*** NEW AND IMPROVED ***
With her father missing, Shay will do anything to get him back, even if that means teaming up with a cruel gang leader and his band of psychotic men.
CHARACTER VIEWS DO NOT REPRESENT MY OWN.
***WARNING*** OFFENSIVE CON...
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SO COLD
The kitchen had been a quiet solitude away from the barks of conversations in a mix of languages too romantic to plan the murder of the mayor, away from the roars of laughter that had sent tension skittering up my spine to rest on my shoulders, away from the deepening frowns and shades of intelligent brown eyes flickering and noticing every fine layer of dust, every swallow of an Adam's apple, every stall in conversations that searched for an excuse for the loss of income. The rich stench of cigar smoke and the crackling fireplace with its' burnt-red cinders, flashes of orange and yellow on sooty coal had all faded into a hypnotic swirl that led to a thrum in my temple. The start of a headache.
The flashes of teeth threatening murder and the dismemberment of family members had set anxious jaws and nods of obedience. Bourbon glasses emptied and had been set on the table and calls had been made by gestures of fingers to refill, to get more ice, to do as he says, to do as he pleases.
The afternoon merged into a warm evening and evening into cool night dusk.
The door opened, an elongated square of bright hallway light falling into the room onto gleaming white tiles. Soft footsteps. "You good?" The sixth beer bottle in the carboard case was torn from its packaging by a brown hand. His brow furrowed slightly and he uncapped the beer bottle and it hissed, and he slid it towards me. "Drink."
"It tastes like piss and rotten eggs and socks worn for over a week in wet shoes," I slid the bottle across, back towards James. "No thanks."
"Why don't you come and join the rest?" he took a swig of beer.
"So I can hear Cebrián criticise Cole's approach to distributing product? Or curse the cops for their crackdown on the drug dealers? Or, and this is my favourite, hear him create fantasies about the murder of the mayor whilst he hides his hard-on?"
"That's long over. There's a game of cards on. C'mon. Stop being so antisocial. I'll teach you how to gamble."
"I'll pass."
He set the beer bottle down forcefully. "Fine. We'll have a drink together. Maybe I can get you to stop sulking over your phone and the missed calls you left Irvin and loosen up." He took two glasses that glinted as he washed them and moved to his drinks' cabinet and poured a hefty shot of vodka in one and a finger of whiskey that he kept neat. He uncapped a bottle of Coke from the fridge and filled the glass of vodka to the rim and then brought the two over to the island table and sat beside me on a leather stool. "No excuses. Drink."
"I'd rather have whiskey than vodka," I crossed a leg under me and angled towards him. "I'm triggered by vodka, and victim to flashbacks of the way I used to drink at the start of the year. That's how Cole and I started sleeping together actually. Well, it wasn't really sleeping at the beginning. More like fucking in the dark, miserable as shit. Why was he miserable? I never actually asked him now that I think about it. I had the whole being kicked out, abandoned by family, the daddy issues episode. We all know that. But him? Maybe he's told me. Or maybe it's just his existence that caused him to knock on the door at three am. Or some shit. What the hell do I know?"
