“He’s not lazy.”
“I know. I was going for levity in case your soul cracks and dies before we get him back.”
“He’s coming back.”
Rubi rubbed my shoulder and fiddled with his phone. The tinny sound of distant music breeched the quiet.
“What is that?”
“Pixies, duh. Easing him in before we piss him off.”
“What comes next?”
“Chas and Dave.Why’s this cunt raving about a fucking rabbit?”
Rubi’s impression of Saint was so uncanny, the nausea I’d suppressed for hours,days, bubbled over.
I pushed back from the bed and stumbled to the sink, emptying my guts of the chocolate bars and fizzy crap my brothers—myfamily— kept forcing on me.
Rubi stayed with Saint, talking shit to him, rubbing his forearm, avoiding his black and blue chest and the horrific surgical wound that carved up his beautiful abdomen.
“It’s bigger than Embry’s,” he commented absently.
I wiped my mouth. “Is he still here?”
“We all are, pres. No one’s leaving till we know he’s okay.”
“How long has it been?”
“Too long.”
“Not helping.”
A shadowy smile floated through Rubi’s tense features. “Don’t worry about time. Worry about him. We got the rest.”
“All of it?”
Rubi nodded. “Even nobbled with a fucked-up knee, Nash has this shit. Don’t think about anything else.”
“Any news on Rocco?”
“Cam, leave it. You have to trust us.”
“I do.”
“Sure about that?”
I wasn’t sure of anything save the gaping holes in my existence right now. “Have you seen Alexei?”
“Not yet.”
Another piece of me died. “My phone’s flat.”
Rubi cringed. “Fuck. Sorry. That’s why I came in here. I brought you a power bank.”
He produced it from his pocket. Took my phone from me and connected it.
After a while, my phone flashed to life. Too long ago to remember, I’d saved the number of the phone Alexei used for his painfully normal day job under the name Shirt Dude. It wasn’t the number he’d originally given me—that one had flown out of the car window weeks ago—but he’d given it to me anyway, just in case.