To Catch A Thief

Chapter Five

Alessio is showering when I wake up, so I get dressed and go downstairs before I can see him. I can't believe I asked him to hold me when he's usually scared of touching me. I can't believe that it was nice, the way he held on so tight. I clench my fists, trying to get rid of the memory of how his arms wrapped around me. Instead, I turn my focus onto something foreign to me: hotel breakfast. The hotel Em worked in didn't have one, so I was shocked when I went downstairs to a full breakfast spread before me.

I had been hoping to get outside to escape the walls of the hotel, but I began to speedwalk towards the buffet. I loaded my plate and found a table in a corner where I could watch the entire room. However, the flaw in this plan was that I was too focused on the food to see Captain Weeks approach my table and sit next to me.

"What?" I grumble with a full mouth.

"Good morning to you too," he says without cheer. I think that me and him have an understanding typical of the grumpy veterans from Tent Town.

I shrug at his intrusion and get another plate from the buffet. He is still sitting at the table by the time I get back. Great. He wants something.

"Are you planning on wearing that to the competition?" He gives my clothes a once-over. I'm a bit offended. These are my "good" clothes that I use whenever I pretend to be rich to get onto a ship. The button up shirt is missing a couple of buttons but I thought I painted a good enough replacement. I would have sewn, but I never learned. My mom was always too worried about me stabbing someone with the sewing needles and only ever taught Em before she died. Hughie would have taught me, but he was busy. Laundry was something nobody in my family was good at, which would explain the stain I was unable to get out of the knee of my good pants. Still, they usually worked on the docks.

"And?" I put another bite of egg in my mouth.

"I brought you something else in case you showed up in something like that." Captain Weeks has no food in front of him, and I wonder if he's never considered how lovely the concept of a buffet is. I continue to eat my eggs.

"There's nothing wrong with my clothes," I say for no reason other than to contradict him. I don't mind that the royal guard is supplying me with new clothes but I resent the assumption that I wouldn't have anything "good enough".

"Take the clothes, Miss Allen. I think you're aware of how this arrangement works. I tell you what to do and you listen, otherwise—" Captain Weeks stops, sensing somebody behind him. It's Alessio, wet hair over his face.

"Otherwise, what?" Alessio says dryly, "because it sounds like you are threatening my friend."

"We were just chatting." Captain Weeks hands me a duffel bag, then leaves to get some breakfast. not answering Alessio's question.

"If he hurts you, I'll fire him." Alessio says with absolute conviction.

"What's your deal with wanting to hurt people for me? I can hurt people all by myself." I try and make him smile, but it doesn't work.

"Trust me, I know."

He knows. He saw me attempt to maim someone and then stomp in their wound. I wish he hadn't had to see that, more than anything.

"Well, I don't want you to." I get up to grab another plate from the buffet and Alessio follows me. Even though I know I should be going for the protein sources to get the most out of this meal, something sentimental in me grabs a bowl of cereal with milk.

We don't argue for the rest of breakfast, only harmlessly bicker about his odds of winning the competition. I don't tell him that I've already bet on him using some cash I took out of the captain's wallet.