Page 97 of Beni

“What day, Cory?”

“The day where a Guzzi twin would be hung up over a chick.”

Beni’s jaw tensed, flexing with his annoyance. “First, her name is August.”

Cory nodded. “I know.”

“Then use her name.”

“I get a better kick out of watching you get pissy when I don’t, you know.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“And yet, we still meet up for breakfast every other day.”

Speaking of which …

Beni reached for the coffee he had sat down on the booth’s table, picking it up for a drink. It helped to rid some of the mildew stench lingering in his lungs. He had less than zero interest in digging into his breakfast sandwich, however.

“Regretting that at the moment,” he admitted, “because who the fuck eats in this kind of mess? Pigs wouldn’t even want to play in this shit.”

Maybe that was a bit too far.

Not by much, though.

Cory peered around the rundown place.

What had it once been, anyway?

A bar?

Restaurant?

Both?

Who knew?

“I kind of like it,” Cory said, waving an ink-covered hand to gesture at the mess around them, “it’s got potential. And now I just need to convince my brother that we can turn it into something, and go from there.”

Ah, now it made sense.

Cory, and his older brother, seemed to take pride in turning rundown, old buildings that were better being torn down into something amazing. They had a whole portfolio of different businesses—favoring bars and eateries, but dabbling in other shit, too—between them that they worked on together as partners. People always said not to go into business with your family, but it seemed to work for those two brothers.

“How much convincing do you have to do for a place that looks better suited to be burned down?”

Cory shrugged. “Act out.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you know … Joe thinks he has to look after me, or I’ll find myself in some kind of shit. So, when I want him to do something like this with me, and he’s hesitant, I just do something outlandish—cause some shenanigans— and he’ll do whatever so I’ll fall back in line. See, easy.”

Beni dead stared his friend. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“Or am I smart?”

No, definitely the other bit.

He didn’t say it, however.