Page 85 of Prodigal Son

“Okay,” Axelle said, “I know you’re really upset. And you should be – I would be. But do you really think being drunk is going to help?” Deep down, she worried that someone would tell them they had to go somewhere, do something, and Raven would be drooling into the carpet.

“Yes,” Raven said, and nodded toward Axelle’s shoulder.

She turned. “What?” Caught sight of Albie ducking out the front door of the pub. Her eyes followed him for what she knew was a beat too long.

When she turned back, Raven was pouring again. “My brother might fancy you, but it’s time to face facts, love: you’re done here.”

“What?”Fancyhad sent her thoughts spinning. No, that wasn’t true. Was it? And she certainly didn’t return the sentiment. No, not at all, she… “Wait. What do you mean I’m ‘done’?”

Raven sighed. “I’m done, too, don’t worry. The boys let us have our fun for a time, but now that shit’s gotten out of hand.” She shrugged elaborately. “It’s back to the kitchen with us, and they’ll handle everything else. The bastards.”

Axelle frowned.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Honestly? At this point I have no idea how I feel about any of this.”

Raven snorted and poured another shot.

~*~

Albie sometimes forgot that he lived above his shop, he spent so little time there. It smelled like it, too: like socks that needed washing and rugs that needed the dust beat out of them. He made a face at the mail stacked on the table inside the door, and moved past it. Time to wring his hands over his overdue bills later.

Despite its stale scent of loneliness, Albie’s flat was still, as it had always been, shabby and homey. Every stick of furniture was of his own making, some of it newer, more expert pieces, but much of it older, from his fledgling days, none of the lines straight. A wingback chair with an overstuffed seat stamped with his ass print. A desk with one leg shimmed up so it wouldn’t wobble. A round ash wood table in his tiny kitchen, beautiful beneath a thin layer of dust.

Aside from the mail, and a tangled nest of boots and trainers just inside the door, the rest of the flat was tidy. Clothes hung up in the closet and folded neatly in the dresser drawers. Mugs arrayed on hooks above the cooktop. In the golden glow of lamplight, everything looked clean, too, but he knew sunlight would reveal the thin film of dust that lay over everything, a shroud built of neglect.

Some nights, when he didn’t have the energy to walk down the block to the bright, noisy pub for a beer, and a chat, and a crash in a room upstairs, when he dragged himself up the stairs, hands full of splinters, wood curls clinging to his sleeves, he looked around this place – his own, and no one else’s – and loneliness settled on his shoulders like a yoke. In those moments, alone, fatigue making him vulnerable in a way that shamed him, he wished that it wasn’t his and only his. That there was someone special standing at the stove, looking out the tiny window into the alley, hands around a steaming mug. He concocted elaborate fantasies, shockingly innocent: cooking dinner together, feeding each other bits of raw vegetable as they chopped and diced and put together a big pot of bubbling soup they’d eat out of mugs by the little stove in the lounge, a blanket shared between them, socked feet propped on the coffee table he’d made himself.

Wild, anonymous sex had held only a little appeal when he was younger, and lately, it didn’t hold any at all. What he wanted was warmth, familiarity, and steadiness.

Christ, he was maudlin.

Or, he was when he had the time to be so. Right now, it was all about business.

He went first to shower, and shave, and comb his fingers through his wet hair. Then he pulled on clean jeans, clean t-shirt and flannel, thick socks and his favorite riding boots. It felt immeasurably good to get out of the suit components, finally, and slide back into his regular clothes.

He paused a moment, before he left his bedroom, gaze fastening on the single framed photo that adorned his wall – one that he’d had blown up so it filled out a 24 x 26 picture frame. A highly rare family shot: all nine of them. One of those occasions when Raven had Cassandra for the day, and Walsh and Fox had been in town. Arrayed on the pavement in front of Baskerville Hall, arms looped around one another – in some cases grudgingly. Shane’s shy smile, Raven’s coy chin tilt, always a model, and Phillip’s proud grin, holding onto Albie, and Walsh, the second-oldest looking bored, but secretly pleased; an expression Albie could read because King was his brother, and he knew him well.

He looked at Cassie, her bright, cheeky grin, and panic welled up. He pushed it down, and sought his own face: not smiling, but not frowning; he and King wore neutral like a favorite jumper.

Devin wasn’t in the photo, obviously, and yet he was the one at the root of their current predicament. Drawing them together, hurting them, making them crazy. That was what a parent did, wasn’t it? Control the fate of his children? Usually it happened much sooner; but he supposed it had been happening all along. They’d deluded themselves into thinking that they’d outgrown Devin’s influence; made their own ways in the world, and it didn’t matter what he did, or who he was. They had each other, and that was worth something.

Too bad Devin hadn’t been shooting blanks every time he charmed his way into a woman’s bed. Too bad he’d sired any of them at all, if this was where it had all been heading.

“Maudlin,” he said aloud, and flipped off the lights and stalked out of the room.

He went downstairs to the shop, intending to head to the back, to his secret weapons stash and load up for what was to come. But he paused by the counter, gaze catching on a lone figure standing out on the pavement, warm glow of the streetlamp gilding a spill of long red-gold hair down a narrow back.

Axelle.

She turned to him when she heard the door unlock, arms folded tight across her middle, her denim jacket well-loved, but not sturdy enough to keep out the London chill. Fog had settled low in the streets, thick as clouds, and its effect made her look lost, and younger than she was.

“Why are you standing out here alone?” he asked, harsher than he’d intended, and waved her in.

She slipped past him, hair brushing soft against his face, smelling of the pub, and the metallic tang of the fog, and of something that was entirely her. “I was waiting for you.”

His heart gave an entirely inappropriate bump behind his ribs. “Why?” He locked the door and fastened the chain, rather than look at the way she continued to hug herself, expression troubled.

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