Xan rubbed at his bruise again and stared at his closed laptop and tried to compose a sort of Dear John letter in his head because something had to give. He couldn’t live like this anymore. He’d taken enough intro psych courses to know that this was how it started—and yes sometimes it did take four years to escalate. And maybe Max had just made a mistake—maybe he really had just spent too long drinking.
But once was enough, wasn’t it?
Hell, the last two and a half years should have been enough.
He bit the inside of his cheek and hunched into himself and didn’t glance up, even nine minutes later when he heard footsteps walking toward him. He was too petrified to look, but too not to after a few seconds. He turned his head and jolted because something about this man was achingly familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on why or how.
He was tall and definitely older than him, though it really only showed in his laugh lines. He had square framed glasses and very short black hair, and he wore a soft cream sweater with long sleeves that looked like they’d go past his knuckles if he wasn’t holding two paper cups of coffee.
He was impossibly good looking, but Xan hadn’t been expecting much different. But he had that sort of déjà vu familiarity to him that he couldn’t quite place, but nothing about his face triggered a memory. He figured it was probably just the last few days—he’d formed a picture of both Luca and Sebastion in his head, and well, the man kind of fit.
“Alexander the Great?” he said in a low rumble, and something in Xan’s chest jolted before he shook it off.
“Tweedle Dum?”
“Luca,” he said with a laugh, then offered over one of the paper cups, and Xan took it with nervous hands. “Can I sit?”
“Yeah, of course.” Xan shifted his chair over to make room, feeling like a clumsy newborn giraffe, but Luca didn’t laugh at him. Instead, he reached over to the cubicle next to them and grabbed the chair tucked under the table, spinning it around to straddle it backward. It was everything and nothing like he imagined their first meeting to be. “It’s weird that Sebastion isn’t here.”
Luca’s brows rose, but he tipped his cup toward Xan before taking a sip, then gave a soft, disgusted grimace before his lips melted into a smile. “He’s gonna be pissed I got to meet you first. We were both pretty worried after last night.”
Xan gave an awkward sort of laugh. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I think I can be over dramatic at times.” He lifted his hand to run fingers through his hair, but the motion was aborted when Luca seized him by the elbow and yanked his arm down.
“What the fuck is this?”
Xan flinched hard and wrenched his hand away, shoving it into his lap. “I told you, it was a bad morning.”
Luca blinked, then pulled himself back and let out a breath. “Sorry, Jesus. I didn’t mean to…” He stopped and licked his lips, looking genuinely ashamed. “Will you tell me what happened? I’m assuming Max did this.”
“Um,” Xan said very softly. “It’s complicated.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed. “I know this isn’t my business, Xan, but if he’s been hurting you…”
“No,” Xan said from behind a sigh. “No, it’s nothing like that.” Not yet, his brain said, and he promptly told it to shut the fuck up because he wasn’t going to let it get that far. “He hasn’t hit me. This is the first time something like this has happened. He was still kind of drunk.”
“That’s no excuse,” Luca began, but he went quiet when Xan held up his other hand.
“Look, I know, okay? I know it wasn’t an accident, and I know it wasn’t okay.” He took a fortifying breath and forced himself to meet Luca’s gaze. “He got home reeking of old vodka and dragged me out of bed, demanding that I make him coffee like an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off. We got into a fight about it, and he got pissed and tried to throw my laptop out the window. I got this when I stopped him.” He ran his fingers over his wrist, wishing he was smart enough to keep his jacket on because he just wasn’t in the mood to have this discussion.
Luca bowed his head and took a slow, deep breath through