Page 1 of My Best Friend Is Broken

Chapter one

Nicky

Then

“You are a dufus,” Liam said.

“Dufus?” I retorted. “What kind of stupid word is that?”

Liam grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. His eyes looked gray in the darkness of our secret spot beneath the overpass, but I knew they were blue. The bluest eyes of anyone I had ever seen.

“A stupid word for a stupid man.”

I fought a blush and was glad it was winter and our after-college drinks were after sunset. I was eighteen, and being called a man still felt exciting and new. I liked it. Especially when Liam did it. Even if it was while calling me stupid.

“You don’t even need to go to college,” said Liam, explaining why I was stupid when I hadn’t even asked him to.

He took a swig from his beer bottle. “You can join the mafia.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not all Italian families are in the mafia.”

“No,” he agreed easily. “But yours are.”

“Only Uncle Vinnie,” I protested.

Liam shook his head at me as if I were a lost cause. As he moved through the exaggerated gesture, his face was illuminated briefly by a streak of streetlight, throwing all the definition of his cheekbones and jawline into stark display.

His new haircut suited him. At first, I had thought it was too short. Almost so short you couldn’t see how blond it was. But then I realized how it showed off his features and didn’t distract from his face.

It was a good haircut.

“He could get you in?”

I blinked, and it took me a moment to remember Liam was talking about Uncle Vinnie and the mafia.

“Yeah,” I said as casually as I could while I brought my beer bottle to my lips. I tried so very hard to be cool, but I’d never be as cool as Liam. I didn’t understand why he deigned to hang out with me.

“So do it!” exclaimed Liam. “Get out of this shithole. Make something of yourself. Don’t be a loser, Nicky.”

Nobody but Liam called me Nicky. I didn’t want to let them. It was Liam’s name for me, no one else’s.

I took another swig of the warm beer. “And what are you going to do?”

Liam sighed dramatically and leaned back on the cold concrete. Propping himself up on his elbows, and surveying the murky river and the brittle weeds as if they were his kingdom.

“Coast on my good looks and winning personality.”

I snorted even though I believed every word. Liam was easily the most handsome boy in our year, and everyone loved him. The teachers even fawned over him despite the fact that he never did any work.

“Actor. Rapper. I don’t know yet, but I’m going to be somebody,” he said, and it sounded like a vow.

It was the truth. I could see it. Liam burned far too brightly for a rundown housing estate in inner-city London. He was going to get out. Do great things. Hopefully, he would allow me to be part of his entourage of lackeys. It was the only thing I wanted from life.

“Somebody’s toyboy, more like,” I teased, because I was eighteen, and eighteen-year-old boys don’t express their feelings.

Liam laughed and his eyes sparkled. “Maybe you’ll be mine. No homo.”

“No homo? That’s definitely homo, bro,” I retorted as quick as lightning.