Page 97 of So Steady

“I mean it, please just go. We can talk about this later or something. Just go.”

Noah looked upstairs. Nicole was up there, could he wake her up and have her explain …what? That he’d gone down on her in his van? Told her he’d never be able to give her what she needed?

He shook his head, confused by how years of stability, steady employment, keeping to himself had gone to shit. He looked at Sam until she met his gaze. “I haven’t been stealing from you and your dad.”

She closed her eyes. “Just go.”

“But when…when can I come back?”

He sounded pathetic, like a little kid dropped off at the supermarket while his mum bought a bag of ice, but Silver Daughters was his home. Surely Sam understood that?

Tabby pulled away from her big sister. “We don’t know what to do. We’re going to look over the finances with Nix tomorrow. We’ll call you when we decide if we should go to the cops.”

He saw the resignation on Sam’s face and it was like a thunderbolt struck him. “You’re gonna fire me?”

Sam nodded, fresh tears filling her eyes. Tabby’s face was stonier than ever. “Are you going to make this hard for Nix?”

He looked upstairs to where Nicole was no doubt sleeping off their insanely long day, tucked up like a fairytale princess, long black hair on pale pink pillows. “Nah.”

“You mean it?”

The roaring in his head was so loud it was like he had seashells clapped over his ears. “We all know I’m not good enough for her.”

Sam opened her mouth and snapped it closed. He knew she’d been about to say some reflexive friend thing about how he was good enough. Suddenly the backs of his eyes were hot and tight as the hood of a car. Fucking hell. He refused to blink, letting his eyeballs burn. He pulled his keys from his pocket and walked to the register. Sam and Tabby walked backward, like he was carrying a force field that repelled people. His chest tight, he slapped the keys on the counter.

“Hold onto these. Nikki’s stuff is still in the back, anyway.”

Sam frowned. “How will you get home?”

Noah was suddenly exhausted, wrung out like an old sponge. This had been the longest twenty-four hours of his life and he wasn’t even done spilling his guts. “I live a couple of streets over.”

The hurt in her eyes was lemon juice in every one of his self-inflicted wounds. “Sorry. About that, and everything else.”

And he left before he could fuck up anything else.

Outside, the air was warm and close. He felt dirty; his mouth thick. He headed for home, aware that Paula and Shredder could be waiting and unable to give a single fuck. As he walked, he thought about the night he’d met Edgar.

He’d been in Melbourne to drink and see old mates, but if he took one step backward, another motive became clearer. He hadn’t tattooed in weeks, hadn’t painted or sketched. He kept picking up his phone, his thumb hovering over his dad’s number, over Shredder’s number, Magger's number. He was talking himself back into it. The life. He’d been in the city for a week when it rained in a way that felt like the sky had opened. He’d gone to the pub and drank until he was pushed out into the slippery darkness. Getting kicked out wasn’t a problem…until he realised he’d lost his wallet and phone. Head full of hard music, he walked in the direction of nothing, seeing spirals. Then his foot connected with a jutting footpath crack and he slipped over, bashing his head. It didn’t hurt, but when he touched his face, black blood mixed in with the rainwater. He sat on the wet asphalt, waiting for something. Anything.

To this day he had no idea what Edgar was doing on the street in the early hours of the morning—collecting mushrooms? Dancing in the rain? He just seemed to appear in his leather hat and jeans, smiling at him in that calm, sad way. “Need a hand?”

He did. So, Noah had let him hoist him to his feet with hands that were surprisingly strong for such a slim guy.

Edgar pointed to his left shoulder. “That a Persian manticore?”

“Mmm,” he said, trying not to sound like a fuckin’ mess.

Then Ed had looked him over, as though he was seeing him for the first time. “You tattoo.”

It wasn’t a question, which didn’t make any sense. Noah stared at him, wondering if he was a hallucination brought on by weeks of running his willpower down to zero. “Used t’tattoo. Not’ne’more. Not frages.”

“But you’re still an artist.”

Another not-question. Noah had frowned, his face so heavy it felt like it had been set in cement. “Who are you?”

“Edgar DaSilva. I own a studio over the way.”

He held out his hand and Noah shook it, his head sick and spinning, half convinced the man was an illusion. “A tattoo studio?”

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