Ever shook his head harder. “No.”
Levi frowned. “Ever isn’t your name?”
He felt like he’d been punched in the diaphragm. “No,” he wailed, hating the sound of his own voice.
Nico looked at Arsen then Levi before asking, “What is your name?”
“I didn’t have one,” Ever said quietly.
“Didn’t have one?” Nico said. “Like, at all?”
Ever shook his head, the heat of his embarrassment thawing some of the ice in his veins.
“Everybody has a name, right?” Levi asked, looking back and forth between Arsen and Nico.
Ever shrugged, voice dull. “She just called me ‘boy.’ She said I didn’t need a name. She said it would be like naming the dishwasher or garbage disposal. Even pets had names, but not me. I wasn’t even human to her.”
They all stood quietly for a moment or two before Arsen took his hand, squeezing it. “Are you sure he called you Ever?”
Ever nodded. “He definitely did.”
Levi shook his head. “How would he know that?”
“I mean, it’s hardly a secret,” Nico said. At their confused looks, he shook his head like they were all dumb. “Ever is all over Arsen’s live streams. They’ve been all over town. Wherever they go, people fall all over themselves talking about how adorable and sweet he is. Someone is bound to be talking about the boy who seemed to have dropped from the sky never having eaten a Snickers or scrambled eggs. Jamesville is literally the city next door. Isn’t that where you took him to the bookstore?”
Arsen nodded gravely.
“I should leave,” Ever said again, fear ratcheting up with each passing moment—not for himself but for them. He couldn’t live with himself if anything happened to them because of him. He wasn’t worth all this.
Arsen gripped his chin hard, turning him to look him in the eye, his face as stern as Ever had ever seen it. “You’re not leaving. That’s never happening. Not to protect me or them or anybody but you. Got it?”
Ever blinked at him. “Okay,” he said, breathless.
“Good.”
Arsen knew that whenever there was a crisis of this magnitude, Jericho had no choice but to call in reinforcements. Reinforcements like his in-laws, the Mulvaneys. He knew Jericho would bring Atticus. He’d also known the drama of stabbing someone in the shop would bring Felix and his husband, Avi. However, he hadn’t expected to get Avi’s twin brother, Asa, or his husband, Zane.
Arsen was just grateful the whole Mulvaney clan hadn’t shown up. Ever wasn’t quite ready for that level of chaos. He sat on the counter, legs crossed, bottom lip trapped beneath bunny teeth, watching Asa and Avi with interest and maybe a little trepidation. The two weren’t incredibly tall, but they were broad and muscular, and so identical they could be bookends. Mirror twins, opposite in every way.
Nico and Levi hovered close to Ever, like self-appointed bodyguards, placing a physical barrier between Ever and the corpse on the ground. Knowing his friends wanted to protect Ever made Arsen’s heart trip a little. He was lucky to have all these people in his life. Ever slipped his headphones onto his ears, but there was no music playing in them. It was just one more barrier between him and the world.
Avi ran a hand through his deep brown hair, then crossed tattooed arms over his chest, whistling low. “A screwdriver to the brainstem. Gnarly.”
“Mm,” Asa agreed. “I didn’t think you had it in you, firestarter.”
Arsen rolled his eyes at the nickname. No matter how many times he told them Arsen was short for Arseny and not a nickname given for a felony, they ignored him. He’d just stopped trying. “He was going to…hurt…Ever.”
Arsen tamped down the bile trying to claw its way up his esophagus. What would have happened if he hadn’t gotten there in time? Gruesome images flooded his brain, but he pushed them away even as his pulse thudded hard in his ears. He never should have left him alone, not even for a minute.
“Hey,” Avi said, dragging him from his thoughts. “We get it. I’d kill anyone who even looked at Felix sideways.” When Felix didn’t react, Avi nudged him. “Hey, I’m being romantic here.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “Two days ago, you threatened to rip a guy’s heart out because he forgot your queso. Forgive me if I’m not swooning.” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “Besides, I can take care of myself.”
It was true. Felix might look like a pampered trophy wife, but he had claws. Literally. Silver-tipped claws gifted to him by his husband—claws Arsen had witnessed him use first-hand to geld a pedophile. If Arsen had to put money on who would win in a fight between Avi and Felix, he’d back Felix every time. And not just because Avi was obsessed with him.
Zane, however, wasn’t a fighter. He was all brain, no brawn. He was a reporter and a true crime writer, which came in handy when the people closest to you were largely responsible for the exceedingly high number of unsolved murder cases in the city.
Zane crowded closer to Felix, who absently lifted his hand to Zane’s springy dark curls, fingers winding through them without thought, like he was petting him. Felix and Zane were…close. Arsen pretended it was just because they all lived together and did his best not to ponder how close the four of them truly were.
