Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
santos
By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, I had my whole speech ready for Ever’s parents.
I assumed they had to be the people ringing the bell for the outside gate.
It was weird, because I knew they had keys and Ever had complained plenty of times about them showing up uninvited and completely taking over.
Maybe they were carrying a lot of suitcases.
Whatever it was, I could tell it would be easier if I didn’t question it.
When I unlocked the gates from the entrance, though, it wasn’t Ever’s parents that showed on the screen. It was three of the people from the munch that Ever had taken me to.
Huh.
I didn’t realize he should’ve been there today. He had said it was a weekly thing, and he’d gone to the next ones without me, but he hadn’t left his room all day. I knew because I’d knocked on his door to ask if he wanted something special for breakfast, and he’d just said he wasn’t hungry.
I truly didn’t know what had gone wrong, but he’d been like this for most of the week.
I wasn’t even staying in his room at night to give him space, but it was starting to feel like another failure on my shoulders.
Another person I was disappointing by not being able to carry what had made him this withdrawn.
“Hey.” I grimaced as I opened the door to them once they were close enough.
I had freshened up in the bathroom when I thought it would be Ever’s parents, but what looked good to bougie upper-class people in their fifties wasn’t the same as what looked like normal clothes to regular people.
“Come in. Sorry, I didn’t know Ever had invited anyone. ”
He had mentioned something about it the other day, before I retreated to my room like a fucking coward. I didn’t think he’d go through with it. Up until a couple months ago, none of his friends even knew where he lived.
“It’s a sneak visit,” Sergio, the one with the shaved slit in his left eyebrow, said. He was bouncing on his feet. “Well, I cracked and texted him, but I don’t think he’s seen it? Or maybe he blocked me. I didn’t try calling him. Did he block me? You’d know, right?”
“Eh…” Why would he have blocked one of his friends?
I could see him blocking Danny—temporarily—out of being embarrassed, or maybe because Danny was pushing him more with the idea that Sir Ismael hadn’t been a good Dom.
And why did the guy speak so fast, anyway?
For a second, I was transported back to fourth grade when I was pretending I wasn’t lagging behind in a school that wanted all of us to be full polyglots before the end of the year. “No? Why would he—”
“Oh, good.” Sergio was clearly the spokesperson then.
Erika had her arms crossed as she subtly inspected the hall.
León was doing much of the same, but his body language was more relaxed.
It was a fabricated posture, though, which had me on edge, my body quickly mirroring his.
“I mean, we were confused because Ev wrote in the chat about leaving Plumas, and first I thought he was upset about breaking it off with his Dom, and then I thought maybe it’s about the membership because his parents cut him off, because rich people do that, and that’s why I reached out to Erika, but you’re still here, so I’m assuming that wasn’t it, either? ”
“Sergio.” León quirked an eyebrow, glancing at him while keeping another eye on me. Yeah, game recognized game. “You realize you don’t even know if Ev is home, right?”
“Where else would he be?” Sergio blinked. “He’s said multiple times he’s a homebody, and he hates driving to the point where he gets groceries delivered. If I don’t drag him out places, he’s here.”
He gave me a pointed look as if daring me to deny the logic.
“He’s up in his room,” I said.
Maybe I should be covering up for him, but shouldn’t he have given me a heads up if he wanted me to?
I was still processing the guy’s rambling about Ever leaving the BDSM club.
And pretending it wasn’t like a punch to the gut that I’d found out today, through a third party, and I had nothing to contribute to their theories.
“We just wanted to check on him.” Erika sighed. “Sergio roped me in, and I was talking with León about something else, so he just swung by to help me wrangle the little one.”
The little one. Right, because Sergio was one of the people into age play, and he was a very hyperactive Little. Ever had mentioned it. It was just hard to keep track of all the faces, and the names, and the kinks associated with each one.
“Sure, yeah, that’s fine.” I moved more out of the way so they could walk in. “It’s the second door to the right. If you want something to eat, I was going to make lunch.”
“It’s fine.” Erika gave me a smile that somehow felt like a rarity in her. “I have a chef waiting at home.”
Was that Eli?
Getting used to all the new people was going to take forever.
“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it.”
“I can help out, if you want,” León said.
It was weird. I could tell he wasn’t that alike with Danny, but between the similar hairstyles and the amount of tattoos and body mods, they were similar.
Danny didn’t have a neck tattoo, León didn’t have lip piercings, and Ev had mentioned only the latter was trans.
“These two are closer with Ev. I just came because Dan is this close to climbing up the walls.”
I nodded.
That made sense. I would be too, if I had participated and then read that Ever was leaving their group.
Why was he leaving Plumas? He hadn’t said a word. It wasn’t like he’d been fully avoiding me.
No, he wasn’t sleeping with me, and he was waking up later than usual, and not talking as much, but none of that was that worrying.
He’d been helping me catch up on shows and movies and stuff.
He’d told me that he cleared the air a bit with his Dom, and he’d hinted that he was taking a break from it, but…
Fuck. He’d said it in such a nonchalant, practiced way, and I’d believed it.
Like a fucking newbie to all things Ever.
“So how are you holding up?”
Of course. Right for the jugular as soon as it was just the two of us in the professional-grade kitchen. I almost felt bad using it for the basic as fuck dishes I was cooking. Almost as bad as having another man here to watch me make fried rice with the few veggies leftover in the fridge.
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. Everyone here had such an open communication policy, from what I’d gathered from Ever and at the munch. I liked it. I liked the idea of expanding the way I acted around Ever with more people. It was just going to take some time. “Y’know. Things are…different.”
León leaned his hip against one of the counter islands. “Because of civilian life or Ev?”
I sighed. “Both? I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s not like I was in active war zones or deployed a lot. And Ev… We talked like most days. I was sure that I’d come here, and it would just be my best friend and I.”
“And he suddenly springs a new wardrobe, a Dom, and a bunch of strangers your way?”
“Something like that.” I snorted before I realized the way it could be interpreted. “I mean, it’s not bad. Any of it. I love that he’s opening up and being more true to himself. He deserves that.”
“Of course,” León agreed way too easily to stop me from being on edge as I smashed some garlic. I’d never bothered before, but one of the cooks I’d been deployed with once swore by it, so now I did it out of habit. “Sarge told you I come from a military family, right?”
“Sarge?”
Carlos was a Colonel. I remembered that much.
“Carlos.”
That didn’t make it any less confusing. It didn’t look like he was going to clear up any of it.
I was usually better at reading new people, at getting them to see me as something inoffensive they could be comfortable around.
“Right, yeah, he mentioned.” I shook my head. I shouldn’t have started cooking. It wasn’t like I had much more of an appetite than Ever had had for breakfast. “Sorry about your brother.”
“Thanks.” The discomfort he said it with was one I could understand.
I hadn’t had to deal with relatives of someone dying—with anyone dying—until now, but I always imagined the condolences wouldn’t be life-changing or necessarily sought after.
“You say it the same way everyone at Carlos’s group therapy does. ”
“I…” What the fuck did I say to that? “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” He waved it off. Usually, I was on alert for moves like that.
Ever was always dismissing everything, and it didn’t mean shit.
León looked genuine, though, perfectly comfortable with either raising hell or letting things wash off him like water.
It was strange. “Anyway…about my military family?”
“Yeah?”
León ran a hand through his hair. I got a glimpse of the letters inked on his fingers. Lobo—his brother’s name. Carlos had mentioned it, just as he’d mentioned the tag he had inked across his chest with his brother’s details.
“They’re in basically every branch, and some of them are…
big names.” He winced. I didn’t get the feeling that someone who looked like him would have a nice family history, but it sucked to have it confirmed.
“Long story, but my mother and Dan guilt-trip me into going to her place at least a couple of times a year, and sometimes there’s more people in there. ”
“Right.” My jaw clenched—I was aware, but I couldn’t help it. It was irrational. They wouldn’t know, but he wouldn’t be bringing it up if they didn’t. “Ever knows I took the fall for a superior. He’s cool with it.”
I caught León frowning from the corner of my eye.
I didn’t stop to see what he had to say.
I just set out to chop up the Italian peppers that had been about to go bad.
There was an onion too in the fridge, but I didn’t wanna deal with the waterworks, so I’d just add some onion powder before dumping the rice into it.
“Is that what happened?” León cocked his head to the side. “Because I’ve heard stories about that woman. Sure, they came from my drunk as fuck cousins who like to spice up every story to sound more macho, but…”
“What do you want me to tell you, man?”
My shoulders were by my ears at this point. I was supposed to know better, to appear neutral and keep perfect form or some bullshit.
It was short of a miracle that I had passed all their exams.
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “We don’t know each other. It just felt wrong to not tell you what I knew, but for the record? Ev would be cool with any other version of the story, too.”
My nostrils flared. What the fuck was his deal?
Carlos had mentioned something. León was easily triggered with all things military, because of his brother and, I was guessing, his relationship with his family.
I’d heard the stories of black sheep in families like that, and how they didn’t always know when to stop digging into a wound or another.
Ever always talked so highly of him, though—León was the perfect Dom.
Always so collected. Always so in control and ready to pivot.
I didn’t think he was being that right now.
“Can you go see if Ever is going to come down for lunch? He didn’t have breakfast.”
Truly, I didn’t care if León did or not. I’d been planning to go up there with a plate anyway and get him to at the very least open the door. The request was just a clear dismissal.
I needed to be alone.
I needed to get everything into the frying pan, and I needed to get something right again.
Weeks ago, that had happened when I’d kissed Ever.
Today, I didn’t know what would need to happen. I doubted kissing Ever was in the cards for the night. Or that it would quiet all the voices in my head.
The phantom touches.
A full shiver ran down my spine.