Page 55 of The Naga

Closing my eyes, I pulled Dustin close, and sent up a silent thank you to Fate for everything she'd done, for all the pain she'd saved us from.

Dustin

The next day, I was busy trying to talk a client out of 'never using your damned site again' when Khush popped up beside me, his phone in his hand.

"Just a minute," I murmured, shooting him an apologetic look. He nodded, and waited patiently while I finished talking to the disgruntled customer. "Everything okay?" I asked when I got a good look at the worried expression on his face, and he shrugged before handing me his phone.

"I wasn't sure what to do," he said by way of explanation, and I glanced down at his phone, confused.

On the screen was a text conversation. Below a text from a couple months ago was a text that had arrived just a few minutes ago.

IndieGamer0001: Hey, Khush. Now that we've met in real life (and Dustin isn't here), is your answer still the same? Are you really over me?

"What. The. Fuck," I bit out, then picked up my phone, ignoring the chat requests piling up on my computer screen.

I dialed Quest and pressed the phone to my ear as Khush hovered nearby, still with that worried look on his face. What was he concerned about? My friendship with Quest? If it ended today, it wouldn't be Khush's fault at all.

When Quest picked up, I didn't give him a chance to speak before I hissed, "Explain this!"

"So he showed you. Good."

I blinked, then blinked some more. Khush's expression changed from worry to realization, and he relaxed, literally melting to the floor and covering his face with his hands.

"What the fuck, Quest?"

"Chill out, Dustin. I had to make sure he was being honest. Couldn't let you date someone who wasn't completely faithful to you."

On one hand, I knew I would've done the same for him if the situation were reversed, but on the other hand, I didn't like that he'd doubted Khush's love for me. Everything Khush did showed me how much he loved me, and it felt wrong to have his love judged and measured by someone I considered my closest friend.

"Well, you could've just trusted my judgment," I said, and Quest sighed.

"I know. I should've. I'm sorry, Dustin. I just didn't want to see your heart get broken again."

When he said it like that, I couldn't really argue, now could I? I understood where he was coming from, even if I didn't like it. Quest had wiped off many of my tears after I'd gotten my heart broken with my usual run-into-relationships-headlong routine, and I supposed he was just making sure it wouldn't happen again.

I glanced over at Khush, who was still curled up on the floor and seemed to have given up on life entirely, and felt my lips quirk in a smile.

"Well, are you satisfied now?"

"After the speed at which you called me after I sent the text? Hell yeah. What did he do? Roll full speed to you as soon as he got my text?"

Chuckling, I slid out of my chair and kneeled before Khush, reaching out to brush my palm over his beautiful green scales. Here inside the house, you couldn't quite see their iridescence, but they were still as mesmerizing as ever.

"Pretty much. I'll call you later, okay? I gotta go give my boyfriend a kiss."

Quest gave a quiet laugh, and I ended the call, dropping my phone on the floor before crawling closer to him. I carded my fingers through his hair, and he hummed quietly deep in his chest.

"That was embarrassing," he mumbled, and I chuckled.

"Embarrassing for me, you mean? Sorry about my friend."

"He was just looking out for you. He's a good friend," Khush said, then finally sat upright, taking my hand from his hair and holding it between his palms as he looked at me, his yellow-brown eyes warm with care. "I'm glad you have a friend who cares about you like that."

Smiling, I leaned forward to press a soft, chaste kiss to his lips, unable to do much more with the awkward position we were sitting in. "Well, I never doubted you for a single second, just so you know. Even if you hadn't shown me that text, I know you would've shut Quest down."

Khush smiled slightly, then shrugged. "I was going to, but I couldn't figure out the right way to phrase things. He's your friend, and I know how close you two are, so I didn't want to say anything that would hurt him, but I didn't know how else to be any clearer than I was last night."

Fuck. If I didn't already love this man more than I'd ever loved anyone, I might fall for him all over again. How could someone be so good? And how had all this goodness survived in Khush after the way his blood family raised him? How had he avoided turning bitter and hateful?

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