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“Hello, Knox's mummy.” I lean forward and kiss her left cheek and then her right. It is not the steel nerves I feared before me but a heart as cold as ice. Mrs Thayer carries more diamonds to visit her injured son than I've ever seen on TV, and Annie makes me watch the Oscars. “Is that bag a Delvaux?”
Could it be that this woman is carrying the very bag that Annie bitched about just last week. A new release on the market, with a price tag of four and a half grand. Something Annie had harsh words about, which the price tag did warrant. Who the hell spends that amount of money on a handbag. Well now I have an answer for Annie, and I'll never get to tell her.
“Oh, my dear boy! Do you shop?” Caroline gasps.
“Not at that price tag. Anything worth more than two weeks wages is out of my price range.” And that bag is over four months wages. “But I do follow fashion.” Whether I like it or not.
“It's a good bag.” Caroline pulls the small bag across her abdomen, modelling the superior quality that demands a mortgage to buy. “You can't get this quality without the price.”
“May I touch it?” I want to know how a four grand bag is better than a forty pound bag. I thought Annie spending that much was a lot.
“Of course.” Caroline turns her hip to give me access.
I nod and smile, trying to show the right amount of interest in the bag. I know very little about ladies’ bags, only that I would lose my fingers if I dared peek in Annie's. My hand reaches out and strokes down the flap. The texture startles me. It looks like a stiff leather, but it feels soft and velvety against my hand.
“Good lord, son. Where did you find this boy?” Edward criticises me as he sits beside Knox. “He tortures like the best of us, and then charms the ladies as only a gay man can.”
“Dad,” Knox exclaims in my defence. “You can't say that.”
“Oh, come on. If any other guy talked to my woman like that, I'd punch him across the room. But a gay guy is no threat.”
“He's enough of a threat to me. At this rate, he's going to become Mother's new favourite.”
Knox's words have me smiling, it's nice to know my charm is paying off.
“So now you have my wife wrapped around your little finger.” Edward takes a turn around the room, somehow managing to scoop me up with him as he passes. “Who taught you to fight like that?”
“You mean stabbing someone badly?”
“Oh no, my boy. Doing what you did takes skill, knowledge and training.”
“I just got angry and stabbed him.” I'm not sure what he is asking me.
“Don't lie to me. Someone trained you to do that.”
“I had martial arts training until I was eighteen. It was part of an outreach program my social worker got us in. It wasn't the common ones like karate, more practical self-defence.”
“And they taught you how to incapacitate without killing?”
“There was a lesson or two about where to stab people so you wouldn't go down for murder.” Actually, there were a lot of lessons about that. It was something they really hammered home to me and Annie. Sometimes there were other kids in the classes but thinking back, I'm not sure any of them were around as much as Annie and me. We just wanted to be out of the house. “Maybe the guy did have a passion for that.”
“Gavriil was impressed, and I don't see that very often. If you'd like to refresh or rebuild on your instructor’s passion, I'm sure he would be happy to allow you access to what you need.”
I'm assuming Edward means bodies to unalive, but luckily, Knox is first to protest.
“Dad, no. I don't want Porter exposed to that. You protect Mum from that, and I want to protect Porter the same way.”
“I'm not exposing your boy to anything he hasn't already seen and isn't already good at.”
“I'd like to be friends with Nico.” I get my point out before the two men enter into an argument over this.
“Nico?” Edward chuckles. “You talk about four grand handbags with my wife then ask to have coffee with the wild boy?”
“I don't remember him being wild. Just foreign.” It was only his age that stood out to me, the only person anywhere near my age. I think new me wants a friend, even if the conversation would be challenging.
“Can we invite him over for tea?” I turn to Knox, and his face kills my enthusiasm. I can see thenowritten all over his face.
“Porter, you are at the very top of the cartel, and not many people jump in at that level. Most work up the ranks to get close enough to clean our shoes. I'm not saying Nico, or anyone else isn't good enough. I'm saying for you to think how he would feel about the idea.”
