Page 16 of Xerxes Ascendant
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s perfect,” he added with sincerity. “Thank you, Indy.”
“Anytime, Kylie.”
“See you later?”
“If we’re up,” she answered, peeling away and waving goodbye to him. “Otherwise, the sofa is all yours and we’ll try not to wake you when Bensen and I leave for work.”
Leaving for work in the morning. What a strange concept. Kyle had worked nights for nearly six years: first as a shiftworker in the factories and then at House Epsilon, and he’d grown used to being awake during Xerxes’ darkest hours, such as they were.
He ascended the remaining steps and pushed open the front door. The half dozen men clustered in the foyer simultaneously froze, looked his way with guilty shock, and then burst into delighted exclamations.
“Surprise!”
“Welcome back, sir!”
“Kyle!”
A tangle of glittery silver launched itself at Kyle and knocked the wind from his chest as it latched its gangly limbs around his neck and hips.
“Bitch, you’re back!”
“Misha,” he greeted with a laugh, cheered by the familiarly exuberant greeting.
Kyle caught his friend as he started to slip from his waist, his palms cupping two firm – and entirely bare – ass cheeks. As usual, Misha was wearing next to nothing, with a silver thong and artfully placed strips of duct tape forming his entire outfit. Glitter shimmered on his face, arms, and hair.
“Arck,” Kyle mumbled, receiving a mouthful of hair spray and glitter as Misha playfully nuzzled kisses into his neck. “This is certainly one way to welcome a man back to work.”
“More than you deserve. We were hiding and ready to jump out to surprise you,” said the twink reproachfully as he wriggled his way down Kyle’s much taller frame and dropped back onto his own bare feet. “Ben saw you turning onto the street, but then you tookagesto come inside.”
“My apologies for draining your patience reserves. All sixty seconds of them.”
Misha pulled a face and Kyle laughed again, feeling lighter than he had in days.
“Casey! It’s good to see you.”
“Kyle. Your absence was…noticed,” Casey responded stiffly.
Mish beamed. “Nawwww, Case!”
“That’s the absolute nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” agreed Kyle, and wrapped his prickly coworker into a tight hug. Casey hissed out an irritated breath but didn’t pull away, even going so far as to pat his back with a single, reluctant slap.
Kyle let go so he could hug a pestering Ben, and then all of the others gathered in the foyer that smelled strongly of paint and turpentine. He avoided looking at the spot where he’d fallenthrough the rubble, although Kyle was sure it would appear no different to the remainder of the flawlessly restored floor. And the training room where all of the horrific things had been inflicted on Akira that night...now the door stood open, the room currently not in use, and nothing of its welcoming interior hinted at the pain it had witnessed.
Other than the fun kind, of course, with a new spanking bench sitting proudly front and centre.
And then Kyle’s gaze landed on the repaired front desk and the man seated quietly behind it. His heart sank.
Indira had broken the devasting news to him that not all of House Epsilon’s staff had survived the city’s destruction, and to have only lost one friend to it was already beating the odds amidst the unfathomable numbers of Xerxians who had been killed. But it was still one friend too many.
For Rick, their friendly, meticulous House receptionist, to have died because of Mayor Mackenroth’s callous selfishness...
Outside of acts consented to in scenes, Kyle wasn’t a violent man. He regularly saved spiders from Mayhem’s enthusiastic torment, had felt guilty for a week when he’d once accidentally elbowed a colleague in the face, and used his height and easy smile to avoid the brawls that commonly erupted in the streets over the smallest of perceived slights. But if he could get Benedict Mackenroth alone in a room...well, Kyle reckoned that monster deserved more than a few harsh words. He wouldn’t mind bruising his knuckles to make the mayor feel a fraction of the pain he’d so willingly caused the people he was charged with looking after.
Kyle banished the dark thoughts before they could blacken his expression, and forced a polite smile to his face. It wasn’t the new employee’s fault that they’d lost a friend, and he didn’t want him to feel unwelcome.
And when he looked at him closer, he was stunned to find he recognised the freckled, red-haired man.
