make you have seconds before you have firsts.”
“Don’t forget to put a place mat down,” she said as she went back to work with the dough. “And Rocke, that coffee needs to be lighter than we like it. He doesn’t want it too strong.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rocke replied with a wink.
There was light conversation as Blay followed instructions, outing the broccoli-and-cheese quiche and the mixed fruit, making himself up a plate, and sitting down—with toast and a place mat—at the table. As he dug in, he nodded in the right places, laughed when he was meant to, shared surface updates. And yet there was no elephant in the room. At no point did he feel like he couldn’t talk about what had happened, and he didn’t feel like he was hiding how sad he was.
It was the very best commentary on his parents, he supposed: That he could be honest friends with the people who raised him. And there was the temptation to stay over day, mostly because he was so exhausted with the silent tension between him and Qhuinn.
God, he was so tired.
And lonely.
“Would you like seconds?” Lyric asked as she put the dough back into its bowl and covered it with a damp dish towel.
Blay looked down at his clean plate. “Yes, Mahmen. Please.”
After Qhuinn worked out down in the training center, he took a shower in the facility’s locker room and then changed into surgical scrubs because he’d forgotten to bring an extra set of clothes with him. As he stepped back out into the corridor, he had a thought that he should go up to the big house. Blay was off for the evening, and maybe they could try and find each other.
Or, more likely, he would just stay lost.
He didn’t know what to do with himself. There was a gray fog between him and everybody else, including his mate and his kids. Even when someone was standing in front of him, they were merely an outline of themselves, and their voice, no matter how familiar, was a whisper off in the distance. It was the strangest phenomenon, and the disassociation reminded him of when he’d gone up to the Fade, the landscape all indistinct, no one else around him.
Then again, he felt like he’d died last week, too.
Turning to the right, he looked down toward the office and tried to imagine himself walking into the mansion. As his temples started to pound, he shook his head and went in the opposite direction. When he got to his brother’s door, he pushed his way in and—
“What are you doing here?” he said as he stopped short.
Over in the armchair, sitting there like he owned the place . . . was Zsadist. As usual, the brother was dressed in leathers and a muscle shirt, his powerful arms on display, his hair freshly buzzed, his long legs crossed at the knees.
His eyes were glowing yellow, not black like when he was going to go off at someone. But they were narrow and they were focused on Qhuinn with a hard edge.
“Come in,” he ordered. “And shut the door.”
“This is my brother’s room. Don’t tell me what to do in it.”
“Your brother’s dead. So this is not his room anymore.”
“What did you say.” Qhuinn felt a hot flush go through him. “What the fuck did you say—”
“Get in here, and shut the fucking door. Unless you want everyone in the goddamn training center to hear what I’m about to say to you.”
Qhuinn’s body stepped forward before he was aware of entering. And he shoved the door closed—
“Shut up.” Zsadist’s eyes never wavered and he didn’t blink. “Your brother is dead and that is a tragedy. But you’re not bringing him back with this withdrawal shit.”
“Excuse me—”
“You’re not talking. I am. You respond when I’m done. And before you get all hot and bothered, you think I want to be sitting here, going through this with you? Yeah, you can miss me with that.”
“So get up and leave.” Qhuinn tossed a casual hand. “In fact, please do us both a favor and quit it before you start. I don’t need the public service.”
“Yeah, you do.”
It was at that point that Qhuinn realized there was something in the brother’s hand . . . a toy airplane, one with red and white markings and a spinning prop on its nose. And in response to Qhuinn taking notice, Z flicked the propeller with his fingertip and the blades went for a ride, blurring out