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He didn’t begrudge Will the happiness he’d found, but he felt adrift again. Even at the club he felt alone and sort of irrelevant to everyone around him.
In the dark, he found the finger- and toeholds that had become so familiar to him over the past years and climbed up the side of the building by feel in the dark shadowy corner where the parking lot lights didn’t reach on the other side of his apartment. The climb always made his muscles burn in a way he welcomed. It made him feel alive.
One day maybe his foot would slip and he’d fall and smash his fool head on the pavement. A couple people might even be sad about it.
When he pulled himself onto the roof, he was glad to find it empty. Sometimes Will brought Juliet up here when he was being romantic, and that was the last thing he needed to walk in on right now.
Grant only came here to think. Hanging out on the roof in the dark always made him feel a little silly—as if he thought he was Batman or something. The industrial park the club was located in was quiet and unchallenging as Gothams went, but it was all he had to work with. Some days, though, he wasn’t sure if he was the hero or the villain. Maybe he was just a half-drawn background character and didn’t have his own comic at all.
He paced the roof, enjoying the brisk breeze and the way the cool air bit at his cheeks and fingers. Being indoors as much as he was from day to day dragged him down.
In his other life—back in boarding school and summer camp—he’d been relatively athletic. Not a jock by any stretch of the imagination, but outdoorsy. Now, even going for a hike meant having to drive almost an hour to get anywhere worth seeing. It wasn’t that he had anything against the city—far from it. He liked the variety available to him here, but he also felt like he was missing something important. Like his life had become soulless. It had been easier to ignore that feeling when he’d had Will and Arabella to fill up his empty days.
Now his life was . . . quiet. Not peaceful. Just empty.
It wasn’t anyone else’s fault.
He was happy Will had found his Juliet.
He understood that he wasn’t what Arabella wanted.
For years, though, he’d leaned on them, not realizing they were his entire world until they were gone.
Now, he felt more lost and alone than he’d ever been in his life. Although their evil step-monster, Kim, had taught him how insignificant he was early on in life, he’d always had his brother, and then they’d had Arabella and Bethany. For a while he’d believ
ed Kim was wrong—that she’d been a spiteful, bitter woman who hadn’t wanted to deal with an unruly stepchild. He’d been deluding himself though.
She’d been right about him all along. He wasn’t the kind of person people loved.
* * *
* * *
They probably shouldn’t have been drinking at the tailor’s. However, Richard and Genevieve, the elderly owners of the shop, had shown up the first night the club had opened, excited to finally have a place to go in the area. They’d been regulars ever since, and were well-respected in the kink community, not to mention good at their work, so of course Will and his side of the wedding party were getting fitted there.
Maybe having a bachelor party at the tailor’s was a little weird, but everyone was so busy that multitasking had seemed like a good idea.
“I’m referring to this as the royal wedding, by the way,” Tarka teased, lounging back against one of the overstuffed couch backs. “I never thought I’d see the day where one of the Kings of Catacombs got married.” He shook his head, then took a swig from his flask and handed it to Grant.
“I never would have pictured you going all-out vanilla for anything, let alone a wedding,” Konstantin teased, looking more sleepy than satanic tonight. The exhausted lines around his eyes were probably the effect of having two babies rather than a result of drinking.
“Dude, didn’t you get married in a church in Russia?” Will asked innocently. “I seem to recall your lovely wife showing me the pictures the last time I took Beau to your place for a playdate. You wore a fancy suit and everything. There’s photographic evidence.”
Konstantin shrugged helplessly. “It was a shotgun wedding so I didn’t get a lot of say over the arrangements. After corrupting their lovely daughter and putting my hellspawn in her belly, agreeing to a traditional wedding seemed only fair. Besides, it was the only way they’d let me keep her.”
“How did I end up with so many evil bastards in my wedding party?” Will asked, and they all laughed.
“Sketchy life choices?” Arabella suggested, holding still while the elderly tailor hemmed the trousers of her custom tuxedo. Grant had been doing his best to ignore her presence, but every few minutes his gaze would stop obeying him and drift back to wherever she was in the shop. It was impossible not to watch her when she was in the same room.
“What other kinds of life choices are there worth making?” Richard, the tailor, asked. “Sketchy life choices make for the best stories.” He waggled his shaggy eyebrows.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a good influence on the younger generation?” Tarka asked innocently.
“If you’re looking for moral guidance, you’re in the wrong shop, Tak,” the tailor replied, snickering. It was true. The older man was a dirty old bastard, which was why they loved him. His woman was just as bad.
Will took a swig from his own flask, narrowing bleary eyes at Konstantin. “I still can’t believe you corrupted poor little Varushka. She was so sweet and innocent when you first started bringing her by.”
The Russian shrugged nonchalantly, but his dark eyes gleamed with a hint of their usual wickedness. “We should probably never tell our children that none of them were conceived in a bed.”
