Page 17 of Petrichor

“Understood.” He nods in earnest.

“Add the shirt you’re wearing to the payment. Four hundred.”

“Is he fucking with me?” he asks Luca, who doesn’t move a muscle in response. “For fuck’s sake. Bye, not-friend Luca. Marco,” he calls over his shoulder as the front door closes behind him.

Luca breathes out a cloud of smoke. Eyes intent on me. “It was just getting interesting and he cuts it so rudely short. Explain, Marco.” He pronounces my name slowly to remind me that I don’t allow anybody to call me by my first name—only Seb and Luca.

“Fuck off.” I grab my phone from the coffee table and open the house security camera app.

“Suit yourself. Seb will find out soon,” Luca states the obvious. Seb knows everything about everyone.

I grunt as he steps on the balcony and leans on the stone rail, watching in the distance.

My eyes focus on the security footage, going back to yesterday night. Just before midnight, we entered the penthouse. As I remembered, Fly drops me on the sofa, gives me the medicine, and then once I’m passed out he takes off my jacket and shirt. Diego takes them, they talk for a minute, and then the concierge leaves. Fly goes to the kitchen and comes back with a wet cloth. There are three cameras in the living room, so I can clearly see what he’s doing from different angles. He kneels and cleans my chest gently and slowly. I don’t feel annoyed by it, but he seems to focus more intently on my pecs and the scar on my side. Then he just stares at me. He mouths some words too low to hear, closes his eyes, and stays perfectly still. His hand hovers over my face, but he seems to change his mind, and before making contact with my skin, he lifts it to his lips. He opens his eyes again and stands up, washes the cloth and then sits in the armchair to eat the takeout food—his curious eyes going around the room before moving back to me. When he’s done, he covers me with the blanket he finds on the armchair's back and grabs his bags before walking to the corridor.

I tap the video feed for my bedroom as I follow him. I feel uneasiness at seeing him there. He drops the bags on the floor and looks around. Stops near the pic of Luca, Seb, and me when we wereteens. His fingers brush over the silver frame. Then he takes off his sweater and the rest of his clothes, remaining only in pink lace panties and a bra set.

What the fuck!

I didn’t know men could wear that kind of stuff. He bends down to get a small pouch from his bag, putting on display a perfectly peach ass barely wrapped in a thong, like a sexy offering. My eyes can’t stop following his jiggling cheeks as he disappears into the bathroom—no camera there.

I wait impatiently, stroking my morning stubble with the palm of my hand, feeling slightly annoyed by the warmth that formed inside my belly. When he comes out, he's still wearing the delicate lingerie and that damn chain around his waist—he doesn’t take it off to sleep. He grabs the black blanket from my bed and two pillows and places them on the floor for some damn reason. Then he turns off the light and lies down on the floor. The moonlight coming from the window shows me the outline of his body, on his side hugging my pillow. Why the floor when my luxurious king-size bed is only a few inches from him?

I fast forward to this morning. He woke up, went to the bathroom, and walked back inside the room with new underclothes—a similar pair but lilac this time—the color emphasizes his light skin. When he dressed, he grabbed my midnight blue shirt from the chair near the dresser, and before putting it on, he smelled it. I suddenly remember him saying he liked my cologne last night, so much as to dig his nose into my clothes?

He didn’t open any drawers or search inside my closet. He didn’t check the study nor any other rooms. He didn’t even sleep in my bed. My torturing plans are only postponed though. Because his lack of curiosity is even more suspicious on top of puzzling.

From his name to his behavior, Joel Locke is utterly confusing.

The old butler is pouring the ruby red wine in the three stem glasses perfectly aligned on top of Seb’s white oak desk. When he’s done, he bows deferentially and leaves the office.

Luca is lighting a joint in the high back armchair next to mine as Seb spins his desk chair around and opens the window behind him before facing us again. We always sample a new shipment of weed in Seb’s house when it arrives.

“Nero d’avola, 2021,” Seb turns the bottle of wine toward me to show me the label. It’s my favorite, and the vintage is quite good. He knows how demanding I am about food and drinks.

“Any particular occasion?” I ask him, looking at his face. Always serious and collected, defined lips, empty stare, grizzled hair. Since he was in his twenties some of his black locks started turning white. Premature graying, nothing serious, just a genetic trait Don Massimo passed down to his son, which only adds to his icy charm. Ourcapois a one-of-a-kind, stony motherfucker who only cares about two things in life. One of them is the Leone family business.

“Yes,” he succinctly replies, without giving me any other explanation. “Did you grease the boys in blue down in Brooklyn?” That’s where most of our warehouses are.

Luca replies with a smirk. “Plenty.” He lifts his glass, and I stop him with a hand on his arm. “You can’t drink it yet. Let thevinobreathe, so that you can really enjoy its body.”

“Wine snob,” I hear him mutter. But he puts the glass down and takes a long puff from the joint, holding the air in as he leans over the desk and passes it to Seb.

As he lets the smoke go, he says, “Better than the last batch. Fucking stronger.”

Seb partakes as well. He closes his eyes as he inhales and then opens them slowly, exhaling. “Yeah, the quality is better. It deserved the higher price. I’ll wire the money today.”

I accept the joint from him. “Will the clients pay more for it, though?” I ask as I try it myself. I don’t particularly like it. Drugs dull my senses too easily, in opposition to alcohol.

“We can reach a different clientele. A posher one,” Luca suggests,

Seb nods at him. “Talk to Alfredo. Tell him to move the dealers in that direction.”

I take another long drag, letting the smoke spread inside my lungs and then pass the blunt to Luca. I prefer my cigs, but Seb doesn’t allow us to smoke in his office.

“Heard you got heavy on some Enzino men, yesterday.” Seb stares at me. He knows almost everything that happens on his turf and around the other families and crime organizations. He has spies planted everywhere and when I say everywhere, I mean in every possible place. He learned from his father, Don Massimo’s mistakes and has a more Machiavellian approach to the criminal scene. Time have changed.Omertáis just a word for the other families. So we still follow the code while bending it a little—protecting the Leone family comes first.

“At Rino’s? Those bastards don’t hang out around those parts normally.” Luca sniffs. “Does it have anything to do with the tight-ass I found at your place?”

---