“Aren’t you?”
“No. It’s just complicated. You don’t understand—”
“You’re right, I don’t, and saying it’s complicated doesn’t get you off the hook. I assume the lawsuit and all the energy you’ve ploughed into it relates to us having a leg to stand on when you eventually start negotiating with him.”
“Maybe. Something like that.” His plans weren’t exactly concrete.
“However, I can’t help thinking that Alle’s needs should have taken precedence.”
Xane bowed his head. It looked bad, he knew that. “I’m not deliberately being a prick, Luth.”
“And yet you have been…are being. What the fuck is going on, eh? Are you going to tell me, or don’t you trust me either?”
“Luth.”
Luthor batted away Xane’s attempt to hold him. “Do you or do you not trust me?”
“I do.”
“Right, then talk. Seriously, cut the bullshit, and open the tap.”
Acute agitation set Xane rotating his lip piercing. Where the hell did he even start?
The defamation suit was the only thing that had kept him going these last months. He’d forced himself into the fight. Used it as a means of living one day to the next without cracking up under pressure. Plunged himself deep into that fight to distract himself from the black wave that threatened to overwhelm him. He understood Allegra’s pain, all too well. He’d been standing on that same cliff’s edge for far too long. Too often it felt like one good gust would be enough to knock him over. He closed his eyes, using the moment to ground himself the way he’d been taught in multiple rehab establishments, knowledge he’d never found much use for prior to five months ago.
“Are you planning on making contact with him now you’ve won the suit?” Luthor asked in response to his cogitating. “You are, even if you’ve not admitted it to yourself yet. Aw, fuck, Xane.” Warmth seeped into his body as Luthor cradled his face in his palms. When Xane opened his eyes, his lover’s mismatched irises were glossy with love. “Was I getting a goodbye before you jetted off?”
He didn’t waste his breath on a denial. “Luthor, I can’t tell them. I can’t expose him to that. Shit!” He tugged free of the embrace and set to pacing.
“Expose him?” Luthor echoed, falling into step. “Xane, what the hell? Will you please just tell me what’s going on?”
“He doesn’t need the whole band descending on him.”
“Okay, but they’d get that, so what’s the real reason?”
Again, he rotated his piercing. “If I tell them, it’ll get back to Alle,” he said all in a rush. “Shit. Shitting shit!”
Luthor’s expression was everything he could have predicted, incredulity mixed with confusion with an extra dash ofwhat the fuck!“Yeah, you’re going to have to explain that one. Why the fuck wouldn’t you want her to know?”
“Because” —Xane sagged onto the sofa edge and planted his head in his hands— “the last thing he said to me was to keep her away from him.”
Luthor’s arms shot out wide of his body. “I’m sure he didn’t fucking meanthis. Xane, he was completely fucked up. I saw him. You know what state he was in. He wasn’t thinking straight. He was barely conscious.”
Xane curled his fingers against his mouth. He’d not said what he was about to say to anyone. Hadn’t even admitted it aloud to himself. “You didn’t see him at the hospital. He was plenty cognisant, Luthor. I don’t think…” Fuck it! “That attack wasn’t random. It wasn’t some dickheads who found their way in through a fence. It was her brother. Alle’s brother. It was Flynn. The person who cracked Spook’s head open like a fucking egg was Flynn Hutton.”
“No! No fucking way.”
“I’m serious.”
“Alle’s brother—”
“Christ! Keep your voice down.” Xane dropped his to a grizzled whisper.
Luthor joined him on the sofa, so they could talk with their heads together. “Did Spook tell you that?”
“I can’t prove it,” Xane replied, to avoid getting into the details of what exactly had been said and left unsaid. “And I don’t think she knows. I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in being the one to enlighten her. And even assuming we ever persuade him to re-join us, there’s no guarantee he’s going to ever want to see her. I’m not leading her to him, Luthor. I can’t. Not until he’s specifically told me it’s okay. And the God’s honest truth is that I don’t know for definite that she’s not involved. I just hope—”
“Oh, come on. There’s no fucking way! You don’t believe that, Xane.”
