I’d finished college on my own dime and hadn’t had contact with them since they cut me off. In a way, I’d always known their abandonment would come eventually. But it felt like sometimes, X was trying to love me extra in their absence, which I didn’t really mind.
I glowed under his attention.
“X will need to make sure you get to and from work safely,” Shane announced as he came out of the bathroom. X leaned back from me, and I paused Love in the Air to give him my undivided attention. “I’m cutting back to appointments only at the shop.” He tugged his phone from his pocket when it began vibrating, then grunted and lifted it to his ear.
“What the fuck do you mean you’re cutting back to appointments only, Shane?” I heard a guy loudly snap.
Shane didn’t say a word, just walked past us and toward the apartment door. X’s lip curled in annoyance as he stared at the apartment door, which was closed once more.
“His boss?” I asked.
X nodded. “Zeppelin Hendrix. If you think I’m an asshole, just wait until you meet him. I lack certain emotions. Zeppelin just chooses to be a dick.” He looked at me. “He saved Shane, which is how they met. Stopped him from committing suicide. But I still don’t like him.”
I snorted a laugh. X had warned me of Shane’s past, but told me he was also now stable. I just hoped that all this mess didn’t somehow set Shane back and make things bad for him again. I wasn’t sure if I could live with the guilt of up-ending Shane’s world to where shit got bad for him again and he ended up back at square one.
“Do you think he’ll be okay?” I asked.
X nodded and dropped a kiss to the top of my head. “Shane’s the kind of man who needs a purpose. Protecting you is right up his alley, baby.”
I hoped he was right.
Chapter 10
Shane
“Don’t you sit there and pull this silent shit on me, Shane,” Zeppelin snapped as I shut the apartment door behind me so I had some privacy. “What the fuck do you mean you’re only doing appointments? And why the fuck does my security feed show you leaving with a duffel bag? Where the fuck are you going? You better not be doing something stupid?—”
“I’m not,” I said, interrupting his tirade. It wasn’t often Zeppelin got worked up. Sure, he was an asshole, but he was an asshole with snarky comments and a shitty view of the world. He wasn’t one to get worked up like this. But I knew why he was. He was thinking back to when he found me damn near ready to commit suicide, to end it all because I didn’t see a reason to stay alive when I had no purpose.
He thought I was starting to no longer give a shit again, but he was so far from wrong. In fact, I was starting to give too much of a shit. Packing a bag and bunking with Preston and X to protect them from a shit storm they’d caused? That wasn’t me. But after seeing Preston’s frightened expression, saw him losing his shit because he thought X was dead somewhere, saw how much X struggled to be a good person for Preston?
I couldn’t just walk away from that. Couldn’t turn my back on that. Especially not now when X’s hacker friend was unaccounted for. But if Preston had been delivered an ear… X’s little friend wasn’t coming home. And that was a warning that Preston could be next.
I could’ve understood if whoever was doing this went after X, since he’d been the one to do the digging. But going after Preston? Something wasn’t adding up. The government, while fucking shitholes, didn’t do sloppy. Not on the level I worked. We were clean. Efficient. We didn’t deliver body parts in little cardboard boxes, and we didn’t bother with warnings.
Which meant we were more than likely dealing with something or someone else.
“What the fuck is going on, Shane? You’ve been acting weird ever since that kid showed up at the shop demanding you do a free-hand tattoo on him. He fuck with you? Because if so, Logan and I can deal with him.”
Logan and Zeppelin rarely saw eye to eye. They spent every moment in each other’s presence riling each other up and damn near coming to blows sometimes. But when it came to family, the two banded together like long-lost best friends.
I sighed. “I’m fine, Zep,” I promised. “I’m not going off the rails. I’m not standing on the edge of a building. I’m not standing on a bridge.”
“Then where the fuck are you?” Zeppelin demanded. “I don’t like this, Shane. I’ve kept my distance. Let you just do you, but if you?—”
“I’m with him,” I said. Silence met my ears. I pinched the bridge of my nose. I was so tired of talking. To everyone. This was the most talking I’d done in years, and fuck, my vocal cords were starting to hurt. “I’m with X, the guy from the shop, and his boyfriend, Preston. I’ll even send you an address, and you can do a fucking wellness check. But for the love of fuck, Zeppelin, I’m okay.”
He sighed, and when he spoke again, he sounded calmer. “You getting dick?”
My patience was wearing thin. And how he did a fucking one-eighty like this was beyond me. I had no fucking idea how Jaxon and Eros, his husbands, put up with him because Zeppelin was driving me to the brink of insanity in just one goddamn phone call.
“Not that it’s any of your fucking business, but no,” I bit out. “I’m hanging up now. I’ll text the address, but for the love of fuck, Zep, learn boundaries.”
He scoffed like the idea was ludicrous. “What the fuck are boundaries?”
Not bothering to respond since he’d just keep going, I hung up the phone, then leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes for a moment. A headache was forming at my temples, and I knew before long, it would turn into a migraine because they always did. I just needed food and sleep. In that order. And ASAP.
Pushing off the wall, I walked back into the apartment. My phone buzzed, and when I looked down at it, I scowled at Zeppelin’s text.