Page 58 of Maxim

Lucia kissed me goodbye after the kitchen was tidy and disappeared to visit one of her neighbors. She’s used to me heading down into the basement to hang with Mickey. It’s what I’ve done for years.

While Mickey might be a grouchy hermit, he doesn’t mind my company.

“Did you find anything else out about Uriov?”

“Not much,” he admits after a few minutes. “But that site I mentioned has suffered a lot of issues.” He snorts. “Someone uploaded a virus and took it down for nearly a week.”

“Was it you?” I fix him with a hard stare. Not that I’d be angry if it was. From what he told me before, the site is disgusting.

“No.” He mutters that his hacking skills are better and the site would have been down for more than a week if he had, so I believe him.

I don’t say anything else for a while and eventually, Mickey reluctantly drags his attention away from his screens to look at me questioningly.

“Can you look into someone else for me?”

There’s a faint smirk before he replies. “It’ll cost you.”

Money means nothing to Mickey. He doesn’t care much about material things other than his computers and gaming tech. “Go on…”

To my surprise, he looks slightly embarrassed for a hot minute, and then his usual bored expression returns. “I need some new clothes. Buy me some.”

My jaw drops. Mickey lives in joggers and hoodies, whatever the weather.

“Why not ask your mom?”

“Because she’d want to know why and then buy me something fucking lame.”

“Sure, I can do that, but why not order some stuff online and get it delivered?”

He looks at like like I’m stupid. “Because I can’t buy clothes with Bitcoin and parcels go through Mom.” There’s a lot of dramatic eye-rolling and huffing.

“OK, fine. Send me links to stuff you like and I’ll order it.”

“I need a haircut too.”

This time curiosity gets the better of me. “You want a haircut?” He hasn’t cut his hair in years, despite Lucia nagging him every few months.

Then I see it plain as day. “Oh my god, have you found a girlfriend??”

To my amusement, he flushes red and immediately turns away before grunting,

“No. Don’t read anything into it.”

Hmm. I’m desperate to know more but pushing him won’t achieve much. Mickey tends to shut down once he feels under pressure, and since I need him to do some more research, I have to tread carefully.

“I’ll fetch some clippers over in a few days. If you want a decent haircut, I can ask Jane to do it? She’s great at cutting hair.”

“Jane? Your friend who looks like a pixie?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe.” I’ll take that as a yes. Jane knows him well enough not to cross his boundaries. She’ll also be delighted if Lucia offers to cook for us, which she will if I let her know we’re coming over.

Now we’ve struck a deal, I give him the information he needs to start researching. He writes it down and I leave shortly after.

There’s no sign of the SUV or any other suspicious vehicles as I drive back to Jane’s apartment. Maybe I was just being paranoid earlier.

Chapter forty-one