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“Fuck’s sake. Where’s your car?”
“I was at work. I don’t drive there; there’s nowhere to park.”
He grunted, and that was a good enough reply for me. As much as I enjoyed mentally sparring with him, even I wasn’t enough of a dick to do it when he’d just had a traumatic experience. Pulling out my phone, I booked an Uber to take us both home.
“How’s my car?” was the only question he asked me during the otherwise silent ride back to the house. We’d gone out of the other end of the road because I hadn’t wanted him to see the scene of the accident.
I swallowed hard, staring out of the window. “It was…it was wrecked.”
There was no reply, but when I turned my head and a streetlamp illuminated the inside of the car, I saw him bite down on his trembling lip as a tear fell from his closed eyes.
7
Huxley had spent most of the next couple of days sleeping. I figured it was good for his recovery. I’d called one of the bosses of my volunteer admin assistant job—hopefully, eventually to be a paid job—explaining the situation, and lucky for me, he’d given me the okay to work from home. Even luckier, I wasn’t scheduled to work any shifts at Revolve until the following week, so I was able to keep an eye on Huxley.
Not that either of us was particularly happy about the situation. Huxley was resentful as fuck that I was the one to be looking out for him, and I was resentful as fuck for the same reason. I hadn’t yet asked him why he’d chosen me to call, despite his network of friends, and I hadn’t even wanted to broach the subject because every time I’d seen him, our conversations consisted of me reminding him to take his medication and him giving me the finger or telling me to fuck off out of his bedroom.
Today, though, enough was enough. Two and a half days of rest was plenty. He was going to answer my questions, whether he wanted to or not.
First of all, I needed to sweeten him up. From what I remembered of the two-ish months we’d lived under the same roof, he wasnota morning person. So I used the expensive coffee machine in the kitchen to make him a latte loaded with caramel syrup. By the way, his sweet tooth was the only thing sweet about him.
Entering his bedroom without knocking, I placed the mug of coffee on his bedside table. He hadn’t bothered locking the door after the first night, when I’d threatened to smash his door in if he tried to lock me out. Just because I didn’t like him didn’t mean that I was going to leave him alone. As it stood, I had responsibility for him, no matter how unhappy we both were about it, and I wasn’t going to be the one to explain to his dad why something bad had happened to him under my care.
“Big brother.” Standing at the edge of his bed, I smirked as I gently shook his shoulder.
He reacted instantly, springing up in bed with a growl, then grimacing in pain. “Why the fuck is your ugly face the first thing I’m seeing this morning?”
“I made you coffee.” I gave him a fake smile. “My face is not ugly, by the way. Are you jealous of the way I look?” I nearly said “not as ugly as yours,” but that would be a lie. Despite his perma-scowl and over-reliance on hair bleach, he was unfortunately blessed in the looks department. Not that I’d ever tell him that.
Instead of replying, he did his usual gesture of giving me the finger before grabbing his coffee. I noticed that his black nail polish was all chipped and messed up, and something about it seemed wrong. I ignored that thought, moving on to more important things. Taking a seat at the side of his bed, I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, I found myself being shoved hard, crashing to the floor and knocking my head.
“You asshole. What was that for?” It took everything in me not to drag him out of the bed and pound him into the floor—with my fists. The only reason I held off was because he was injured.
“Stay off my bed.”
“Fine.” I picked myself up from the floor, shooting him a glare, and took a seat in his desk chair, wheeling it over so it was next to his bed. In the meantime, he’d arranged himself against the headboard, knocking back painkillers with the glass of water I’d left out for him last night.
“Why the fuck are you here? I know it’s not to bring me coffee. I’m fine now. I don’t need you playing nurse anymore.”
That was debatable. But on with the reason why I was here. He was right; it wasn’t to bring him coffee.
“I want to know why you chose me, out of everyone.”
His shoulders stiffened. Lowering the glass of water, he switched it for his coffee mug, drawing his knees up under the covers and hiding his face behind the mug. “You were my last and only choice,” he said flatly.
“But how? Surely you had friends you could call? Someone you like slightly more than me?”
“I like everyone more than you,” he growled. “Dad’s on his honeymoon, my mum’s off on her spiritual journey, and my friends…look. I was in a lot of fucking pain, okay? I didn’t want to be crashing on someone’s sofa or in a shitty spare bed with springs poking into my back. I wanted to be here, in my comfortable bed, with my own private bathroom. You being forced to be at my beck and call was an unexpected bonus.”
He’d spent most of the time sleeping, so I hadn’t exactly been at his beck and call, but whatever. I thought back over what he’d said. It made sense. “Okay.” With a shrug, I got to my feet. “Thanks for letting me know. If you’re feeling fine now, then you obviously don’t need me here anymore.”
I’d made it all the way to the open door when his voice sounded again. “Wait.”
I turned back to him, and our eyes met. He moved, and the duvet slid down and…fuck. Across that lean, lightly toned chest was a myriad of bruises in blues and purples.
“I’m not…I’m not fucking fine, okay,” he bit out. “But I don’t want or need you looking after me anymore. Go and do whatever shit you want, I don’t care.”
“Huxley.” I took a step towards him, trying to remember the instructions the paramedic had given us just before we’d left. “You need to apply pressure to that bruising.”
