Silas Page 11

  He’s been sent here to scare me. What a joke.

  Then my brain backs up a little.

  At the Mansion?

  Who the fuck does Diego think he is? Leonardo de fucking Caprio?

  I punch the bag but stop myself from showing just how fucked off I am because if Arlo knows this much, he might have some more useful info and I don’t want him to think his mission is accomplished. Just yet.

  “Anyone know who I’m fighting?” I ask casually.

  “Shit. You don’t know?”

  “Nope,” I answer, realising from his tone that he has no clue either.

  “Damn. That’s why I came here. I hoped you’d tell us. See, Diego won’t let us mere mortals make-book on this. Won’t tell us shit. But the guys and I thought we could do our own little pool, ya know. Only we don’t know who you’re up against.”

  I look at him and shrug.

  “I haven’t got the faintest, mate, sorry. Some upstart from London, far as I know.”

  I return to throwing punches at my friend, the sandbag.

  “Aren’t you curious? They say they’ve put him up at the Bensons’ in the meantime and that he’s a fucking beast.”

  I nod, still throwing punches.

  “Who are they?”

  “The guys.”

  “So let me get this right, nobody knows who the fucker is I’m supposed to be fighting but still you all know where he’s sleeping and that he’s massive?”

  I raise my eyebrows at him pointedly then return to my routine and don’t look at him again.

  Finally, he leaves.

  Looks like tomorrow Diego and I need to have a chat.

  Grace

  After spending a week and a half constantly in Silas’ company, I feel totally bereft without him within forty minutes of being alone.

  Pathetic, really, but fact.

  But since he’s started talking more, it’s become apparent that he’s not just eye candy with a mildly dangerous vibe. He’s bright as hell and funny as fuck. His observations of people, places and the world in general are hilariously acute and his delivery friggin’ genius. You just gotta catch ‘em when they come out.

  He has me in stitches at least once a day, and it feels good to laugh. Really good.

  I hadn’t realized how little I’ve laughed since Mum’s been gone. I wonder what she would have made of him. She used to hate me swearing, although her favorite comedians were always the filthiest mouthed. Thinking about us watching late night comedy together gives me one of those little paper cuts to the heart that always happen when I think about her. It’ll sting all day, especially when I least expect it.

  I give myself a kick up the ass and decide to go have a shower then search up the shows playing at the Theatre Royal for the rest of this month, in the vain hope I can get any tickets for anything. This whole festival thing has thrown that plan sideways as well. There are a few things on my list that are just not gonna happen. Staying at the Palais, watching something at the Theatre Royal from the front row. I was stupid, really. I didn’t organize anything other than the ill-fated hotel room before I came. I had this idea I could just waltz in and do. Stupid but lucky, I think, as my eyes fall on the drawing opposite the bed. Very, very lucky.

  That man.

  I will miss him like crazy.

  I finally swing my legs out of bed, root around on the floor for my panties and tee and slip both on. I heard Kalina come in a little while ago, so I’m not gonna cross the landing in my birthday suit. Just as I’m about to grab my towel from the radiator by the desk, there is a tentative knock on the door, and I can hear Kalina call my name.

  “Come in,” I say, and Kalina opens the door, sticking her head around the frame as if to check if the coast is clear.

  “You alone?” she asks.

  “Yep. Come in.”

  She steps half in and stops, one foot in the room.

  “You got time?”

  I nod.

  “What’s up?” I reply and indicate the desk chair for her to sit on, while I go back to the foot end of the unmade bed and sit my ass down opposite.

  She swivels the chair around to face the room and folds herself onto it, cross-legged. She looks around a little before she answers my question with a shrug, and I realize she’s never been in here.

  “I’m bored,” she says in that totally factual Polish way of hers. “I don’t see you.”

  I feel a pang of guilt. First, I made a friend, and then I dropped her like a hot potato as soon as Silas was free to play with all day.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m a shitty friend.”

  “Pah,” she utters, which I believe is Polish for ‘ain’t no biggie’. Then she smiles, nice and easy, and makes a ‘forget it’ gesture. “So what are you doing now?”

  “Right now?”

  She nods.

  “I was going to have a shower.”

  I omit my plan to search for theater tickets. It can wait. Especially seeing that Kalina’s face lights up.

  “Can I do your hair after?”

  I smile.

  “Of course, you can.”

  Silas

  When I get back from training, laughter from the kitchen greets me, the best sound in the world. I make a detour to see what’s happening before I get under the shower. Grace is sitting at the table and Kalina is standing behind her, braiding Grace’s hair, though ‘braiding’ is the understatement of the century. It’s a fucking work of art what she is doing to my girl.

  My girl.

  My brain stutters at the thought.

  Eventually, I’ll need to rein this shit in. She’s not my girl. We’re having some fucked-up fun until she goes back to America. We half talked about it. Half. I didn’t tell her how difficult the sex stuff is for me or why, but she seems to get it and she heard me when I said I find it difficult to let go with people, so let’s just fool around a bit. She has no idea how far out of my comfort zone she’s already pushed me, or how eternally grateful I’ll be to her for what she’s doing, and I’d like to keep it that way. Maybe it’s just what I needed. A fling where none of it really matters, to heal my wounds. But I don’t want her to remember me as a fucking rescue mission. So, yeah, I need to rein this my girl shit in. As I think it, she looks at me with the biggest, happiest smile on her face and the fact she looks at me like that makes me warm all over. Fuck.

  “I’ll be in the shower,” I choke out and turn away, but Grace calls me back.

  “Silas?”

  “Yes, milady?”

  I pivot back, comedy style, to look back at them and it doesn’t fail to make them giggle a bit more.

  “Kalina and I were thinking, could we maybe do something together. The three of us? Tomorrow?”

  I freeze for a second as they both look at me expectantly and am about to say no, ‘cause I got a meeting to go to, even if Diego doesn’t know it yet. But then a plan presents itself, fully formed, in my head. It’ll be fucking perfect, actually. I smile at them.

  “Absolutely. Either of you ever been to the dogs?”

  “What?” they ask in unison.

  “Greyhound racing,” I explain, and both of them shake their heads.

  “Good. In that case we go to the track. But we’ll do it in style. I’ll book a table in the restaurant. You two can get dolled up.” I say, grinning. “I’ll even wear a suit.”

  Grace

  I watch his back as he walks away to go up and shower and regret that I can’t just hop in with him. Not that I’d mind having a second go under the water, but I couldn’t destroy Kalina’s creation already. She is putting the finishing touches of hair glitter on, and then I’m allowed to go have a look in the mirror.

  The only one available is an old full-length stand up one with a baroque style gilded frame around it, which is part of the treasure Kalina hoards in her room. So we go up and squeeze ourselves into her Aladdin’s cave.

  When I see my reflection, I am once again amazed by what this girl can do. I
look like I should be playing Titania in Midsummer Night’s Dream or something. There are intricate braids piled in loops on top of my head, mixed with loose hair strands and decorated with leaves made of fabric, pearls and glitter. I look stunning even though I’m still just wearing a tee and my yoga pants.

  “Wow,” I say. “That’s amazing.”

  I look at her reflection next to me and at her short hair.

  “How did you learn to do this?” I ask.

  She smiles.

  “All my life I have hair to here.”

  She indicates her teeny-tiny butt.

  I didn’t expect that. She carries herself like she’s always been a short-hair girl. I’m impressed. I don’t know a lot of girls who’d chop off long tresses like that. For a moment, I wonder if she did it for charity, a cancer wig or something, and it makes me swallow. Then I just ask.

  “What made you cut it off?”

  A gloomy expression washes over her face, something between regret and defiance, but then she grins.

  “Emancipation.”

  Whoa.

  “Did it work?”

  She shrugs and I’m left with the distinct feeling she doesn’t want to talk about it, and that’s okay by me. So I change the subject.

  “Will you do it again? Tomorrow? For dinner?”

  Her face lights up and she claps her hands.

  “I love to. What we wear?”

  I shrug and she looks at me with a reproachful scowl.

  “Silas is wearing suit, so we wear dresses, right?”

  “Right,” I agree and sigh.

  I don’t know her that well but one look around and I know where this little Andy Warhol of second-hand shopping is going with this.

  “We better go shopping tomorrow then,” she decides and claps her hands excitedly.

  Silas

  I don’t see much of Grace the next day because she and Kalina have gone out shopping for dresses. They are both seriously excited about the prospect of a posh meal out, so I’ve tried my best to make it clear to them that the restaurant at the dogs is not exactly the Ritz. It’s the dogs.

  Kalina nods at that and I have a funny feeling this girl knows exactly the kind of venue I’m talking about. She even asks to see my suit before they set out, gives it a good old glance over, compliments me on the dark blue fabric and then drags Grace into town.

  I spend the day feeling pretty much lost without her and get restless when they’re still not back before I go to the gym.

  So I go early and cut the routine short.

  By the time I get back, Grace and Kalina have barricaded themselves in Kalina’s room. When I knock on the door, they tell me to go away. I feel a bit like a groom who’s not allowed to see his bride.

  The thought makes my heart trip and my conscience rear up. I feel bad about using them, but it’s the perfect opportunity to glean information from Diego without being obvious. Much better than marching into TripleX and demanding an explanation.

  The thing about Diego is, he is a total creature of habit, so I know for sure he’ll be at the Coral, the greyhound stadium, tonight. Like every fucking Thursday.

  He has his own table and normally a couple of floozies by his side plus whoever he has decided is his best mate that week. Sometimes old man Benson is there, too, but it’s more of a Diego thing.

  I’m already standing in the hallway of our crummy little house, fully dressed in my suit and a white shirt, open at the collar because I won’t wear a fucking tie, not even for this performance, when I see Grace and Kalina come down the stairs in their evening wear. They both look absolutely stunning in completely different ways. Grace’s hair is made up like the day before and her makeup is all green and earth colours, with eyeliner that really brings out her cat features. Still no lipstick, though, and it makes me smile. And instantly want to kiss her.

  She is wearing a rust-coloured, slinky, slightly shimmery dress that hugs every single curve on her beautiful body and ends asymmetrically mid-thigh on one side and at the ankle on the other. She has an ivory-coloured stole thrown over her bare shoulders. On her feet are simple sandals with ankle straps that match the stole. I’m glad she isn’t wearing high heels. She isn’t a heels woman, and I wouldn’t want her to feel uncomfortable.

  Kalina, on the other hand, is wearing what must be six-inch black patent leather stilettos under a much shorter, strapless green sequin dress with black sequin trimmings that looks like it must have once cost a bomb. In total contrast to Grace, her makeup is very dramatic, all old movie style with dark red lips and smoky eyes, and she has gelled her hair down into a kind of very short Charleston do. A black velvet choker encircles her neck. She looks different.

  It takes me a minute to realise what it is but then it dawns on me. She isn’t tottering on our threadbare red carpet in those heels, she is walking in them like a pro, like she’s been wearing heels all her life. Like she’s been wearing these kinds of clothes all her life. Like she is a completely different person.

  Gone is the pixie in dungarees, replaced by a girl, woman I correct myself, because she sure as hell looks like one right now, who in tonight’s little production appears like the only one who won’t be in over her head. And that’s without knowing the script. Or even that there is one. She sees me look and laughs.

  “Do well?” she asks playfully.

  “Hell yeah.”

  I grin up at them just as my phone dings to tell me the taxi is outside.

  “Let’s go, ladies.”

  Grace

  Silas in jogging bottoms and a tight tee is good, Silas in jeans with no tee is great, Silas in a suit with a white shirt open at the collar is smokin’ hot as they say in the South. I am almost paralyzed with instant lust the minute my eyes fall on him, standing by the door and taking in Kalina’s artwork as we come down the stairs.

  Because that’s what we are, serious works of art.

  If I ever get married, I want this girl for my stylist. She even manages to make clothes shopping not a cringefest. She has this amazing eye for what will fit you and look good on you. So I’m glad Silas answers ‘hell, yeah’ when she asks him if she did well. I might have had to strangle him if he’d said anything else. After jumping him first. He really looks unbearably handsome in that suit.

  And then there is the fact that I’m getting more and more impatient with just fooling around like we do.

  I want this man’s cock inside of me.

  In my mouth, in my pussy, maybe even my ass ─ I don’t know if I’d like it, but with him, I’d be happy to try. The point is, I’m so past just feeling him in my hands. I huff out a sound of frustration when I pass him by as he holds the door open for Kalina and me on the way to the taxi. He grabs my wrist and stops me in my tracks.

  “You okay?” he asks, searching my face.

  “Just dying with desire over here,” I quip and want to carry on walking, but he spins me back around and crashes his lips to mine.

  He wraps his arms around me and kisses me deeply for a moment then draws back and whispers against my lips.

  “I missed you today.”

  “Me, too,” I murmur back.

  “You look gorgeous,” he mumbles and kisses me again, his hand finding my naked leg on the side where my dress is cut high.

  He slides it around to the inside of my thigh, hitches it higher and finds my panties. He presses a thumb against the fabric covering my crotch.

  “You’re soaked,” he states the friggin’ obvious.

  I’m painfully aware that we are standing in the open doorway and Kalina is looking right back at us, a hand already on the handle of the taxi’s passenger door. She can’t see what he’s doing because the short side of my dress is facing the house and he’s embraced me in a way that shields me from her view, but she still feels very close to us on this street with no sidewalk.

  “Silas,” I pant.

  He pushes his tongue into my mouth one last time and simultaneously withdraws the thumb, only to slip
it around the edge of my panties and give my clit one, quick, hard stroke. The bastard.

  When he withdraws, I snatch his hand up and, looking deep into his eyes, I stick his thumb into my mouth, suck my juice off it and play around the pad with my tongue. I can see the desire blooming in him and I let go with a smile.

  “Let’s go” I say, and leave him adjusting the hard-on in his suit pants while I get into the cab.

  Silas

  I timed it so Diego and his entourage would already be at the Coral when we get there. It’s important that we have the entrance and we do. It’s easy since it’s not exactly packed. It never is, because the food really is cheap and cheerful and the drinks selection basic to say the least.

  Diego pays the kitchen to have his favourite champagne on ice and lets them bring in local lobster, especially for him and his table. Beats me why he keeps coming here if not for the spit and sawdust trip down memory lane. There is nobody to lord over either. All the old guys who knew the Bensons from way back are long dead and gone. Whatever, not my fucked-up psyche. My fucked-up psyche has other things to worry about.

  The waiter shows us to our table, and I nod a greeting at Diego in passing, a beautiful woman hanging from each of my arms.

  I didn’t engineer that.

  Grace hooked herself under as soon as we got out of the cab and after some silent exchange between the two of them, Kalina did the same on my other side. Perfect scenario but seriously weird. I really am not that guy. But it totally serves its purpose.

  I can see Diego’s interest being piqued immediately when we saunter in. He’s sitting with two of his regular girls, waitresses from The Cockatoo who all vie for pole position on his dick all the time, because each and every single one of them wants to land him. But Diego is not stupid. He won’t fall for any of them. He’ll fuck ‘em happily, though.

  Interestingly, the chair normally reserved for this week’s best friend is empty. I have to admit, there is something comical about us, little George Benson and little Silas O’Brien, each with two overdressed women hanging from our arms, eyeing each other up. I can see in the smirk around the corner of his mouth that he’s thinking the same and for that brief moment in time we’re friends again. It’s over in a blink, and Grace, Kalina and I proceed to our table.