He blinked. “I always use them for good, even when I don’t want to.”
“I know.” Because I did.
Alex made a hoarse sound, but I hoped he understood what I meant.
Doing the right thing was never easy, but doing the right thing when you didn’t have to was even harder. Most people would never be able to set aside their pride, to do what should be done. And I think that said everything about his personality.
About him.
It gave me a lot to think about.
His eyes scanned the crowd, and in my gut, I knew it wasn’t just to be cautious. He’d said it himself, there was nothing in this world he had to worry about… other than others like him. But I understood how he’d become so disillusioned. One of these people might need him someday. Would they badmouth him too? Try to sue him?
“Alexander?” a foreign voice spoke up.
Alex’s arm came over my shoulders, pulling me into his side so fast I stumbled into him. Into that rock-hard side that felt like a damn brick wall.
“Hey,” the voice said a moment before a man took a step forward, a toddler-sized boy in his arms, a woman at his side.
The arm on my shoulders stayed right where it was.
“Hey, I guess you don’t remember me. It’s Phillip. We went to Andover Prep together,” the man said.
The fingers dangling by my collarbone twitched, and for a second I thought he was going to deny knowing the guy, but the hand not around me gradually extended toward him. “Yeah… I do.”
He sounded the opposite of excited.
The man named Phillip took Alex’s hand and gave it an aggressive-looking shake. “I almost didn’t recognize you. How’s it going? I haven’t seen you since graduation.”
Yeah, Alex went all tense again, and his voice sounded off, sounded different as he answered, “Well, you?”
This was reminding me of the first few weeks we knew each other.
The man laughed like what he’d said was funny. “I’m great. This is my son, Pip, and my wife, Ashley.”
Alex simply nodded at the two. “This is my… Gracie.”
The guy looked at me, and his gaze flicked in the direction of my boobs. In front of his wife.
The hand on my shoulder tensed.
“I’m a cardiologist,” the man said like someone had asked. “What are you doing now?”
“I work,” the son of a bitch with his arm over my shoulders answered.
I almost choked.
But this man who used to know Alex in school wasn’t deterred. “Did you just get here? I’d love to catch up. I haven’t seen hardly anyone since graduation. We just moved back from San Francisco. Where did you go—”
The more people you knew, the more you had to lie. And Alex’s contacts weren’t in anymore. How many did he used to have to go through when he’d gone to school? Hundreds?
“We need to get going, actually,” Alex cut in smoothly. “Take care, Greg.”
Greg?
“Nice meeting you,” I helped him as we turned. Alex instantly ignored the small family as we speed-walked away, me clutching my cat as tight as I could.
We pretty much ran to the car, and it wasn’t until we got inside that I said, “You know damn well his name wasn’t Greg.”
“No, it’s Phillip Kennedy the Third. I couldn’t stand him in high school. I could tell from his cologne I still wouldn’t like him. He had so much of it on. I didn’t recognize him until the last second,” Alex muttered, turning the car on.
I hugged the stuffed animal on my lap and pressed my cheek against it. “I could tell.” I thought about it. “You went to a fancy private school? You don’t act or talk like a spoiled rich kid.”
“We weren’t spoiled. We had chores. My parents had no problem telling us ‘no.’ We ate dinner together as a family almost every night. They made us do community service every other weekend. We watched TV. Only Achilles and Athena act like they’re better than everyone.”
“I can’t picture you scrubbing a toilet for allowance money or putting up with people at Andover Prep.” I put way too much enthusiasm into the name of his school. It sounded made up.
He looked at me, and I could tell his shoulders relaxed. “It wasn’t easy. Phillip tried to get these guys to beat me up our freshman year.”
“No,” I gasped.
He nodded.
“What happened?”
“Odi pulled the fire alarm to stop it.”
“But you could have beat the shit out of him.” He could have done way more than that. What an idiot!
His laugh was so genuine it felt the same way in my chest as an ice cream cone did on a hot day. “Yeah, then I would’ve gotten the shit beat out of me.”
“By your brothers?”
Alex huffed. “I wish. Alana. But it’d be easier than picking on a baby. It’s the first thing we’re taught: the strong don’t pick on the weak. Even if we want to and they deserve it.”
That was something else to think about. I side-eyed him. “I can take his wife and kid if you want me to.”
Alex leaned against the back of the seat, his eyes glowing briefly in the dark cabin of the car. “You would fight the kid too?”
I hugged the Hello Kitty a little bit tighter. “You don’t take care of the kid, he’ll grow up and come after you in the future. Come on, Alex, you’re better than this. You probably don’t read comics, but everyone knows this. The Electro-Man movies are really good; you might enjoy them if you gave them a chance.”
His eyes briefly glowed bright again, and I was pretty sure I saw a smirk on that perfect face. “Yeah, I might.” His smirk got even bigger. “I just might.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
It was settled. I was going to see how long Alex could hold his breath when I held a pillow over his face later.
When he wasn’t expecting it.
It was either going to be that, or I was going to choke him out.
Had his sister, The Primordial survived in space? Yes. Were chances in his favor that he could do the same? Yes.
And could he realistically overpower me with his smallest toe? Most definitely. But I was going to give it my all anyway.
He was going to learn a lesson some way, somehow. He couldn’t just do whatever he wanted.
“Why do I have to go with you?” I asked for about the twentieth time.
The son of a bitch, who I was purposely not looking at for longer than a second or two, repeated the same thing he’d said half the other times I’d thrown the same question at him. “Because.”
That was his answer: because.
Real helpful.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about meeting his mom, and that’s probably more than half the reason why I kept asking. I’d thought about pretending to have a migraine so I could stay, but that was cowardly. I was running at 50 percent capacity now, and maybe I should have insisted, but…
I owed him.
“Hear me out,” I started to say before he groaned.
“We’re five minutes away. You’re dressed. I’m dressed. We don’t have to stay long. I know you aren’t feeling great. It’ll be an excuse to leave,” he told me, sounding ultra-crabby.
I wanted to bang my head, but that would mess up the makeup that I’d had to watch an hour-long tutorial to learn how to put on.