Leaving was gut-wrenching, but Lenny knew Nero would rather suffer alone than have the kitchen neglected. Cursing his commitment to Cass downstairs, Lenny carefully disentangled himself, wincing as Nero groaned and rolled over. For a long while he lay very still, eyes open and unseeing, apparently mesmerised by Lenny’s fingers combing gently through his hair, but eventually his breathing evened out and he fell asleep. He curled against Lenny and laid his head in Lenny’s lap. Nero looked briefly like he might protest, but then folded his long body back into bed without another word. Lenny sat up and leaned back on the headboard, opening his arms. Forty-eight hours without Nero forcing food on him had left him quickly slipping back into his old habits of binging on Haribo, and his body reacted instantly to the hit of vitamins and energy, while Nero yawned. Lenny accepted the banana and made short work of it. “Cass never gets the brekkie started on time.” Nero returned with tea and a banana for Lenny. He’d thought the flat above Pippa’s a little gloomy when Cass had first brought him here, but he enjoyed the relative tranquillity now, craved it, even, and with Nero for company, it felt like home. Nero left the room, weaving slightly, and Lenny lay back on the bed, enjoying the cool breeze that filtered through the open windows. I want to sit with you before you go back downstairs.”Īs if Lenny could argue with that. Nero beat him to it and pushed him back down. Nero must still be half-delirious if he was making quips like that. Lenny laid his palm on Nero’s bare chest, absently wondering if Nero had made the connection between Lenny’s obsession with his tattoo and the technicolour beast TST took its name from. shit, whatever day it was, than I actually did. “Reckon I could sleep another week, and I feel like I drank way more rum on.

Lenny had forgotten he was enduring this shambles of a conversation in his pants. “You’ve already lost your trousers, mate.”ĭamn. “Do one or the other, will you? Before I lose my shit.”

Strays by Garrett Leigh