Tino wasn’t bullshitting him about it. He left out that Dominic’s father always watched, which was very high on the list of things Tino could barely stomach about his life. There was no way Carmine was going to let someone fuck his wife unless he was watching. Then, for some reason, it was perfectly fine. The Brambinos were twisted. All of them. No wonder Dominic was so fucked-up.
“I floated you the pills,” Tino reminded him. “So unless you feel like coughing up another forty bucks, get outta my face.”
“You know, if I told my ma—”
“But you’re not going to, because if you did, you know I’d tell all of them you’ve been trying to taste my Italian ice for two years, and that doesn’t really fly in Cosa Nostra, does it? Especially since I’m pretty fucking sure the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and you jerk off thinking about me fucking you from behind just like your mom does.”
“One day the Borgata’s gonna be mine,” Dominic reminded him. “I’m gonna own all of it.”
“One day you will,” Tino agreed. Dominic had all the perfect qualifications to take over the Brambino Borgata, including a complete lack of conscience. God help them all when that day came. Luckily, Tino had learned not to think too far ahead. “But right now you’re getting outta my face.”
He rolled on his side, dismissing Dominic before he kicked the shit out of him instead.
“You’re my favorite kind,” Meilei mused as she grabbed his hand and caressed his leather band.
“I hear that all the time,” Tino admitted and closed his eyes tiredly. “All the time.”
“You matter,” Carla said as she rubbed his thigh. “Did you know that?”
“Yeah, I knew that,” he whispered to himself, feeling like he wanted to take a shower, because if the heat didn’t make him feel dirty, Dominic Brambino sure the fuck did.
Screw it.
If Nova couldn’t survive one night, then they were all fucked.
Tino marked three lines on his arm for three Lost Kids who were wasting drugs and doing it just for the fucking roll.
’Cause it felt good.
He had exactly three glow sticks left, and those were the ones he used because they were worth it.
They fucking mattered.
To one another, if no one else in the world.
Tino hadn’t done anything with girls before Mary fell into his life. He noticed them, sure, and he had lots of friends, but nothing past that. He’d been sort of caught up in the whole mother-dying, brother-being-wanted-by-Cosa-Nostra, losing-benefits, and social-workers-knocking-down-their-door problems that filled those years between eight and twelve.
So it wasn’t until Meilei slipped a hand under his shirt and caressed his stomach, tracing the muscles there, that he realized he didn’t know how to be touched without it being a job.
Without performing.
Without pain or death or humiliation being the punishment for failing.
Maybe Meilei understood, because she made it less about sex and more about curiosity. It wasn’t like any of them were shy about their bodies. “You wax.” She slipped one hand beneath the fly of his jeans.
“Yeah, I wax.” Tino shrugged. “I make it look good.” Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her forward. He kissed her open palm and said, “You don’t have to, sweetheart.”
“I know.” She smiled, which made her look coy and beautiful, with long, silky black hair falling over his face like a veil and hiding him from the world. “I want to.”
“I don’t know how to be normal,” he confessed.
“Me either.” Her smile grew broader, letting Tino see what she might have been if the yakuza hadn’t stolen her childhood like Cosa Nostra stole his. “We’ll wait for the roll. Maybe it’ll be nice. Everyone says it’s nice.”
Tino realized Meilei didn’t fuck recreationally either.
“For the roll,” he agreed and turned on his side, watching his brother dance like he didn’t have a fucking care in the world, and waited for his turn.
They had a few more buyers, and Tino started stressing over having that much fucking cash on him and rolling on ecstasy. He didn’t take a half. He took a full one like an idiot. It had been a really stupid idea and was probably going to end with him getting robbed by an asshole and beaten by his father.
Maybe this time Frankie would kill Tino, even if the don had so kindly put a limit on how many times his father could hit him.
Not that Tino had a lot to complain about.
There were so many others who had it so much worse.
He leaned down and pushed Meilei’s dress up, feeling the smooth skin of her thighs. She had great skin, really soft, because like Tino, she made it look good. Meilei smelled nice, pretty and feminine. Carla did too, and he sort of wanted to know what it was like to fuck like Nova did, to do it because he wanted to, not because he had to.
For the first time, he felt guilty when he closed his eyes and imagined it was someone else’s soft skin. A different scent of shampoo. The tease of red hair tickling his face. Other times it was survival; this time it left a hollow feeling in his chest, because neither Carla nor Meilei deserved a man who was fantasizing about someone else. But Tino was pretty good at hiding the sin that had kept him sane for a long time now.
Carla’s hand was under his shirt, pushing it up, exposing his chest, and this part Tino knew how to do. He shrugged out of his jacket and then pulled off his shirt.