He’d already warned me that he wasn’t used to taking care of people. That he didn’t want to like me. If it had taken his family weeks to start worrying about him and his disappearance, it was for a reason. Why worry about people who were 99.9999999 percent invincible?
So why would Alex even think about calling someone to check in with them? Why would he think about callingmeto let me know he was fine? We were friends, yeah, but we were top 10 best friends.
At least he was my top 10 best friend.
A little higher than that if I wanted to think about it.
I tried not to get too hung up on it.
Fortunately, I’d been busy while he’d been away. I still hadn’t decided how to proceed with my career as a teacher, which bummed me the hell out. If I launched a new site with conveniently all the same languages the cartel had found books for at my house, they would find me. Probably pretty easily unfortunately. I had changed focus to starting to learn the basics for Japanese. I’d known it was going to be hard, but I hadn’t anticipated just how difficult. I had taken for granted how easily I had picked up every other one I’d learned. One night, Hiromi had confirmed that my “talent” for languages was part of my Atraxian gift.
On that same night, Selene had taken my hand and told me about a cousin of mine that she’d found in Costa Rica named Valentina. One year ago, this Valentina deposited ten thousand dollars into her bank account in cash. Almost immediately, she used every penny to pay a hospital bill.
I couldn’t even muster up that much anger over it. If she had given away my name to pay off her debt, I understood. I was no one to her but a name.
She was a traitor, but I didn’t blame her.
I didn’t have a whole lot going for me being in this weird limbo situation, but I did have one thing that lifted my spirits.
I finally had people in my life.People I liked a lot. I had friendships with a twenty-five-year-old, a twenty-one-year-old, a three-year-old who was stronger than me, and a terrifying woman I had a feeling was a hell of a lot older than she looked.
It made me wonder how old Alex would eventually be. How old my grandfather had actually been. I knew now that he hadn’t been lying when he’d whispered to me that he was turning one hundred so many years ago.
He’d told me the truth.
The knowledge made my heart so full.
Over the last month, I usually spent time with at least one of Alex’s family members every day. On that first evening with Selene and Hiromi, we’d gone to buy groceries… and gone back to his house with a couple frozen pizzas and a pack of raspberry beer that we’d destroyed in record time while we watched a reality show about an attractive man on the hunt for the love of his life.
The day after that, Hiromi had shown up and taken me with her to get my hair cut and colored. I think they’d called it a “balayage job” or something like that. I didn’t remember, but apparently I’d told her all about wearing a wig the day before. She hadn’t let me pay for it either, saying it was an early birthday present. In hindsight, I couldn’t believe I’d drank enough to do that, but it made me glad I hadn’t trusted my big mouth around people, otherwise who the hell knows what I might have told a total stranger.
After that, Selene showed up with a USB-looking stick, and we’d watched a not-yet-released Shinto Comics movie about Justine Justice. That was the night I learned that she handled “privacy matters,” or as Hiromi had explained immediately after, she was a “fucking hacker.” Apparently, she had set up some kind of program or algorithm that alerted whatever member of the Trinity was closest to natural disasters and specific kinds of emergencies. And here I’d thought they had some kind of team with a hotline that people called into.
I’d also figured out the night before that Hiromi bounced around jobs because she couldn’t get to work on time, and the family wouldn’t hire her. The Akita side or the Shinto comics side, which was also known as the Drakos part of the family.
Another day, Grandmother and Asami had paid me a second visit with a different board game. Then she had asked me to drive her to her daughter’s house. I’d wanted to say no, but my balls had picked up and walked away, so I did. That’s where I got to meet Alex’s dad, a tall, lean man with dark, serious eyes but a warm smile that told me exactly where The Primordial got it from. The energy coming off him had been a warm, steady one that was the complete opposite of his wife’s. I had wondered just what gifts he had.
One evening, Hiromi brought Asami over, and the little girl found an Xbox in the TV stand that I swore hadn’t been there the last time I’d gone through the cabinets. On top of it had been a brand-new copy of a racing game and one with a blue hedgehog. We played that night, and when they left, I played by myself afterward too. It had made me smile. Another afternoon, I met up with Selene for lunch and had been surprised when that “snobby shit” Achilles showed up with Asami, and he’d been surprisingly loving toward his daughter and little sister.
To my continued fucking surprise, he’d called me three days later and asked if I would be interested in tutoring Asami in Spanish. I hadn’t even thought about it, I agreed instantly. He brought her over the very next day, and from the way it sounded, he and his wife were interested in having me teach her more languages in the future. I had warned him I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be close by—and he’d frowned before his phone rang and distracted him—but it still gave me hope. The truth was, it made me feel even more included. More a part of them. It was the nicest feeling but at the same time, it made my heart yearn for all kinds of things.
And that was how the last month had gone. I’d gone to another mall and my first outlet mall, even though I hardly bought anything because I couldn’t spend extra money with the future up in the air. I’d gone to the movies with company twice and had even gone with Asami and Hiromi sledding after another snowy day. That was when I’d learned that they were sisters, which blew my mind.
And now, today, we were at a bar that felt way too packed.
So it was because everything was going so damn well that I was trying not to take it personally that Alex hadn’t reached out once. Why should he? There was no need to think about my whereabouts when I was living so incognito, and he knew firsthand I was on my way to being back to normal health-wise. I’d even stopped leaving notes at the house in case he got there and wondered where I was. I hadn’t wanted him to worry.
“Really? He just sent me a text like fifteen minutes ago,” Selene said.
I rubbed my lips together.
We’d had some nice moments together. We were friends. And if I liked him? Who wouldn’t? Especially once you got below that prickly-ass exterior.
As grumpy as he was, the man had a heart of gold and the face of an angel.
And the body of a superhero.
He’d been the first person in a long time to show me care and kindness, and my poor, deprived heart had only reached toward him with open arms once I’d started to feel safe around him. I could dream a little dream. Rebuild my life step by step.
