The happy couple waltzed up to the front door and, ever the gentlemale, Mitchus opened things for his female. As she walked past him, he glanced back at Shuli and gave a final, gallant wave.
And then they were gone, the heavy reinforced door that was made up to look like something cheerful easing shut in their wake. Frankly, he was surprised that the pair had come here. So many of the aristocracy thought a common audience was beneath them. Mitchus’s family had always been sticklers for propriety, though. Guess the knock to the ego was worth the royal rubber stamp, although how they’d accepted that pregnancy and still given their own blessing was a thing.
But whatever. Not his business, on so many levels.
He was never getting mated.
Closing his eyes, it was a hot minute before he could dematerialize—and then he was spiriting off, flying in a scatter of molecules. It didn’t take him long to get home, and as he re-formed in front of his modern mansion, he surveyed the white, low-slung exterior with tired eyes. The shit was like a bunker in the snowy landscape, just one more bank in the bunch, and he knew he couldn’t stay long.
He had to somehow find L.W.
And not just because it was his job. He’d come to a decision about—
His front door opened, and the shape that appeared between the jambs was way too enormous to be Willhis.
Also, his butler had never favored black leather with a chaser of weapons.
Shuli exhaled a curse as he started up his shoveled walkway. “I thought you wanted to avoid me like the plague.”
L.W. shrugged and stirred his Cup Noodles. “My clothes are here.”
As Shuli hopped up the steps and caught a whiff of chicken stock, the male didn’t budge—so he shoved L.W. out of the way. Which, yeah, only happened because the fucker allowed himself to get moved, but hey, you had to take your victories where you found them. And then Shuli stalled out in his foyer because there was no reason to have this throw down happen any farther into the house.
Willhis hated conflict, and he didn’t want to upset hisdoggen.
“Just take your shit and go.” Shuli indicated the general direction of the wing L.W. had been camping out in. “Your pops gave me a pass on this bullshit job, told me to do my best. And I’ve just decided that my best is telling you to fuck off and do whatever it is you’re going to do. You want to go solo, you got it.”
As L.W. leaned back against the arch into the library, he was like a stain against all the white walls, and damn if the sonofabitch didn’t look like some kind of brutalist sculpture come to life. But what do you know, there was already enough abstract art in the place.
“So…” Shuli walked over to the archway of the guest wing. “There ya go.”
He swooped both hands forward. Like His Royal Cocksucking Highness didn’t know where he’d been crashing during the days since the pair of them had beenLove Match’d up.
When L.W. just kept standing there, eating those goddamned plastic noodles, Shuli frowned. “You’re kidding me.”
“What.”
“You came to apologize?” he said in disbelief. “Is that what this is? You’re… apologizing?”
Those black brows went down so hard, it was like they were trying to relocate to his nostrils.
“Wow.” Shuli drew a hand through his hair. “You’re full of surprises tonight, aren’t you.”
Those pale green eyes shifted away to the yellow-and-black Jackson Pollock that hung over a Biedermeier console table. And then the silence stretched out, big as the horizon. With the white marble floors and the white staircase and all the unadorned white everywhere, it was like they were still outside.
“You really suck at this whole ‘sorry’ thing, FYI,” Shuli remarked.
“I don’t do it often.” The fighter tilted the cup and drank some of the broth.
When there was no tack onto that, no but-when-I-do-I-mean-it shit, it wasn’t really a shocker. “That I believe.”
Even more quiet. At which point Shuli closed his eyes and let his head fall back on his spine. “You could at least say the word. Or how about a synonym for it—hey, I’d even take something that rhymes. Worry. Quarry.”
“Furry.”
“That doesn’t rhyme.”
“Yeah, it does—”
