Pacifier

🌼Della🍒

I sat on my chair tucked in to Sam's little kitchen table one knee up, chin resting on it whilst I watched him spread jam across a piece of toast and bite into it.

I hadn't touched mine yet and I was watching him watch me, waiting for me to make a move.

"I thought you said you were really fuckin hungry love?" he smirked nodding to the plate where my toast sat going cold.

I smirked, shrugged my shoulders. Thought about picking it up, thought about taking a bite but something stopped me. Something like another question.

"How do you know me brother anyway? Why do they trust you?" i asked, it wasn't supposed to be my first question and it wasn't supposed to come off even half as blunt as it had done but Sam only bit back a smile swallowed his toast down and shrugged his shoulders again.

"Ive worked for em havent i," he shrugged, "for ages,"

"So you're not with the bottlemen then," I said feeling a little smart and a little nervous to question that. People didn't usually appreciate that kind of alliance being questioned.

"You work for the bottlemen as long as I have, doin the sorts of things I do for em, then you may as well be..."

"But you're not..." I chewed my cheek, eyeing him sort of suspiciously. It was suspicious to me the way he could smile, ever so light-hearted, ever so carefree even now, when he knew how much really depended on his answers.

"No," he shrugged, "am not..."

"But that's odd..." I said a little too quickly, my frown etched a little too deeply as he pushed himself away from the counter, stood opposite me at the little kitchen table and then pushed my plate a little closer to me.

"Eat Della," he said, offering me no smile then, his eyes suddenly twinkling with a seriousness as I looked up and held his gaze. I bit my lip, a little caught out. Surprised by how quickly he could change. One moment laughing, the next simmering like that. Holding my breath in the palm of his hands. And then he let it go, another smile splitting. "Don't bite your lip love bite your toast," he grinned teasing me as he sat down opposite and kicked his feet up on the counter across from us.

Sam's house was very small, the kitchen tiny, everything completely compact and crowded. It was too small for Sam really.

"You wanna know why I can't be a Bottleman?" he asked leaning back against the wall, eyes flickering over me and then up to the ceiling before he closed his eyes as if about to drift off to sleep.

"Why?" i asked through a mouthful of toast, embarrassed only for a moment, grinning along in the next because his own smile at the sound of my crunch was contagious.

"Cause it wouldn't make any sense sweetheart, it'd be fucken stupid actually like," he grinned leaning on his elbow, mocking me.

"Why?"

"It just wouldn't lass, I work alone I always have..."

"Just you?" i asked frowning, trying to work out what it was he actually did, how it was possible he could have anything to do with Van Mccann whilst swearing no allegiance to anyone. "Why does he trust you then?" i asked taking another bite, studying him from under my messy hair.

"Because I don't answer to anyone, at the moment lass there ain't nae cunt who can make me do anythin I don't want to do..." he shrugged taking a bite of his own toast. "A man with no aleigences at all is more trust worthy than a man who gives his life over to anothers control..."

He flashed me a small smile but there was a seriousness to his eyes as he spoke, and when he looked at me he wasn't looking at me as if he could see me. He was looking at me as if he was looking at a different girl, one that he'd known a long time ago. I wondered who that was, sucked my bottom lip between my teeth. Something about the look in his eyes had me slowing down.