He nods.
“Best city in the world.”
He smiles. “I’m going to go there one day.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and flicks through the photos until he gets to the one he wants to show me. It’s a skyline pic of New York at dusk.
I smile as I look at it. “You’ll love it.” I pass his phone back to him, and he goes to put it in his pocket but misses, and it falls on the floor.
He scrambles to pick it up, and his face falls. “Oh no,” he cries. He throws his hands up in the air. “I broke the screen.”
“What?” I frown. “Show me.”
He holds it out for me to see, and the screen is smashed to smithereens.
He slams it down on the counter and puts his two hands in his hair in despair.
I stare at the phone. It’s ancient, super old. It’s a wonder it even works.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s just a phone screen.”
“I saved for two years for this phone,” he cries. His nostrils are flared, and it looks like he’s about to burst into tears.
“Oh . . .” I pick it up. “Maybe we could get the screen fixed?” I try to make him feel better.
“You can’t get parts for this phone. It’s too old.” He slams a pot down on the counter. He’s genuinely devastated.
“Eddie,” a man calls from the front.
He looks up.
“Move the bottles of water from the store. I have a truck coming in with more stock.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“Hurry up about it,” the guy calls.
I frown as I listen to the cold orders.
The kid rushes to the front to move the stock, and I sit in silence, the weight of his world sitting heavily on my chest. He works like a dog and has to save for two years for a piece-of-shit phone.
Poor fucking kid.
“I got us a job,” Basil announces as he slouches onto a stool beside me.
“What? Where?”
“An Italian restaurant. They’re looking for three staff members. I saw a sign on the window and went in, and he offered me it straightaway. I asked him about you and Hayden, and he said to bring you both and we can all trial.”
“Great.”
“We start tonight.”
“Tonight?” I frown. I had plans to sort my hungry dick out tonight. I’m walking around with a constant boner.
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay.” I sigh. “Thanks.”
Looks like it’s more shower love for me. The thought is depressing.
I need my cock sucked.
I pick my T-shirt up and smell it as we walk along. “Did he wash this fucking T-shirt before he loaned it to me?”
“He said he washed it yesterday,” Hayden replies.
“What washing powder did he use, wet dog?”
“Probably too tight for laundry powder,” Basil says from up front.
I stop on the spot, horrified. “So, what . . . you don’t think he didn’t use powder?”
“I don’t know. He loaned you a plain black shirt that you needed for our trial tonight. He did you a favor,” Hayden huffs. “Stop being a princess.”
“I am not being a princess,” I snap. “I’m being hygienic. Does anyone around here know the fucking meaning of the word?”