Page 97 of The Revenge Agenda

“Nope.” Seven plucks his phone from his grip as Molly wraps his arms around Xander’s waist. “There will be no WebMD for you.”

I jump in before they can continue. “I’m ninety percent confident tumors don’t itch. Ache, maybe. Probably a headache more than anything, whereas this itch is in my brain but ripping out everywhere.”

“So what’s causing this mental affliction?” Gabe asks from where he’s squished in beside Christian.

“Ian.”

“What?” Madden swings around to look at me. “I thought you were over him. This isn’t some kind of STD, is it?”

“What? No. I’m antsy because Hunter is still in a hotel, and he doesn’t want me to do anything about it, so now I’m stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Yes, it’s horrible.”

“Why are you stuck?” Christian asks, sounding like he doesn’t follow the conversation, the poor lamb.

“Because Hunter told me to let it go.”

“What’s so confusing about that?”

Sometimes talking with them is exhausting. I love my roommates. My brothers. The men I’ll always have in my life no matter where we all end up, but they really do struggle with communication sometimes. I remind myself to be gentle with them—they can’t help it—and try to break it down simply. “It’s confusing,” I say softly, “because I can’t let it go.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t.”

Molly nods. “Thank you for making that clearer.”

“You’re welcome.” I slap my hands on my thighs. “Now, how do we fix this?”

Madden leans over to kiss my head. “The fact you think this conversation somehow makes sense and know we’re automatically in this with you is one of the reasons I love you so much.”

“That sounds more condescending than loving.”

“Awww, look at you picking up on social cues.”

“Fuck off.”

Xander looks around the circle. “Wait, you guys aren’t following?”

Seven laughs. “You are?”

“Rush is upset that Ian is getting away with blacklisting The Hunter from finding a place, and while he wants to respect his boyfriend’s wishes, he literally can’t. He won’t be able to let go of the injustice until he does something about it, and he’s worried about where that will put his relationship when he does and how to explain to The Hunter that it will be detrimental to his sparkly brain to fixate on this forever without coming across as sounding completely batshit crazy.”

I lean back smugly and point at Xander. “Exactly.”

“If anyone understands what it’s like to have a brain that takes over control from your common sense, it’s me.”

Molly’s face falls, and he pulls Xander in tighter before whispering something in his ear. It’s rude to whisper, but I’m not going to point that out because Xander’s on my side, and I like that.

“Now that we’ve got that cleared up, please help.”

“Seems easy to me,” Gabe says. “You need to explain to him how Xander explained to us.”

“But that won’t solve the problem. I need to figure out how to make it better so I can then go to Hunter and tell him how to make it better in order to convince him to let me make it better.”

Seven turns to Xander. “Translate?”

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