Nico appeared suddenly, his curls bouncing. Levi frowned at his best friend. His curls were no longer blond but a coppery red color, victim to another one of Ever’s firsts: hair dye. It had started out as a much darker, weirder red a few months ago, but was now fading like autumn leaves. Unlike Ever’s hair, which was still cotton candy pink, an oddly complimentary look to Arsen’s teal blue.
Side by side, they looked like highlighters.
Levi missed Nico’s blond. He hoped it made a comeback soon. He couldn’t believe the things his friends let Ever get away with. Hell, he couldn’t believe the thingshelet Ever get away with.
He ran them all around by the nose.
Well, except Arsen. Ever led him around by an entirely different body part. Arsen would chop off his own arm if Ever asked him to. He’d even gift wrap it first.
“What’s the big emergency?” Nico asked. “Is this about your runaway bride? I saw him doing the walk of shame out of the apartment last night. Didn’t even stick around for breakfast. I’m assuming you didn’t kick him out considering Ever’s message in the group chat?”
Levi sent Ever a betrayed look. “et tu, Ever?”
He at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed.
Nico patted Ever’s head, smirking at Levi. “Don’t take your lack of post-sex manners out on the baby.”
Levi flicked him off, earning a cheeky smile, before he dropped into the seat beside Felix.
“So, yousawhim?” Seven asked, both he and Ever leaning forward, Ever now practically sitting on Seven’s back to get closer to the gossip.
Levi turned an icy glare on Nico, who blatantly ignored it. “Oh, yeah. I saw him.”
“And?” Ever and Seven said at the same time.
“Did you start this meeting without us?” Lake called, ambling up, hands in his pockets, looking like an Abercrombie model in a black tank top that shouldn’t have looked good but did. Cree drifted along behind him like he was being pulled in his wake, his long dark hair braided down his back.
They both plopped down next to Seven, Lake frowning as his gaze bounced between them. “What is happening here?” he asked, drawing out thewhat.
“What do you mean?” Levi muttered, feeling huffy that his friends were hindering more than helping at this point.
Lake snorted. “I mean, why do you look stabby, and why is Ever playing a weirdly erotic game of leap frog with Seven while his man is ten feet away?”
Ever looked down at himself and, seeming to realize that he was perched on Seven’s back, popped off him and returned to the back of the couch, turning almost the same shade of pink as his hair.
Another pang had Levi’s heart seizing. Shiloh had blushed like that. He’d been so sweet, so sad…so warm and willing. Levi had fucked a lot of people, some he’d even liked, but nobody had ever clung to him like that, whimpered and whined and moaned for him like that, got so desperate they tried to fuck themselves on his thigh like that.
Fuck, he was getting turned on all over again. Was it wrong to want someone so damaged? Wasn’t Levi damaged, too? All the textbooks said that two damaged people shouldn’t be together, that they were toxic, but all his friends were in committed relationships with people who society firmly believed were past the point of help. And they were all happy. Levi just wanted to be happy, too.
“Nico saw Levi’s sad boy,” Ever said. “He was gonna tell us about him.”
“The felonious one night stand? You saw him?” Lake asked, practically salivating. To Levi, he said, “Only you would have a guy threaten to kill you and think the answer was to fuck them.”
“Yeah, boning strangers is usually Nico’s gig,” Felix said, picking at his cuticles.
Nico arched a brow, staring pointedly at Felix. “Wow. Just because I didn’t marry the first guy I slept with, you’re gonna slut shame me?”
Levi was hardly listening now. Shiloh didn’t feel like a stranger. Holding him, kissing him, finding ways to pull those sweet sounds from him had felt…right. At least, to him. But not Shiloh, apparently. Was it wrong that he was feeling a little sorry for himself? Shiloh’s life was shit. That much was apparent. Levi’s life was shit, too. Though far less so than it had been. He just wanted to take care of Shiloh. To keep him safe. To gut his brother with a hook like something out of a horror movie.
Levi got it now—how Arsen had taken one look at Ever and decided he belonged to him. Shiloh hadn’t strayed from Levi’s thoughts for a single second since he’d barged into his life. The need to care for and comfort him was near pathological. Not knowing where he was and if he was okay was making him crazy.
Was Micah hurting him again? Was he sad? Cold? Hungry? Did he even have a place to live? These were all questions he should have asked the night before, but he’d gotten sidetracked with Shiloh’s bold admission and subsequent freak out.
Nico leaned in. “He seemed embarrassed. Gave this cute little wave before he ran like he was Usain Bolt.”
“A runner, huh?” Felix asked. “Interesting.”
“Maybe he was being forced to go home,” Ever said.
