Page 38 of Headcase
Asa shook his head. “You lost your brother. The only person who seemed to care about you. Who took care of you?”
Zane flushed, blinking rapidly. “I did. I’m fine. It’s fine. I thought for sure you’d be more pissed off about my Mulvaney murder board than you are about my shitty parents.”
Was that why Zane had been trying to keep him in the car? Over the stupid board? Asa huffed out a breath through his nose. “I don’t know why you thought I would care? I already know you’re investigating my family. I didn’t know your parents were garbage.”
A slow smile spread across Zane’s face. “Garbage is a little strong.”
“Do they know you live…here? Like this?”
Zane snickered. “Like what? Like a poor person? No. My family thinks I’ve just scored my first job as a big, fancy reporter, hence my rush to get as much dirt as I could on your family. If I don’t come up with some kind of byline soon, my mom won’t have anything to tell her fancy friends.”
It gave Asa a strangely warm feeling in his chest that Zane was being so casually honest with him. It felt…intimate somehow. Asa reached out and gripped Zane’s t-shirt in his fist, pulling him closer until he was near enough for Asa to dip his head, brushing their lips together in a soft kiss before letting him go again.
Zane’s eyes were all pupil, his lips slightly parted. “What was that for?”
Asa shrugged, not really knowing why he’d done it. “I don’t know. I just wanted to kiss you.”
“You always do whatever you want, don’t you?” Zane said, voice full of awe.
“Don’t you?” Asa asked.
Zane’s gaze strayed to the stack of manuscripts, his lips pulling down at the corners. “No, not really.”
“Are those all books you’ve written?”
Zane made a noise of disgust. “Books I’ve started. I always talk myself out of finishing them.” Asa marched across the room, picking up the first book on the stack. Zane scrambled to catch up, yanking the manuscript from his hand before he could open it. “What are you doing?”
Asa frowned. “What do you mean? I want to read it.”
Zane looked scandalized, like Asa had asked to read his diary or look through his underwear drawer. Did Zane keep a diary? Was he wearing underwear? Asa’s cock hardened, and he had to tamp down the thought of bending him over the desk and checking for himself.
Zane clutched the manuscript to his desk. “No way. Never. Nobody is ever going to read those. I’m going to burn them someday. Can we just go? Isn’t your brother expecting us?”
Asa glanced at his watch. “Yeah. But we’re going to revisit this conversation again later. Let’s go.”
The look of relief that washed over Zane made Asa’s stomach clench. Zane looked different standing in his apartment. The ballsy, confident badass he’d pretended to be was long gone. In its place was a boy with sad eyes and the weight of the world on his shoulders. Asa really did want to kill whoever made Zane feel like that.
“Who are you going to tell them I am?” Zane asked as the door closed behind them.
Asa grimaced. “I don’t know. The way my family gossips, Jericho probably already told Atticus, who told August, who told Lucas, who told Noah, who told anybody who would listen.”
Zane snickered. “Gossipy killers.”
Asa threw his arm around Zane’s narrow shoulders. “You have no idea.”
Asa had expected Zane to push him away…but he didn’t. His arm slid around Asa’s waist, his head tucking in close to Asa’s shoulder as they walked down the hall to the stairs. Once more, that warmth pooled inside him, lower this time.
Shit. It was already happening. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy. First Adam, then August, then Atticus, and now him… He was growing comfortable with the thought of having a person of his own. Someone other than Avi.
But this someone might still be out to destroy his family. Zane could just be luring Asa into some false sense of security with his sad family history. Was he just a good actor? Asa didn’t think so, but some part of him whispered it was his dick who didn’t think so and his brain that wasn’t thinking at all.
Asa knew it didn’t matter either way. He wasn’t getting rid of Zane, and like Zane said, Asa always did whatever he wanted.
* * *
Asa breezed by Cricket’s desk with a half-wave, dragging Zane along behind him, ignoring the look of confusion on August’s assistant’s face. Could they still call her that? She was one of a growing list of people who knew who they really were, and she was August and Lucas’s surrogate. Didn’t that sort of make her family?
Asa shook the thought away as he pushed August’s office door open to find his brother and Lucas sharing August’s office chair. He shuttled Zane in ahead of him, closing the door behind them and pushing him deeper into the room. Zane stopped short at the two men, causing Asa to crash into him, his arm coming around his waist to keep him on his feet.
