Page 41 of Need Him Like Oxygen

“She was looking at me weird when I was talking to Renzo about you. Then she said I was lying about something once he walked away. Think the only thing stopping her from prying was Coal coming in all beat to shit.”

“Again?” she asked, shaking her head.

“You remember those days,” I said, shrugging. “Just so you know, I’d mentioned you in passing a few times. Didn’t mention it was in my hallway. Said you seemed busy.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I know you don’t like lying to the family,” she said.

“Extenuating circumstances.”

“Anything going on with anyone that I should know about?”

“Renzo took a job away from Saff. She almost took his head off with a pool ball over it tonight.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I haven’t been in the know about shit lately,” I admitted. “But there was a job she brought in that he thought she wasn’t ready to close.”

“I kind of understand trying to hit him then,” she said.

“It wasn’t about being a girl,” I said.

“Of course it wasn’t,” she said, brows scrunched as she looked at me. “Renzo isn’t like that. But I wonder sometimes if it is just because she’s younger and newer, or if some of it has to do with how tiny she is. Sometimes, without meaning to, I think a lot of the guys treat her like a baby sister and not a grown-ass woman who could probably kick their asses if she felt like it.”

“That’s… fair,” I agreed. “I’m probably guilty of that too. Think it’s different with her because she’s younger, but we’re also older.”

When Cinna came up, we were closer in age. I wasn’t looking at her through a more seasoned gaze like I was with Saff.

“Figure maybe the dynamic we all have with you is similar to what Coal and Cage and the other younger guys will feel about Saff.”

“That makes sense. I mean, I’m even guilty of it,” Cinna admitted. “She had me as backup on a deal she was working on, and I remember thinking that if shit went down, I was going to push her behind me.”

“That protective instinct is a bitch,” I agreed. “But I imagine it’s stronger in a lot of us because we never had someone to protect us.”

I felt her gaze cut to my profile, studying me, trying to read more deeply.

But, no.

This was give and take.

If I offered up too much, she wouldn’t feel the need to do the same.

“And she resents it because she never had it either,” Cinna said.

“So what I’m hearing is… we’re all fucked up,” I said, shooting her a smile.

“I’m pretty sure normal, well-adjusted people don’t end up being mafia capos for a living.”

That was the damn truth.

At least for our generation.

Men like Renzo, when they started having kids, would raise them the way we all deserved, but didn’t get.

“Dav,” Cinna called, voice small.

“Yeah?”

“Can you hand me the aspirin?” she asked, pointing toward the nightstand at my side. “And if you can do it without the commentary, that’d be great,” she added when I opened my mouth to say something about how I knew I’d been too rough.

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