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She says it like it’s a bad thing, which on reflection it probably is. If you don’t feel, you can’t be exploited, but that’s not how the game of life works.
“How do you figure that?”
“You’re in love with dance lady, right?”
Right.
“Viper says falling in love is like falling into a bear pit. You never come out alive.” She pauses for a moment. “It’s kinda funny, though. I thought you’d be much smarter than that.”
“Ten points to Viper for using an animal analogy for that charming explanation about human emotions,” I say dryly.
I catch her staring at me like she’s trying to figure something out. “I want you to come out alive, Frankie.”
I want us to come out alive, too.
That tight knot inside my chest is back. She reminds me of my sister, Vittoria. Her innocence is a blinding white light surrounded by a ring of black, moving in ever-decreasing circles. Vittoria never asked to be born to a mafiacapo, the same way Bambi never asked to end up in Viper’s nest.
“Then I reallyama villain,” I drawl, going back to our conversation the other day. “You can’t havefeelings without a good backstory.”
“It’s not good though, is it?” she says quietly. “Otherwise, you’d be together already, and I wouldn’t be hacking into fire alarm systems for you.”
“Where are we headed?” I cut that line of questioning off at the root. I’m not in the right frame of mind to deal with a wildly intuitive thirteen-year-old girl.
“The Zebra Café.”
“Thewhat?”
“It’s this really cool restaurant I read about. It’s on the South Bank, so it’s pretty close to here. Apparently, it’s done up like the Masai Mara. Like, it’s got fake trees and grasses, and all the walls are painted with animals and horizons and stuff.”
My life is insane.Fuckinginsane.
“Fine,” I grit out, turning into Shaftesbury Avenue. “Put the damn address into the satnav.”
“And we’re listening to Taylor Swift on the way.”
“You do know I murder people,” I say, side-eying her.
“You murderbadpeople,” she corrects with a grin, reaching for the stereo. “That means you’re still getting into heaven, Frankie, but only via the back door.”
When Viper joins us an hour later, unfashionably late in every sense of the word, in a ripped blue t-shirt and dirty jeans, I’m sitting at the bar drinking a Wild Dog Milkshake, surrounded by bored parents and kids who are high on sugar, and feeling every year of thirty-four.
“What the hell happened to you?” He looks me up and down, taking in my soaking wet black shirt and jeans and bloody knuckles. “Did the monsoon season hit back?”
“Fuck off, snake eyes.”
“I hope that’s got whiskey in it.” He gestures at my milkshake. “Where’s Bambi?”
“Instagramming the shit out of this place.”
He slides onto the stool next to me and glances around the café. “Atmospheric.”
“You should take her.”
“Take her where?”
“Africa.”
“Youtake her. I’m a little busy right now. By the way, there’s a paedophile tied up in one of the private gaming rooms at Encore.”
