“Answers?” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What’s going on?” Gannon, their other childhood friend, walked in from the kitchen, heading to the bar to take the bottle and glass from Aneski’s hands. He motioned for him to take a seat and filled it the rest of the way himself before handing it over. “Why do you look so put out?”
“He spent the night with Flix Fulmini,” Rex revealed, crossing his arms when that earned him a glare.
“What?” Gannon’s brow furrowed. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
“Why do you think?” Ani ran a hand frustratedly through his hair and dropped back on the couch. He was exhausted from having stayed up all night, and his entire body still ached from all the rough sex. At least the impromptu ink Flix had given him was healed already. Had Flix applied sun scream on it? That was the only explanation for why it was fine in less than twenty-four hours.
Ani had checked it before the shower at Flix’s as best he could, twisting and turning in the mirror to try and catch sight of the reflection. He’d only seen a bit of it, so later he’d snapped a photo with his multi-slate. It was pretty basic, just a single lightning bolt at the center of the back of his neck, and he didn’t understand the meaning behind it, but…He wasn’t mad. It was kind of cool. Definitely beat a cigarette burn.
Had Flix done the tattoo himself, or had another person been in the house when Aneski was unconscious?
Good Light, what if that other person had been made to tattoo himwhilehe was impaled on Flix’s cock?
Groaning, he dropped his head into his hands. None of these things should be his biggest concern, not hardly. What he should have been worried about was Russ and the lack of answers he’d received.
“Did he tell you anything?” Rex clapped him on the back, clearly taking pity on him finally.
“He said he didn’t do it.”
“And you believe him?” Gannon didn’t sound convinced, but…
“He doesn’t have a reason to lie.”
“He doesn’t need one,” he reminded. “He’s a Devil. They can do whatever they want without consequence.”
“It’s not like he had an excuse for why he left the way he did,” Rex joined in, pursing his lips as he thought it over. “He ghosted you like that right after the funeral…It was messed up.”
Ani turned to him. “So you think he did do it, and he just isn’t saying?”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Oh, come on,” Gannon rolled his eyes.
“I never thought Flix killed Russ,” Rexton continued despite that reaction. He held Ani’s gaze steadily with his own. “And neither did you.”
He blew out a breath. No, he really hadn’t. He’d been angry all this time for the way things had ended, for the lack of communication, but he’d always held firm to what he’d said the first time it’d been suggested Flix could have done it.
“He had more reasons not to murder Russ than he did to do it,” he murmured.
“You two are unbelievable.” Gannon was the same age and roughly the same height, but he always thought of himself as older and wiser. It was sort of something the two of them put up with because when it really counted, he was the one they turned to for comfort. However, the flip side of that coin was he didn’t hold back when he didn’t agree with them. “Are you forgetting what Bowser told us?”
“The guy who skipped town the second he graduated?” Rexton lifted a brow. “Come on.”
“No one was planning on staying in this gang forever,” Gannon said. “We’re all just using it to get by. Like the two of you don’t plan on going off and finding fancy jobs the moment you’re able.”
Aneski planned on becoming a sculptor, which meant if his career didn’t take off before the end of graduation, he’d most likely be jobless for a while. Rex was a little better off. He was already in talks to work with a novelist who wanted character drawings in their next novel series.
One of them had slacked off a bit more than the other…
It was him. Ani had slacked. He’d spent the past few years hyper-fixated on taking the Shepards from Haroon and his stupid plan to kidnap Flix. Technically, he hadn’t needed one before the other, but he’d been prideful.
It always seemed like it would be different to approach Flix again once he was in a position of power, and since leader of the Shepards was about as high as he could climb in this city, it’d been the obvious choice to wait it out. Now though…Now, it felt like he’d botched it all.
“Look,” Gannon sighed and sat on Ani’s other side, wrapping an arm over his shoulders to pull him in for a side hug. “You did it, okay? You took back your brother’s gang. Haroon is dead, Bowser is gone, and there’s no one left to challenge youfor the role. Can’t you just be satisfied and focus on our future? Time isn’t exactly going to wait for you, not like how I have.”
That last part was spoken as if in jest, but Rex shared a knowing look with Aneski and then cleared his throat and stood.
