Page 15 of Distant Heart

“Dumb luck,” Rex muttered. The second Illya stepped forward, he moved back, grimacing when the end of the railing to the curved stairwell dug into the middle of his back suddenly. “Wait!”

When he threw up a hand, Illya paused.

“Let’s at least make this interesting.” Rexton was grasping at straws and they both knew it.

“You’re stalling again, xa’us.”

“I’m not.” He so totally was. “I just didn’t come all this way—”

“No, you came all this way because you had a fight with your friend.”

He bristled. “It wasn’t a fight.”

Illya quirked a brow, silently urging him to continue.

Rexton ran a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “My best friend has a new boyfriend and I don’t like the guy, okay?”

“Not really. Why don’t you like him?”

“Because he’s got Aneski eating out of the palm of his hand.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“Yes!”

“Because?”

“Forget it.” Rexton glanced away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Illya probably hadn’t felt alone a day in his life.

“You’re acting like you don’t have any other friends,” the Black Hart quipped.

“I do…” He sighed. “Look, do you know what it’s like to spend all of your time with someone, getting into that routine, and then all of sudden they just leave?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Oh.” Rex deflated some. “I must sound really pathetic to you, huh? Bet you’re wishing you’d picked someone else after all. You could, you know? The night isn’t—”

“This is the one and only warning I’ll be giving you, Rexton,” Illya cut him off, the sudden anger in his tone impossible to miss. “If you ever say something like that again, I’ll lock you up for real. Got it?”

All he could do was nod. Hefeltpathetic right now. Everything Illya had mentioned about Aneski and Flix was true, after all. Itwasa good thing that his best friend had finally found happiness, and, if he were being honest, it wasn’t exactly like Aneski was the only one playing to the other man’s tune.

He had Flix wrapped around his finger every bit as much as Flix had him.

Really, they were a good match, and Rex wanted to feel happy for them but…

“It’s not even about Aneski,” Illya boldly stated. “You’re feeling restless. You’re bored, baby. Things back home just aren’t doing it for you like they used to.”

Rexton frowned, wanting to argue, only…He wasn’t entirely wrong about that either. Ever since Aneski and Flix started dating, things with the Shepards had smoothed out. They weren’t working any shady businesses anymore or trying to pretend to be something they weren’t. Rex and the rest of the guys no longer felt like they had to watch their backs whenever they were in Brumal mafia territory.

He pretty much traveled between the house he shared with his friends to school and back. Sometimes they’d hit up one of the local bars, maybe a club if none of them had an upcomingdue date on a project. His family was long gone, so all he had was school, his art, and his friends.

“There’s only a year left before I graduate and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do with my life after that,” he admitted. There were plenty of galleries he could try for, companies he could attempt to get work from. But either way, freelance was sort of his only avenue at the moment. Was he good enough to get his own showings? Yes. But still.

The prospect didn’t excite him like it once had.

“Some days I wake up wondering why I wanted to be an artist in the first place.” His parents had cheered him on before his dad had accepted another job off planet. Now they only saw each other once or twice every other year if they were lucky, and just the thought of calling them up to confess he’d maybe made a mistake choosing sculpting made his stomach churn.

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