Door closing behind Harlow,Tony leaned back in his chair. As his gaze wandered around the room, first to the gray walls, his row of bookshelves to the left, to the couch on the right, and then finally to the closed blinds on the glass that made up one wall, he had an urge to just set it all on fire.
Tony roughly rubbed his face. “Fuck,” he groaned loudly.
Pairing Harlow with Foxx Honeywell had really come back to bite him in the ass… And it was a self-inflicted wound… Because he’d taken one look at Foxx’s profile and interview videos, and hadn’t been able to resist pairing them together.
Or rather, he’d taken one look at a man who appeared to be hyperactive, talkative, and a complete sunshine-type person, and imagined how much he’d drive Harlow up the wall.
How the fuck had he been supposed to know they’d get along? Or that Foxx was, apparently, just as bloodthirsty as Harlow?! Though he was struggling to see that…
Ahh, fuck, but this was more than just getting along. Harlow was fucking attached. No, he was obsessed. He’d seen that when the man was torturing the priests. Well, less during the torture and more the moment he’d lost his shit on a dead body.
If this wasn’t handled now…things could go horribly wrong… More than they already had.
Tony pulled out his phone, quickly navigated to his contacts and pressed ‘call’.
When it connected, there was silence at first, before the man slowly said, “Tony… It’s been a long time, old friend.” Wes’ voice was as soothing and welcoming to the ears, as it had always been.
“I’d like to say I’m calling to catch up, but…”
“We don’t have that type of relationship. No worries, I’m not offended. How can I help you?”
“I’m sending a psycho your way on the down-low. Nothing can be official. I’ve known this man for twenty years. He is used to feeling very little, but is now feeling a lot of new things that he has no experience with, in a very short period of time, all due to his new partner.
“His partner, Foxx, broke him. I need you to fix him up. Or, at least, stop what I believe is becoming an unhealthy obsession with his partner from developing further.”
“You know I don’t like that word, Tony,” Wes admonished. “And ‘fix’, how? Return him to his previous state?” The man chuckled. “Not possible. Once the shell is cracked, you can’t seal it back up as if nothing happened. I can help him understand what he is feeling now. But there is no way to un-ring that bell once it’s been struck.”
Wes paused and took a deep breath before saying, “But I do owe you a favor…and my curiosity is piqued. So, I’ll see him. But I promise nothing. No quick fixes, no return to what was his ‘normal’, because once I see him, he is my priority. Whether he's an official patient or not, my responsibility is to him, not anyone else, and that includes you.”
Harlow slipped into bed, intending to pull the sleeping vampire against him, but the second he touched Foxx, the man’s eyes snapped open on a startled gasp.
Foxx stared wide eyed at him for a brief moment, his fear clear, before the expression was replaced by a mask—a fake smile that never reached his eyes. It wasn’t that Harlow hadn’t seen this before, but it was usually paired with the vampire threatening him in some way, not to hide.
Hands clenching, his anger swelled, not to mention his urge to break into multiple prisons to off some priests. He should have killed more…maybe even those fuckers in that house. All of them had gotten off lightly.
When Foxx snuggled against him, Harlow forced the thoughts and murderous rage away, mostly as there was no outlet for any of it at the moment.
“All settled at work?” the vampire asked.
Harlow wrapped his arms around the smaller man, pulling him on top of him as he rested back. Having no intention of telling Foxx about the whole psychiatrist thing, he skipped to the end of his and Tony’s fucked-up conversation. “Their slow asses finally figured out who blew up my fucking house. Oh, and who set up the trap with that female vampire.”
“Is it the same person?”
“No, just two very annoying, pain in the ass, motherfuckers from my past.”
Basically lounging on top of him now, Foxx looked up, chin resting on Harlow’s sternum as he asked with a snicker, “What’s that? You actually let them live long enough to become an annoyance? Were you fucking them?”
Harlow barked out in laughter. “Both are men, you brat. And as you know, you are the only man I’ve fucked…but…beyond that, they are—” He grimaced, thinking on the two individuals. “—definitely not even close to my type. And while personality never really mattered to me when it came to fucking with one-night stands, especially back then, I wouldn’t have touched either of them, even if they offered.”
Foxx giggled. “Okay, then spill. What did they, you or whoever, do?”
Harlow oddly found himself smiling at the light sound. It felt like it had been too long since he’d heard it. Which was stupid…as he definitely had heard it before they’d gone to sleep earlier that night, before he’d had a nightmare and ran his bitch ass to Tony. What adumbdecision that had been…
“Which first?” he asked.
“House.”
“Fine. My house was blown up by a man named Maverick Rossie. It’s believed that he is the leader of that rumored off-grid hunter’s group that we still don’t have a name for.”
