“No.”
“Then why the hell is there a girl in your apartment? I didn’t think you fucked women up there. You’re not hosting a party until the end of the month, right?”
“Nope. No party. And no fucking, either, asshole. She’s my sister.”
Now I’m just completely lost. “I did not know you had a sister.”
“Neither did I. Until I saw her.”
“So… you looked at her and you knew she was your sister?”
“Are you going to ask twenty questions, or are you going to help me?” Zee lifts the hem of his t-shirt and shows me the wound in his stomach that’s bleeding sluggishly down his six pack.
I squint at it, prod him with my index finger and then announce that it’ll probably only need one stitch and he should stop being such a baby. The look he gives me is arctic to say the least. I douse him in alcohol and put two stitches in just to be safe, and then the two of us make our way up to his apartment. Inside, a petite, elfish-looking girl with a mass of curly blonde hair has fallen asleep on the floor of the kitchen, one arm tucked up underneath her head. Zeth and I both freeze, hands in pockets, staring down at her prone figure on the ground.
“How the fuck did you take one look at her and know she was related to you? She looks nothing like you.”
Zeth glares at the woman some more, clenching his jaw, not saying anything for a while, and then he says, “My mother. She’s the spitting image of my mother.”
I should ask him how she came to be in his apartment here. I should ask him what he plans on doing with a fucking sister, of all things. I should ask him a lot of things, but I know Zee. He’ll tell me his shit when he wants to and not before. Right now, even without looking at him, I know all he’s thinking about is where he can get a very specific box of cereal.
“Did the Italian tell you why he was following you?” I whisper.
“Said Brooklyn was colder then hell and he needed a vacation.”
“You believed him?”
Zeth gives me a scathing look. “Of course not.”
“And you just let him go?”
“I was feeling magnanimous, okay? I don’t have to murder everyone I meet, do I? Do you murder everyone who pisses you off?”
“No one pisses me off, man. I am unflappable.”
He seems to think about this for a moment. I think he’s going to disagree with me but he shrugs his shoulders, agreeing. “Don’t forget about Fresco’s,” he says.
“Fresco’s?”
“That shitty café house on the other side of town. That time that hipster spilled his coffee all down your shirt and you throat-punched him.”
“That wasn’t a shirt, man. That was Armani.”
Zeth snorts. The guy could give two shits about what he wears, so long as it’s dark so he can hide in the shadows and it’s not covered in blood. Me, on the other hand…I have expensive tastes. I like the fit of a well-tailored suit. I love the feel of a beautiful shirt against my skin. And if someone spills drip coffee down that six hundred dollar shirt, they’re going to get my knuckles in their larynx. That’s just how it goes.
The girl on the floor stirs. She cracks one eye and stares up at us blearily. Her lips are a soft, delicate color of pink—the color of the inside of a shell you might find washed up on a beach. “Who the fuck is he?” she whispers. Not as delicate as her appearance might suggest, then.
“He’s your new best friend,” Zeth rumbles. “You and he are gonna be glued together like white on rice.”
“Isn’t that a little racist? He’s not exactly white, is he?”
I grin, fighting the urge to laugh out loud. Zeth sucks in a deep breath and holds it in his chest, glaring at the girl lying on the floor. He’s not used to this. Not used to talking to girls. His interactions with the fairer sex usually requires few words. And the words that are exchanged are usually commands.
On your knees.
Open your mouth.
Suck.
He’s never forceful, of course. He never needs to be. The well-heeled, rich and beautiful women of this city whisper about his gatherings in breathy excitement at their social mixers. They fall over themselves to bow down at his feet. It really is quite something to watch. And I have watched. I’ve observed it all. I’ve participated, too. No point standing on the sidelines, after all.
I hold out my hand to the fragile, tiny woman sprawled out on the kitchen floor. “No. I’m not white. I’m just me. Michael. And you are?”
She stares at my hand like she’s waiting for me to reach out and strike her any second. When I don’t, she slowly accepts my assistance and gets to her feet. “Lacey. My name is Lacey.”
“Pleasure to meet you, then.”
Zeth shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, watching us. He clears his throat, scratches the back of his head, and then he turns and walks away. Lacey tilts her head to the side and makes a quiet hmmm sound at the back of her throat.