Hawk & the Lady - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,47

me more than the others, with his casually thrown away comment of, “What’s the use of being grown up if you can’t be childish sometimes?”

“Eleventh doctor!” Amber cried triumphantly, her tongue sticking out in concentration.

“Bastardised off the fourth,” Nico told her.

“Show off.” She shot him a grin and there was a very real possibility he’d given her a small smile in return.

But I was focussed on what he’d said to me.

That had given me reason to pause and think about it.

I’d been brought up with this very specific ideal of adulthood and how I should behave and what I should like, and anyone who didn’t conform to the same standards must be immature and failing at adulting. But looking around that room, I couldn’t see a single person I thought was failing. Five of them co-founded a wildly successful security company, and the sixth was doing the most rigorous of post-graduate study. And yet they were downing beer and soft drink and chips while taking Mario Kart unnecessarily seriously and having the absolute time of their lives.

It made the success by which I judged my life seem boringly run of the mill.

Maybe I’d been too quick to judge immaturity. Maybe there were things that adults still got to enjoy that we’d taken for granted as kids’ play. Maybe Nico was right and the whole benefit of growing up was that we got to do the things that brought us joy, no matter what they were.

14

Patrick

“…see the appeal,” Rollie was saying from the conference room.

Chaos made a noncommittal noise. “Maybe.”

“Chicks dig the whole alpha thing, right?”

“I think they’ve evolved beyond the ‘me Tarzan, you Jane’ thing,” Tank said.

“That is not what the movies tell me.”

“I don’t think Pornhub counts as the movies,” Nico said.

“You tell that to the hardworking actors,” was Rollie’s humoured reply.

“I’m still confused as to your actual point.”

“That you’d go total apeshit if you found out someone had hurt your girl, and go wail on them forthwith.”

I went about my business, only half-heartedly listening to them talk.

“Big word for a small man,” Chaos said. “But, no. I wouldn’t.”

Rollie scoffed. “Pfft! Well, we all know you totally would. Anyone hurt Bert and it would be fists out and fucking up the fuckers.”

“I thought so, too.” Chaos voice was small, like he was talking to himself.

Everyone seemed to pause in what they were doing – there was silence from the conference room. I even thought about getting out of my chair to find out what Chaos meant. Had someone – other than shit-stain Brent – hurt Bert and my best mate had done nothing about it? That didn’t sound right on any level.

“What? What do you mean?” Rollie asked.

“Turns out what they need most then is comfort, not a Hulk-out delivering a pavement facial,” Chaos said.

“Wait…” Rollie said slowly. “Who…?”

I needed to know the answer to that as well. I was out of my chair and in the conference room before I knew what I was doing.

“If you tell me it was someone other than the last fucker, I will drop you in a hole so dark you’ll…die…and…” I ran out of steam because I had no idea what happened to you if you spent too long in a dark hole.

“Go Gollum?” Nico offered and we all blinked at him.

“The little weirdo from ‘Lord of the Rings’?” Rollie asked with a frown.

“What do you know about ‘Lord of the Rings’?” Nico scoffed.

“It was everywhere. How do I not know something about it?” Rollie replied sarcastically.

“Who cares what the dickhead knows about ‘Lord of the Rings’!” I snapped. “I need to know what Chaos knows about someone hurting Bert.”

Chaos looked at me and his eyes were uncertain. He looked, for once in his life, like he’d fucked up and couldn’t see a way out of it easily. He was pained. Properly pained. The kind where he knew something and just the thought of it hurt him. The kind he knew would hurt me just to know about.

“What. The. Fuck. Happened?” I managed through gritted teeth.

“She didn’t want to worry you, mate.”

“That does not help.”

“Okay, but just keep that in mind before you go totally apeshit.”

His expectation of my reaction was making me panic more than if he’d just bloody come out and told me. I felt the need to hit something, preferably whoever had hurt my little sister and I didn’t even know anything about it. “What. Happened?”

Chaos looked around the table as though he was debating whether or not to