Page 108 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes
I felt as frozen as the water far below. My deeply ingrainedneedto defend my family warred with the realization that my mother probably hadn’t shown up to defend me at all.
Yes, I’d recently increased my value as a Suarez by manifesting powers, but the events of tonight were more about settling an old score than supporting a new beginning. This conclusion between our families was inevitable—accelerated by my brother, but also written in the stars long before I was born.
Endgame.
Butch was instantly by my side, slipping his bloodied hand into mine to soothe me and sighing as whatever natural comfort I provided soaked into his skin in return.
“They didn’t deserveus,”he finally spoke, and I turned to face the man I loved.
His pretty blue eyes were dulled with exhaustion, but he cracked a smile. Not the one he gave the cameras—all cocky and completely fabricated—but a soft one, just for me.
I see you, too.
The two of us could have continued this cycle of warring households and passed on the hatred for generations to come. Instead, we found love, formed an unbreakable bond, and healed ourselves.
“Fuck ‘em,” I replied, bestowing a kiss on my brave hero’s lips—knowing there were thousands more where that came from. “We have our own family now.”
CHAPTER48
BUTCH
Things moved fast after the showdown at Dead Man’s Ravine.
Despite her protests, Xander and I immediately brought Kai to a normie hospital to be checked for injuries after her run-in with my father. As they usually did, the press found out we were there, causing chaos in the lobby until a frazzled receptionist asked if we would mind making a statement so the camera crews would leave.
Better to just get everything out in the open.
“You go ahead, Butch. I’ll stay here with Kai. It’s Captain Masculine that the people want to see, anyway.”
Oh, no you don’t.
“Not gonna happen,” I snapped, grabbing his biceps through his supersuit and hauling him to his feet. “It’s time for the world to meet myinventus—Doctor Antihero.”
Kai snorted from her hospital bed, barely visible among the mountain of gift shop stuffed animals Xan had bought for her.“Doctor Antihero?You couldn’t come up with something better than that, dude?”
Xander glared at her with so much love, I almost swooned. “I didn’t come up with the name. Butch’s soon-to-beex-boss did, although…” He paused thoughtfully. “Although, I do have several PhDs, and after the events of late, I don’t mind the ‘Antihero’ label so much.Anarchistwould be more fitting, but of course Marvel already used that one. They took all the good names, to be honest.”
Probably why I ended up as Captain Masculine.
I patiently waited for Xander’s mini-rant to be over, knowing he was simply stalling while getting his nerves under control. When he finally quieted down, we checked each other’s headgear and headed for the lobby.
We still need to protect our private lives, after all.
Unsurprisingly, Captain Masculine being romantically involved with a mysterious supervillain from the Suarez family buried the news that Vortexio, Apocalypto Man, and Glacial Girl were dead.
Our story was spun as a modern-day Romeo and Juliet, and I somehow convinced Xander to do a themed photoshoot with the Big City Tribune’s Sunday magazine, featuring him standing on a balcony while I flew up to kiss him. Just as I’d hoped, he hated every minute of the experience and took it out on my ass as soon as we got home.
All those brat lessons from Kai are really paying off!
‘Home’ for both of us became Xander’s apartment, with Kai still living next door. I insisted my mother take back the hideous condo and firmly rejected the idea of us finding a bigger place. There was nothing I loved more than crowding Xander on the couch while we watched documentaries on man-eating fish or whatever. I usually wasn’t paying much attention, since I couldn’t seem to stop looking athim.
“I canfeelyour heart-eyes boring into my skull, Butch,” Xander chuckled from where he sat at his worktable in the warehouse lair, tinkering with his microplastics ray gun 2.0. “Is my needy little cumslut not getting enough attention?”
Never enough.
“Excuse me, I’m right here, you sex-maniacs,” Kai grumbled from where she was sprawled on the couch, flipping through our Sunday mag shoot.
Unruffled, as always, Xander scoffed. “When are younot,Kai? I swear, I could throw a condom wrapper in any direction and probably hit you.” He swiveled on his stool to fix me with a heated look. “Not that Butch and I have ever used them.”
