he was pure gasping for a small tea with two teabags.

Jodie often marvelled at it, but mostly she hated it: the way he gave Mo-Maw love without thought of reward. Or maybe it was that he heaped and heaped it on in the hopes he would get a fraction of it in return, like his love was some undervalued currency.

He flailed up again, sputtering and cursing, clutching his loose drawers to stop them sliding down his legs.

James leaned across the distance and placed a kiss on his lips. It was dry and his teeth scraped Mungo’s bottom lip. They bumped heads. Mungo rubbed his forehead. “Did you just headbutt me?” “We could pretend it was a headbutt if you like?” The smile was fleeing his lips again. “Don’t be daft.” Mungo looked both up and down the hill, and then he ki

sitting pressed up against that door like some mongrel.”

But they flew across the night sky like fearless angels, their tracksuits flapping behind them like flightless wings.

But Mungo was a loyal dog. He would not be moved.

“No, seriously. It’s like your face has a mind of its own. It’s showing what you feel on the inside without ye even asking it.”

Mungo wondered if there was much the man could feel anymore. The blunted and cauterized veins on his face, across his hands, and down his forearms all looked like they were pushing to the surface in hopes of feeling something, anything. Even his jaundiced eyeballs were encroached with tiny blood vessels that put Mungo in mind of Garibaldi’s vanilla