“Not one.” Babs grunted, placing her hands on her hips to show her annoyance. “And the cameras were damaged in the fire. Those idiots are smarter than they look because the backups were conveniently destroyed before they were torched.”
“Fuck.” I sighed. The fact that these people could essentially get away with it boiled my blood.
She grabbed my hand tenderly. “Don’t worry, Bas. Just focus on taking it easy. You’ve got more than enough sick days.” She laughed. It was true, I rarely called out of work or took vacation, so I’d banked a bunch of sick time. But what about whenthat time ran out? It wasn’t like there was a building to go back to.
Babs must have sensed my concern. “There’s no word on when the center can be worked on, or when we can get back to work. Apparently, the owner of the blood center is some senator that can’t be bothered to attend to the issue, so I’ve been speaking to middle men. But the blood center isn’t being shut down, so I guess I have to thank Senator Rhodes for that.” She made a point of rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, clearly not the guy’s biggest fan. I’d never heard word on the senator, but if he couldn’t take the time to care about what happened to the blood center, then he was on my list of good for nothing rich assholes. “There’s no open walls at our center, thankfully, but it’s going to cost a lot to fix everything up. Just one of the many things I’ll have to talk to that Wallace Watson about.”
“Have you met him yet?”
“Not yet, but he called me. We have a meeting tomorrow.”
That was good. It meant that Wallace was sticking to his word about trying to help out the centers. I just hated that this outcome was what was needed for his superiors to realize that we needed help and we needed it fast.
“Well let me know what he says.”
“I will,” She rubbed my arm. “But just try and take it easy, okay? Doctors orders, so I assume.”
Laughing, I gave her another hug as Kroven stepped back into the room. I assumed that meant that our ride was here.
When Kroven came back over to stand beside me, Babs really gave Kroven a good look, eyeing him up and down like he was something to be devoted to rather than the sangamar that he was.
Couldn’t argue there, though.
“You know what,” Babs snickered. “If you had some meat on you, I might just have seduced you myself.”
My cheeks flared that my boss had just said that to myboyfriend, but Kroven threw his head back and guffawed at the compliment.
“Well, Iamspoken for.” He gave me a quick smile, but turned his sights back on Babs in record time. “Perhaps Exo would fit the bill. He’s not gay, for starters.”
Shaking my head at them, I mentally noted that maybe I could play matchmaker when Kroven and I inevitably met up with Exo and Wallace again. Because Babs was mulling over the idea longer than I would have expected.
But first things first. I had a best friend to interrogate, doctors orders be damned.
Chapter 28
Slidingmy key into our apartment, I fully expected for Thayer to be sleeping off his shift at the club. What I hadn’t expected was to see him sitting on the couch watching TV.
As I closed the door behind me, his gaze followed me and it finally hit me that it wasn’t Thayer, but rather his twin brother, Troian. The buzzcut was a dead giveaway, but it was so jarring seeing someone share my best friend’s face that it took longer to register than it probably should have. With my recent hospital visit, I could also just blame it on that.
“Thayer’s not here.” Troian said, pausing the show he was watching on TV and crossing his arms. What the fuck was with this guy and crossing his arms? “He went out to get food.”
The last thing I’d planned on when I’d wanted to come home was to deal with the absentee brother I’d been denied knowing about. Plus, I wanted to be as quick as possible, considering that Kroven was waiting for me in the car downstairs. He’d told me to take my time yelling at Thayer and gathering my things, but I still wanted to be considerate.
My heart felt like it was enveloped by a swarm of bumblebees at the fact that I was going to be recovering at Kroven’shouse for a few days. He’d pleaded, telling me he’d take much better care of me, which sounded like a subtle way of saying I’d get some pretty gnarly orgasms out of it, so who was I to complain with that?
Movement brought me back to the dilemma before me as Troian stood, walking closer to me over by the door. He was cautiously keeping his distance. Sighing, I rolled my eyes and stepped closer so I could lean on the bar of the kitchen. I opened my mouth to spew the annoyance I had for Thayer at his lookalike, but Troian beat me to it.
“Look, I know you’re mad at Thayer for not telling you about me.” Troian nodded, crossing those goddamn arms again. “But it’s not his fault he never told you. It’s mine.”
How the hell did that work? Here’s what I knew about Thayer. After we’d first met at a coffee shop and then later saw each other at the same support group, I’d learned that he’d lost his parents when he was freshly eighteen. It was something we’d weirdly bonded over, being two dumbass eighteen year olds that were stumbling into adulthood without the guidance of their parents. I knew he’d been given a lump sum of money after his parents death, which had helped us get into our apartment. We’d both worked jobs to afford the apartment over the years, but Thayer had been working at the club for a little over five years. Way more stable than the several months I’d been working at the blood center.
Which begged the question: how was this his unknown twin’s fault? I didn’t give him anything to work with, waiting for him to continue. If Troian wanted me to hear him out, then he was going to have to do all the work.
Troian eventually got the hint, and uncrossed his arms to slide his hands in his pockets. It was a reverse action of something Thayer did, I noticed. While Thayer ran his hands through his hair when he was nervous, it seemed that Troian buried his hands in his pants’ pockets when he felt the same.
“I’m sure he’s told you about how abrupt our parents’ death was.” When I affirmed his assumption with the tilt of my head, he cleared his throat. “One car crash and our lives were changed forever. It was hard on both of us, but Thayer’s the strong one. Always has been. I’m the weak piece of shit that couldn’t cope.”
His face contoured in a refraction of emotions desperately wanting to come to the surface, but he was forcing them into submission so he didn’t show them to a stranger. “I fell in with the wrong people, and then turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of losing my parents. Thayer should have rid himself of me then, but he didn’t. Because he’s too good for his own good.” I had to agree with that. Thayer was relentlessly selfless, to a fault. “A few years ago, I really fucked up. I started seeing this guy and he was….well, it doesn’t matter.”
