The hand on my shoulder tensed.
“I’m a cardiologist,” the man said like someone had asked. “What are you doing now?”
“I work,” the son of a bitch with his arm over my shoulders answered.
I almost choked.
But this man who used to know Alex in school wasn’t deterred. “Did you just get here? I’d love to catch up. I haven’t seen hardly anyone since graduation. We just moved back from San Francisco. Where did you go—”
The more people you knew, the more you had to lie. And Alex’s contacts weren’t in anymore. How many did he used to have to go through when he’d gone to school? Hundreds?
“We need to get going, actually,” Alex cut in smoothly. “Take care, Greg.”
Greg?
“Nice meeting you,” I helped him as we turned. Alex instantly ignored the small family as we speed-walked away, me clutching my cat as tight as I could.
We pretty much ran to the car, and it wasn’t until we got inside that I said, “You know damn well his name wasn’t Greg.”
“No, it’s Phillip Kennedy the Third. I couldn’t stand him in high school. I could tell from his cologne I still wouldn’t like him. He had so much of it on. I didn’t recognize him until the last second,” Alex muttered, turning the car on.
I hugged the stuffed animal on my lap and pressed my cheek against it. “I could tell.” I thought about it. “You went to a fancy private school? You don’t act or talk like a spoiled rich kid.”
“We weren’t spoiled. We had chores. My parents had no problem telling us ‘no.’ We ate dinner together as a family almost every night. They made us do community service every other weekend. We watched TV. Only Achilles and Athena act like they’re better than everyone.”
“I can’t picture you scrubbing a toilet for allowance money or putting up with people at Andover Prep.” I put way too much enthusiasm into the name of his school. It sounded made up.
He looked at me, and I could tell his shoulders relaxed. “It wasn’t easy. Phillip tried to get these guys to beat me up our freshman year.”
“No,” I gasped.
He nodded.
“What happened?”
“Odi pulled the fire alarm to stop it.”
“But you could have beat the shit out of him.” He could have done way more than that. What an idiot!
His laugh was so genuine it felt the same way in my chest as an ice cream cone did on a hot day. “Yeah, then I would’ve gotten the shit beat out of me.”
“By your brothers?”
Alex huffed. “I wish. Alana. But it’d be easier than picking on a baby. It’s the first thing we’re taught: the strong don’t pick on the weak. Even if we want to and they deserve it.”
That was something else to think about. I side-eyed him. “I can take his wife and kid if you want me to.”
Alex leaned against the back of the seat, his eyes glowing briefly in the dark cabin of the car. “You would fight the kid too?”
I hugged the Hello Kitty a little bit tighter. “You don’t take care of the kid, he’ll grow up and come after you in the future. Come on, Alex, you’re better than this. You probably don’t read comics, but everyone knows this. The Electro-Man movies are really good; you might enjoy them if you gave them a chance.”
His eyes briefly glowed bright again, and I was pretty sure I saw a smirk on that perfect face. “Yeah, I might.” His smirk got even bigger. “I just might.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
It was settled.I was going to see how long Alex could hold his breath when I held a pillow over his face later.
When he wasn’t expecting it.
