He backed up. My heart somehow followed him, but I made myself stay put. “Tell me what’s happened,” I tried again. “Make it make sense.”
Rami set his tea back on the table and tightened his arms around the sleeping boy. “This is Charlie. My nephew. I’m taking him up to my sister’s place.”
“Up?” I computed the simple words and matched them to the only woman I knew who lived anywhere remotely “up” from our current location. “You mean Safia McCade?”
“She was Safia Stone once upon a time, but yeah, that’s her.”
If I’d thought my world had turned upside down ten seconds ago, man, it had nothing on the chaos going on right now. I eyed the child again and shook my head. “He isn’t Safia’s son—oh. He’s Damon’s, isn’t he? She told me about him.”
Rami flinched. “You know my family?”
“Of course I do. They’re my only neighbours.”
Disbelief crossed Rami’s face, and I knew the feeling. The plot was thickening by the second and I suddenly longed for the whisky bottle again.
Rami shifted Charlie to his other shoulder. I studied their shared dark features and sadness washed over me. If I’d matched the right information together, then the little guy’s father—Rami’s brother—was dead.
“I’m sorry, dude,” I said quietly.
Rami shrugged. “It was a long time coming.”
“How so?”
“Lots of reasons. Drugs. Gang stuff. Everything you, uh, used to see on a daily basis.”
I caught his slip, and it was my turn to flinch, but I didn’t want to get into all that now. Or ever, actually. Despite everything I knew about recovery and rehabilitation, I’d learned the hard way that talking about the same old stuff over and over and over just made it worse. Things happened and life moved on. Or you died, like Rami’s brother. “I’m sorry it affected your family so badly. Safia never told me the details.”
“OD,” Rami said absently. “Like I said, it wasn’t unexpected, just…”
“Awful?”
“Yeah. What about you?”
“What about me?”
Rami eyed me over the top of Charlie’s head. “I’ve told you how I came to be here. You want to return the favour?”
“I live here.”
“How? Why? The last I knew, you lived in the new-build flats behind the retail park.”
“Never said it was home, though, did I?”
“So what was it?”
“My life back then. This is my life now.”
“Vague.”
“Didn’t know you were so interested.”
A faint smile warmed Rami’s tired face. He averted his gaze, spotting the armchair in the corner of the kitchen by the bookshelf.
He crossed the room and gently deposited Charlie. I followed and pulled a blanket from the basket. It was thick wool and somehow smelled of my long dead grandpa’s Christmas cinder toffee. I smelled cinnamon too, but I knew that was all Rami Stone. Cinnamon and mystery, that was him.
Rami straightened, starting when he found me behind him. “I forgot how light on your feet you are for a fucking giant.”
“I’m, like, two inches taller than you.”
“And a foot wider.”
“Not anymore.”
Rami’s hot gaze spread through me like wildfire. “No, I guess you’re not. I didn’t notice before.”
I nodded and handed him the blanket, then backed up to give him room to tuck Charlie in. I missed his scent, though. There was something so comforting about it, and yet so thrilling it scared me.
Rami left Charlie to sleep and came back to the kitchen counter.
I pulled a stool out for him. “You hungry?”
“Nah.”
“Sure about that? You don’t look like you had time to eat dinner.”
“How can you tell?”
“Instinct.”
“Fail-safe, are they? Your instincts, I mean?”
Not even close. But Rami was close, and somehow that made the flash of disquiet in my gut, the ripple of fear, easier to ignore. “Look, all I’m saying is that I didn’t have my second dinner yet, so if you want to join me there’s plenty.”
Rami’s weary smile returned, lighting up the world like the twinkling young Christmas tree his sister’s kids—wow, that’s insane—had helped me decorate. “‘Second dinner’?”
I smacked my stomach. “I’m a growing boy.”
“Thought you’d shrunk?”
“Exactly. Need to work harder, don’t I?” I didn’t wait for an answer. I moved to the fridge and inspected the contents. Given that our geographical location was a hot spot for disruptive weather, I had a loaded freezer that could sustain a small army, but the snowstorm raging outside had caught me off guard as much as it had Rami. It was as random and unpredicted as he was, and my fridge shelves showed it.
I rummaged up ham, festive chutney from the village, and a lump of the cheese his sweetheart of a sister bestowed on me every time she came down the mountain. My prized possession was the sandwich press I’d brought home with me from Manchester. It was a lazy bloke’s dream, and when it came to catering I had a gold star certificate in the lazy stakes. I mean, I liked to eat, but I didn’t appreciate doing much to make it happen.
The cast iron press heated up while I threw a couple of sandwiches together.
Rami drank his tea and watched, his smile growing a touch, making his dark eyes seem liquid and endless.
“What about the bairn?” I pointed at Charlie. “Is he going to need a snack?”
Rami shook his head. “He’ll sleep until I try and put him back in the car.”
“That’s not happening any time soon.”
“Gonna hold me hostage over a sandwich?”
“Not me. The weather. Even if your engine wasn’t screwed from a busted radiator hose, that road is blocked in both directions. No soul is getting up or down until the sun comes out to play and trust me, that could take days.”
Rami blinked, digesting everything I’d just chucked his way. “How do you know about the radiator hose?”
“I forced the catch on the bonnet before I realised you were still inside the car. Figured I’d hot wire it and move it somewhere safer, and get it away from my gate.”
“Your gate?” Rami seemed mystified, then a light bulb seemed to come on in his head. “Fuck, of course. Hawthorne Farm. How did I forget it was here?”
“Probably because you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face in that blizzard out there.”
“I still wouldn’t have made the connection between this place and you, though. I always took you for a gym rat, not a lumberjack.”
“And now?”
“The beard is helping to sway me. It looks good on you.”
My hand drifted to my face to stroke the light brown scruff covering my jaw. It wasn’t as neat as the dark stubble on Rami’s, but I liked it. And I was lazy, remember? Not shaving was awesome.
The sandwich press beeped. I opened it, lifted two golden-brown toasties onto plates, and pushed one Rami’s way.
He picked it up, then put it down again. “This is weird as hell.”