met you. I was jealous, ’cause I missed it.”

  “All this time you’ve had me worried I’m too flamboyant for you.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  Lenny shrugged and fingered the bangles he wore on his left arm, the silver glinting in tandem with the metallic paint splatters on his hands. “Because I’m a muppet.”

  “If you say so.” There was mirth in Nero’s voice. He grinned warm and wide, before swooping in for a kiss. “What time is it?”

  “Ugh, I have no idea.” Lenny forced himself to sit up and looked around for his jeans. They were hanging from the bedroom door, the skinny legs crumpled and bent at unnatural angles. “Does it even matter?”

  “Not really. Bed?”

  Lenny didn’t need asking twice. He scrambled under the covers, seeking Nero out the instant they were both safely under the duvet. Their lips met in a kiss that was warm and languid, gently stoking the embers of the inferno that had gone before. Lenny breathed Nero in, and then pulled back, searching him for any sign of distress or regret. “Are you okay?”

  Nero nodded. “I’m good, mate. Better than good. I feel kinda free. Is that weird?”

  “No weirder than I am.”

  Nero chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth. Did you finish your painting?”

  “Not yet. Might get it done tomorrow if you’re okay to get back in the kitchen.”

  “I was okay to be in the kitchen today.”

  “Liar.”

  Nero’s grumbling reply faded away. For a while Lenny thought him asleep until he sighed softly and opened his eyes. “Everything’s about to change.”

  “I know.” Disquiet threatened the tranquil calm that always came with being in Nero’s arms. “I’ve been in a bit of a bubble here, but it won’t be like that commuting to Vauxhall, will it?”

  “Depends what role you decide to take on, but it can’t be worse than schlepping into Covent Garden every day like I did when I was at Pink’s. Twatty businessmen everywhere. Dick bags.”

  Lenny laughed. Nero seemed to enjoy early mornings, but his ingrained dislike of the general population was something else. “You hate everyone.”

  “Do not. And it won’t matter anyway if we move to Vauxhall.”

  “‘We’?”

  Nero raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m going without you?”

  “Erm, no?”

  Nero’s scowl was terrifying and heart-warming all at once.

  Tears stung Lenny’s eyes. He blinked them away and tried to focus on the other source of his uncertainty. “Work-wise, I think I’d like to help Jake, if he’ll have me. I like waiting tables, but I kinda promised myself when I quit uni that I’d do something with my art.”

  “So why didn’t you?”
<
br />   “Couldn’t, I guess. I shut it down when . . . he was around. I wanted to be invisible, and it was like all facets of my self-expression stopped working. I had different-coloured hair every week before all that shit . . . makeup, bright clothes. My old workmates at the club used to call me a chameleon and sing Boy George at me every time I came into work.”

  “If you want serenading, you’ll have to ask Cass. I ain’t no singer.”

  “And you like the quiet too much. But that’s been good for me. I lived my life at a million miles an hour before I came here, and it blurred by so fast I missed it all.”

  Nero combed his fingers through Lenny’s hair again. “I get that, ’cause I feel the same in reverse, I s’pose. I’d forgotten how to see colour before you came along and trashed my living room. You even brightened up my food.”

  Lenny knew Nero well enough to know how much the last statement meant. “Does this mean you’ve come around to building sculptures out of pea shoots?”

  “Fuck no, but I can’t imagine a world without watching you do it.”

  It was as close to a compromise as Nero ever got when it came to cooking, and in a week or so it wouldn’t matter. Nero would be manning the pizza oven at TST and Lenny would be . . . well, who knew? Their days of bickering over the chargrill at Pippa’s were numbered, and though it had been the last thing Lenny had imagined himself doing when Cass had offered him the lifeline, lying in bed with Nero now, he couldn’t have been more thankful.

  Because being with Nero was all there was, and all there would ever be.

  The following week passed in a blur of dashing between the old kitchen and the new as Nero prepared to hand Pippa’s back to Jimbo and take his place at TST. And in the first week of September, Lenny said good-bye to working at Pippa’s too, and took on his new job as Jake’s assistant. Commuting from the flat, his new role exhausted and excited him in equal measure, and the renewed spark in his hypnotic eyes kept Nero’s head above water as the launch night for TST fast approached.