Vince accepts the one-armed cuddle for a moment, leaning on the slighter man. “Coddle later. We have a piece of grade-A human waste to dispose of.”
The smile slips so quickly from Mason’s fair visage that Vince is briefly reminded of Reza.
Master of quick changes that he is. Fascinating and slick as an oil spill’s dark sheen.
Those thoughts lead into others, darker and darker until Vince is tumbling down a rabbit hole. He’s quiet on the ride, hoping Graham will think he’s fatigued.
He is, he reasons. The insistent desire for transparency clashing with his self-preservation, leaving him stripped of energy. It’s just not only that.
The flat is unremarkable, standard London drab. Vince has lived this moment a thousand times: knocking on the cheap door, reciting those same foreboding word
