even fighting for it, and now it was crumbling to dust, and he was left with nothing but ash in his hands.
He swallowed thickly and forced himself to get his shit together as he walked up to the register. The woman behind the counter looked like she was maybe a freshman—sort of wide-eyed but also bored at the same time. She didn’t greet him, and he was grateful for it as he stared at the total, then swiped his card and took the bag she pushed toward him. He hooked it over his arm and gave her a quick nod before rushing for the exit, then stopped on the pavement and took gulping lungfuls of cool air, trying to calm the panic attack creeping up his spine.
Something had to give—he just didn’t know what.
Looking up and down the University Mall walkway at the students wandering around without a care in the world, he felt crushed with envy for their lives. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that they were all without problems, but he would have given anything for the simplicity of an average young adult life. He wondered if it would have been different had his parents not died.
Would they have had advice for him? Would they have been able to tell right from the beginning that Max wasn’t a good person?
He laughed bitterly to himself as he reached into his shirt and closed his hand around his dad’s old dog tags as he thought about getting parental advice on dating. Maybe he wouldn’t have listened to them, but he had a feeling they might have been a soft enough landing he wouldn’t have hesitated to leave the first time Max slapped a plate of nachos out of Xan’s fingers and told him he liked his ass the size it was now.
With his parents around, he doubted he’d have put up with the late nights and the cold shoulder and now the bruised wrist.
Swiping his hand across his eyes, he started toward his apartment, and came to a skidding halt when his phone began to buzz in his pocket. It was likely either Max or Allie, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to deal with either, but he pulled it out anyway and stared at the screen.
It was an unknown number with his area-code, and something twitched in his gut, telling him to answer.
“Hello?”
“Xan?” The voice was breathless and entirely unfamiliar, but the man clearly knew him. “God, I’m so sorry to call you like this.”
“Uh. Who is this?”
“Shit. Fuck,” the man swore. “I’m sorry, Jesus. It’s Sebastion. Tweedle uh…Tweedle Dee?”
Xan almost laughed, but he managed to hold it back. Sebastion’s voice was nothing like he imagined, and yet it was still perfect. Just like Luca. And he might have spent more time smiling about it, but Sebastion sounded upset. “What’s wrong?”
“Luca was in an accident, and I’m at the fucking airport in San Francisco,” Sebastion said.
Shock hit him, and the bag dropped from his hand out of reflex before he pulled himself together. “Oh god. What…what happened? What kind of accident?” He braced himself in the way only someone who had experienced immense loss could actually do and prepared himself for the words Sebastion was about to say.
He was hit by a car. He didn’t make it.
“He was in the lab working, and something exploded. I only talked to his lab partner for a minute—but the burns are pretty bad.” Sebastion let out a quiet breath.
Xan blinked as the world came back into focus, and he realized this wasn’t that call. Luca was hurt, but he wasn’t dying. He took a fortifying breath before he trusted himself to speak again. “What can I do?”
“God, Alexander,” Sebastion said, sounding almost like he felt guilty, “they want to keep him overnight, and our dog is at home in her crate. I’d ask Luca’s best friend, but he’s hours away on some job, and…”
“Of course,” he interrupted in a rush. “Of course, I can go get her.”
“Actually,” Sebastion told him, his voice hesitant again, “could you maybe stay there with her? She doesn’t do well in unfamiliar places. We have a key in a little security box, and I can give you the code. I’m trying to get a flight out, but everything’s delayed with the fog, and I’m stuck at this conference.”
Xan waved him off before remembering he was on the phone, and the guy couldn’t see him. “Sebastion, it’s totally fine. I can stay at your place until