“Mind if I come in.”
Not exactly a question. But it sure as hell was closer to one than the guy usually got. “Yeah, sure.”
The heir to the throne closed the door and hesitated.
“Okay, you need to tell me what the fuck is going on.” Shuli tapped his temple. “?’Cuz my mind’s going in a lot of bad places, the longer you stand there looking like you have bad news to drop and no idea how to start the fucking conversation.”
Although consideringallthe fun they’d been having together lately, what could possibly make shit worse. Yes, the Brotherhood had accepted the story that they’d run intolessersand chased them behind that apartment building, but the lie they’d taken up to protect Lyric wasn’t sitting well.
Even though, really, Shuli would have done anything for that female.
L.W. limped in farther, stopping to look at the Rothko above a bureau. “I’ve been thinking.”
“So that’s why I smelled wood burning all day long,” Shuli muttered.
The fighter glanced over his shoulder. “I’ve never understood that expression.”
“Me neither.” Shuli shoved himself backwards, until he could lean against his pillows. “Human vernacular is a playground of nonsense. We can discuss clams that are happy, being on cloud nine, and that whole over-the-moon thing later.”
When L.W. just started limping from painting to painting, Shuli exhaled the flare of pain that had come with the repositioning, and waited. He’d never seen the male so tense.
“Whatever it is,” he found himself saying, “we’ll handle it.”
He couldn’t believe the temerity of the statement. The son of the great Blind King didn’t need help from anybody when he had Wrath in his corner. But clearly this shit was private.
The kind of private that people picked and chose who they shared it with.
“I’ve been a real asshole lately.”
Shuli lifted his brows. “Lately? Try your whole life.”
L.W. glared across the room. “Not when I was a young. I was good then. I was… a good kid.”
Shuli inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I wouldn’t know. But I take it you do.”
That proud, regal head turned back to a yellow and orange canvas. “It wasn’t until I hit my transition that I… changed.”
“Which is what’s supposed to happen.”
There was a long silence. Then L.W. seemed to talk to himself. “It wasn’t that bad, really. Right after. For, like, years, I was okay. I think the compensations started without my even being aware of them.”
The male moved on to the next painting, the one to the left of the white marble hearth that had never had a fire in it. Never would.
He hated the smell of hardwood burning, and then there was the mess.
“Lately, though…”
L.W. shook his head as he walked around to the twinsie canvas on the other side.
“I haven’t been able to keep things right,” he concluded as he turned to face Shuli. “You remember when you told me not to fuck around with Bitty? That she was too good for me.”
“I don’t remember phrasing it like that.”
“That was what you meant.”
“Not really. You’re the King’s son—from a bloodline perspective, you can’t get any better than your station.”
“I’m not talking about family trees. You said she deserved better, and you meant it.”
