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After everything I’d been through with seeing dad looking so weak, vulnerable, and sick, I was fast losing the will to fight anymore.
By the time I’d thought all this, he’d rounded the front of the truck to the passenger-side door, and was holding it open for me as though he was some kind of Prince Charming. I almost burst out laughing at the irony. Instead, I sighed loudly, and got into the car, against my better judgment.
I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was going on, but the energy to try to decipher it seemed to be leaving my body at an alarming rate. It had been a long and eventful day and not in a good way. I was just about done.
The fact was all I ever did was fight, and I was tired. Fight to keep my head above water. Fight to keep Dad the right side of healthy, or at least as much as was possible given his declining condition. Fight for work. Life was a constant battle, and I never seemed to be winning.
I rested my head against the window and let the heaviness pull my eyelids closed. If I was going to let this freak drive me home, I could at least benefit from the fact, and catch up on some much-needed, but ever-scarce sleep.
“Where to?” I had no idea how long I’d been out, but the sound of Drew’s voice startled me awake, and it took me a few moments to realize where the hell I was. Then a few more to remember why I was there.
“Hmm?” I muttered groggily.
“Well, I know you think I’m as dumb as dirt, but I’m pretty sure that even the smartest guy couldn’t work out where you live just by looking at you, so if you want to get home, you’re going to have to tell me your address.”
Chapter 11
Drew
We drove in silence each lost in our own worlds. It had been a long and weird day—and it was only mid-afternoon—starting early, as it had, with the cryptic call from Xavier, then everything with Kik at the golf club, plus all the shit I’d been doing since then to make sure she exited my family’s lives sooner, rather than later.
I replayed the call with Xavier in my mind for the hundredth time.
“Someone had better be dead or dying for you to call me at this time, especially after last night.” I was hungover, grouchy as hell about what had happened with Kik the night before, and had the worst case of blue balls for the same reason.
All around, not my finest hour, and definitely not the best time for me to be dealing with Xavier’s crap. I turned a blind eye to most of his bullshit, the majority of the time, but everyone had their limits, and now and again, I reached mine with Xavier.
“Not yet, but if you don’t wake the fuck up and get to work, it can definitely be arranged.” The growl in his voice told me he meant business. I rolled my eyes, and propped myself up on my elbow, attempting to blow the cobwebs from my brain, and concentrate on something other than my pounding temples, throbbing dick, and almost inexplicable desire to bury it deep inside a certain erotic performer—which, if I thought about it too long, was pretty fucked-up. In a way, I should be thankful to Xavier for taking my mind off my own stupidity, in favor of focusing on his.
“Full of the joys of spring as ever, I see, Mr. Cross. Who put shit in your sandwich today, or need I ask?” I already knew the answer, but sometimes I enjoyed poking the bear, just to pass the time. This was clearly one of those occasions.
“I literally don’t have time for your bullshit. I want you to pull the cygnets together for tonight. I have the perfect hazing for them, but it’s going to take some work to pull together.” With my brain still only partially functioning, I struggled to assimilate this new information.
I honestly sometimes couldn’t keep up with the scale of Xavier’s crazy. It was next level on a normal day, but today it seemed to have exceeded even his own outrageous limits, and reached a new high. Or, more accurately, low.
“Tonight? Why the hurry?” I wondered if I sounded more lucid than I felt, though I sincerely doubted it. Not that I really cared. The fact was, if he was self-absorbed enough to call me before the early birds were catching anything but Zs, he deserved whatever booze and sleep-addled version of me he got. Calling before dawn, the morning after a night like last night? He should have considered himself lucky that I was vaguely conscious, and gave just enough fucks to even pick up his call.
Anything even vaguely coherent that occurred past that point was a bonus, as far as I was concerned. I kept this train of thought to myself.
“Because, I fucking said so. Do you need any other reason?”
“I guess not. I should know by now not to look for method in your madness.”
I wanted to extract whatever orders he had to hand down sooner rather than later, so that I could try to squeeze in a little more sleep before I needed to start the day for real. If I threw a hand grenade of backchat his way, he’d flip his shit, and the whole thing would be needlessly drawn out before getting to the inevitable—he’d bark out orders, and I’d carry them out. I’d also flip him off and tell him to suck my balls more times than was considered decent, while still doing his bidding.
I had a love-hate relationship with the nature of our friendship. Sometimes I just couldn’t take Xavier’s heavy-handed, “my way or the highway” style. Other days we gelled, and it was all good. Today seemed to be the former.
“If you’re not careful, you’re gonna be looking for my shoe in your ass.”
As my cursory attempt at not pissing him off had failed big time, I decided to embrace my ability to add fuel to the fire of his rage. “I’m terrified. What do you need, oh intense one?”
I smirked. Not that he could see me, but it still brought me satisfaction to know I was doing it. Baiting Xavier, and having him act out as a result was a perversely entertaining sport, but not for the first time, it had me wondering if our friendship was healthy, then laughing to myself at the absurdity of the notion. Of course it wasn’t. Not even close. But then nothing with Xavier Cross at the center was. Not one damned thing.
Once he’d explained his “urgent” list of requirements, I decided to call the rest of the Northern Cross—the three other guys who led Cygnus Dei along with Xavier and myself—and assign them their tasks. Partly I was being efficient, and wanted to ensure everything got done to Xavier’s specifications, and partly I just wanted to share the love—if I had to be up at the ass crack of dawn, so did they. I was an asshole like that.
“It wasn’t me.” Fox sounded both half asleep, and totally ready for action.
“What wasn’t?”
