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She didn’t say anything but wandered back down the hall to the bedroom.
“What is she doing here?” Ronnie hissed, his eyes darting in her direction. “I thought she was staying at Laura’s while we were at hers.” His eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. “She told us she was going to Laura’s.”
“Are you two?—”
“No,” I snapped at Beau. “We’re not. I just have more room. She’d be sleeping on the sofa at Laura’s.” I had no idea whether she would be, but it sounded plausible. “She was doing us a favour, so I thought I’d do her one.”
“Yeah,” Beau said with a scoff. “He tried that once and she ate him up and spat him out. Besides, Destiny has got more taste.”
Elliot backhanded him in the stomach. “Oi, what did we agree to do?” he asked.
Beau pouted. “Not be a dick to him because he’s lost his dad.”
“Exactly.”
“You did not agree to be nice to me just because Aldo died, did you?” I scrubbed my hands down my face. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“Because Aldo died,” Ronnie replied, sounding like he might burst into tears.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Let’s get that cuppa.”
I pushed past them to the kitchen and went straight for the tea bags. In times of need and worry, tea was their go to drink. We were so fucking rock n roll it was unbelievable.
Once I’d got mugs from the cupboard and the milk from the fridge, I turned to see them all staring at me each with an expression of concern.
“Well, aren’t you like the fucking three wise monkeys,” I quipped. “Which one of you is which?” I pointed at Elliot. “My guess is you’re not ‘speak no evil’, considering all those chats you enjoy so much.”
Beau snorted, earning him a nudge in the ribs from Ronnie.
“So, what happened?” Elliot asked, ignoring my quip, and pulling out a stool settling himself on it. “We didn’t even know that you were in contact with him.”
I let out a breath. “I wasn’t. His wife called my mum to tell her that he was dying.”
“And what then?” Beau asked, all humour having disappeared from his expression. “Destiny said you went to see him. Why the fuck did you go alone?”
She clearly hadn’t told them that she’d gone with me, so I wasn’t about to let it slip. “I just needed some time to get my head around it. I was there and back in a day.”
I explained everything that had happened in Lucca, except for Destiny being with me, of course.
“And he died last night?” Elliot asked.
“Yeah.” I rubbed my chest as it pinched again. “Cosima called me earlier.”
“What was he like?” Ronnie asked.
Of course,he’dwant to know. He’d been the one who’d been there almost from the beginning. The one who I’d treated like a brother because I practically lived at his house. The one who’d comforted me when I cried the night before the Father’s Day assembly at school. He’d put his arm around me, told me a joke and then offered to build some Lego with me. All that even though he was missing his own dad—and his mum.
“We looked a lot alike. Same eyes, same nose, same dimple.”
Ronnie frowned. “Did he say he was sorry? Did he say why he fucked off when you needed him the most?”
Beau put a hand on Ronnie’s arm. “It’s okay, mate. Don’t get stressed. It’s not good for the baby.”
Elliot and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes, and when Ronnie nodded and whispered, ‘okay’, we both snorted, biting back a laugh.
“Listen,” I said, deciding that maybe Destiny had done me a favour by telling them. “I’m going to be fine. The funeral is in a couple of days and before you say anything, I don’t know if I’m going to go.”
“Why not?” Elliot asked. “Because if you do want to go but don’t want to go alone we can come.” He looked at the other two in turn. “You’d be up for it, wouldn’t you?”
