Chapter Text
November 2nd to 20th – some weeks earlier
For Henry Husker, November was a kaleidoscope of sensations – moments and days stitched together with that bizarre thread that had begun to intertwine between him and Anthony, ever tighter.
*
There was a carpet of leaves on the paths of Central Park, and where the trees were not yet completely bare, they blazed against the Manhattan sky.
The soles of Anthony’s Docs were creaking and that unlikely fuchsia lace had come untied again – Henry stared at it, distracted, as he walked with him and four other little dogs. Fat Nuggets was wearing an equally unlikely outfit, a purple sweater that matched Tony’s.
The blond’s hand dangled next to his – the one that wasn’t holding a sweet, sugary soda they’d stopped to get earlier.
Cherry cola, probably.
He reached out instinctively, to intertwine his fingers with the other’s and hold his hand.
Anthony’s hazel-green gaze found him, an instant later, and he smiled.
Henry found himself doing the same.
*
Molly was very nice once you got to know her better.
Delightfully bossy, a bit like her brother, but more sensible.
Caroline and Anna were playing in Anna’s bedroom – he had seen them disappear and start listing the names of an army of what looked like frogs – while the two Scavo brothers were arguing in the kitchen about what was the secret ingredient in the cookie’s recipe Molly had made for that Sunday lunch he had been invited to.
He was leaning against the pantry, near the sink, and watching them practically insult each other in Italian – his knowledge of it was fluent enough to understand that the situation was serious. That Nonna had said nutmeg and not cloves. That Anthony didn’t understand ‘un cazzo’ and ‘cosa ne vuoi capire tu di cucina!'
He smiled behind his cup of coffee, at that very serious insult, suppressing a half laugh without much success.
Tony turned to look at him, mouth agape, pointing indignantly at his sister as if silently asking his opinion on the matter.
When he noticed Husk’s smile, he too began to laugh, followed by Molly.
The Scavo kitchen was filled with laughter, so much that even Daniel and Nicholas – he had also met him – had come over to see what was happening.
*
In the reflection of the foggy bathroom mirror, Anthony’s pale and freckled figure in the shower. His humming, in the rush of water, and that cherry shampoo scent that he had begun to associate more and more with a familiar smell.
On his sheets, his clothes, his fingers.
He stood there with the razor in his hand, amber eyes fixed on that little heart tattooed on his left cheeks – the same one he had squeezed in his palm the night before, while he ate Tony’s ass, because lube was fine but spit was more fun.
He blinked, belatedly noticing the water off and the blast of hot, humid air coming from the shower door of that tiny bathroom.
With Anthony in there, it felt like the most beautiful house in the world.
*
He had dreamed of being deaf; a constant ringing in his ears that had taken away his hearing. He spoke but couldn’t even hear what he was saying.
He had woken with a start only to discover that the ringing was really there.
The heavy November rain had blown the alarm of a store right around the corner; the yellow light of the Brooklyn streetlights filtering through the uncurtained windows illuminated Anthony, lying on his left side, arm stuck under the pillow.
He watched him mumble something in his sleep and roll over, curling up in the cold; the duvet had slid down, tangled at the foot of the bed.
Henry reached over to grab it and cover him again – the blond’s relaxed sigh, another sleepy groan in Italian: dormi tesoro.
He lay back down behind him, reaching out to pull him against himself – back to chest – and nuzzling sleepily the nose in the hair on the back of his neck.
He fell asleep purring.
*
The cinema was empty, except for the two of them. He had come to pick up Anthony – Angel Dust – at the club; when he had called him from the dressing room, something inside Henry had told him not to let him come back alone.
Those kisses tasted of popcorn, of shenanigans, of ssssht we can’t fuck in here , of no one can see us anyway Husky, humor me.
On the screen, an old rerun of ‘Alien’ for the sci-fi night.
Kneeling at his feet and wedged between his open thighs, Anthony was sucking him off.
Husk had closed his eyes for a moment, fingers running through those blond locks, and he had gasped with pleasure – a low groan – as he watched him take it in his mouth and rub his freckled nose into the dark tuft at the base of his cock.
He had pulled his hair to get him up, to find the hem of his skirt and push the purple panties aside, to suck his own finger and slide it between his ass cheeks to enter him.
Anthony’s moan, his fuck me here please whiskers. He had straddled him and the screen had suddenly vanished from Husk’s field of vision.
When Anthony sank down on his cock with another absolutely arousing moan breathed into his mouth, part of Henry wondered if they were really alone in that cinema.
The other part, the one that pushed the tongue too into Anthony, decided he didn’t give a damn.
*
Pink. Lilac. On, off, off, on again.
His vision darkened as Anthony set aside yet another piece of clothing that didn’t fit for the evening.
Henry pushed away from his eyes a sort of oversized sweater used as a dress and looked at him again.
Half naked, busy mumbling italian nonsense and digging in the closet; him, completely naked, still lazily lying in bed because he had no intention of getting up from there.
It was his day off, after all.
*
Lidia smiled at him, while Anthony was saying goodbye to Caroline: he had her in his arms, on the landing of his old apartment, and he was recommending her not to tell her mother that they had eaten ice cream that afternoon. Loudly enough that it wasn't really a secret.
Caroline’s giggling, her boots kicking softly swinging in the air and Anthony's mischievous smile as he put her back down.
Henry was still looking at Lidia, who silently pointed out the scene and tilt her head towards her shoulder with the same sweetness that had made him fall in love in that club in Las Vegas. A lifetime ago.
I like Tony, she seemed to be telling him.
Me too, a lot, those amber eyes answered.
November 21st – twenty-four hours earlier
Husk looked at himself in the piercing studio’s mirror, craning his neck as best he could to peek at the brand new red heart adorning his left earlobe.
“What do you say?”
Angel’s tone was almost too enthusiastic for something that Henry had agreed to after a truly admirable insistence – and a hand that had slid down, along his stomach, to sneak under the sheets and tease his dick. In that moment, the blood had left Husk’s brain and Anthony’s voice in his ear – while his hand worked magic – had become much more convincing.
He had murmured ‘whatever you want’ then sought his lips for a kiss and then yeah, they had ended up here.
“Hmm.”
“Can you express an opinion in understandable language, please?”
“I know six of them, take a pick.”
Anthony choked on a sip of Starbucks coffee – ‘cause of course there had been a detour on the way to the piercing and tattoo studio – and looked at him wide-eyed, catching his glance in the mirror.
“What do you mean six ?”
“That I speak six languages, so you’ll have to be a bit more specific when you ask me—”
“And why the hell didn’t I know anything about it?!”
Husk blinked as the pretty girl who had just pierced his earlobe took off her gloves and nonchalantly slipped out of the room.
“... You never asked.”
Angel, open-mouthed and indignant, raised both hands in the air – exasperated – as his only comment.
“You’ll spill your coffee.”
“Oh fuck coffee.” he joined him in front of the cot, blocking his mirror view and sliding between his legs to tap his chest accusingly with the index finger. Husk instinctively put his hands on his hips, chuckling lowly and holding him there.
“Next time you fuck me, talk to me in one of those languages.”
“We’re in public.” Henry pointed out, looking around for a moment as if to make sure no one had heard him and raising his left eyebrow in vague reproach.
This made Anthony laugh, in that crystalline way that made his stomach flutter so much.
“Not right now, silly. Or am I to assume that your lack of curtains is actually a voyeur kink?”
Husk sighed heavily, patting him on the ass as an invitation to get out of the way to give him room to get up and getting a sort of playful moan in return, which made him grumble and blush at the same time, as he left the room to reach the cash and pay.
This was just the first stop on a tour to prepare for the fundraising evening; a tour expertly organized by Anthony himself, who had spontaneously offered to help him find the right dress and get ready. Something, in the process, must have gone terribly wrong for Henry to find himself agreeing to get a piercing because ‘trust me babe, it’ll go well with the outfit’.
He wondered silently what had happened to his ability to say no to that man as he took out his phone to pay and, in the background, Angel chatted with the girl who had just pierced his ear to show her his piercings.
A vague memory of that morning, before Anthony had erased his ability to reason, reminded him how the blond had tried to convince him to get his nipple pierced, but he hadn’t given in despite that hand rubbing his cock before moving further down.
This gave him a pinch of personal pride.
That’s how you do it, Henry.
He cleared his throat, putting the phone away.
“Shall we?”
Anthony greeted the girl with a couple of kisses on the cheeks – Italian style – before finishing his coffee and throwing it in the trash as he followed him out into the cold November air.
New York was now a red, yellow and orange fire burning between the skyscrapers, when the leaves had not yet fallen into a colorful carpet in Central Park.
The air was cold and biting and Henry adjusted the scarf around the neck of his coat before shoving hands in his pockets; he almost immediately felt Anthony’s arm slip into the arm-loop, as if it were a natural gesture.
Since when it had become like this?
“Next stop, Armani.”
“Whoa, slow down, I don’t have all that money for an Armani suit.”
“Don’t worry, Husky.” he gave him a knowing wink, starting to walk along the sidewalk; tucked into the usual fuchsia eco-bio-fur teddy jacket, a pair of black wool over-the-knee socks and a denim miniskirt, next to Henry and his jeans plus black coat were an interesting contrast to look at.
Husk looked up a little to stare at him, a warm, pleasant feeling spreading in the pit of his stomach again. That ‘something’ had been proliferating inside him for days now, rising like a soft tide.
Anthony, who hadn’t noticed him staring this time, continued his speech.
“The store manager knows me. He can get us a discount.”
Henry frowned, vaguely puzzled.
“He knows you?”
Anthony seemed to notice what he had just said because he blinked a couple of times, realizing something.
“Anh, yeah.” he cleared his throat. “For Valentino. He came to the club a few times.”
Henry Husker had not become a croupier – and a gambler – without knowing how to read others; it was also thanks to that, in addition to his undeniable cheek, that he had managed to get so high, in the golden days.
So, it did not take much effort to understand that Anthony was hiding something.
He did not investigate further, for the moment, limiting himself to a low sound of assent.
Armani’s store was exactly what the name promised: luxurious and refined.
Husk followed Anthony step by step, never losing sight of him, as the blond greeted the sales assistants as if he had known them all his life and reached the ‘famous’ manager: a man a little older than Henry, short, who looked at Tony with the same glance as every client of the club.
Client.
A pensive worm bit into Henry’s conscience, something that remained there and that made him frown his thick eyebrows as he left Anthony free to choose his suit, accompany him to the dressing room and wait for him as he began to try it on.
He was still there with frowns, busy tying his tie in the mirror, when the curtain parted to let the blond enter.
He intercepted his smile in the reflection – a golden flash of the canine – and that thought vanished in a flutter in the pit of his stomach the moment he felt him hug him from behind and rest the chin on his left shoulder.
The fact that Tony was taller than him gave him an inexplicable satisfaction.
“Hey, handsome.” he purred. “It looks good on you.”
Henry snorted, ironically, straightening the knot of his tie as Anthony’s hands slipped under the suit to caress his hips – carefully avoiding his back, after their last conversation – and slid further down to find the crotch of his pants. Shamelessly.
“It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever worn, but I can’t afford it.”
“Didn’t I just tell you? Julian’s giving you a discount.”
“Why?”
The question sounded less convincing than he would have liked, considering that Anthony’s hands had undone the button and zipper to sneak under the fabric and find his already quite hard cock. He closed his eyes in a thick breath, leaning the back of his head against the blond's shoulder and listening to him chuckle against his ear in a soft and lazy kiss.
“Because I asked him to.”
He should have asked what made Anthony so persuasive with the manager of an Armani store, perhaps, but the moment the blond pulled down his pants a little and took him in his hand – there, in the reflection of the mirror, to show him everything – his already poor conversational skills disappeared completely.
“Tony, we are—”
“In public, yeah yeah, I know.” he repeated, leaving another kiss on his neck while he pulled Husk’s pants down a little more with his free hand and slipped to massage him between the cheeks and reach his balls, stimulating him in that way too. “You want me to stop?”
Husk opened his mouth in a low, husky moan, watching the scene in the mirror and opening his legs a little too.
“Fuck no.”
Anthony’s delighted grin preceded the excited meow in his ear.
“That’s what I thought.”
Shopping had never been so much fun.
November 22nd – present
“You’ve got some lipstick there.”
Henry blinked a couple of times, before sliding that amber gaze against Alastor’s dark eyes – cold and particularly bored; while that irritating smirk never really goes away, Husk had learned over the years to associate the variations of that perpetually smiling expression.
Like, at the moment the left corner of Alastor’s lips indicated with relative certainty a barely perceptible annoyance and a poorly concealed blame for behavior that was unacceptable to him.
Henry sighed, patient and vaguely exasperated – with Alastor, it was impossible not to be. Usual practice.
“Where?”
“There— No, further down.” he clarified, while Henry rubbed the left side of his neck without much success. “Near the collar. It will definitely leave a stain, I hope you are aware of that.”
Husk chuckled unrestrainedly – a dirty, throaty sound – as he reached down to rub that neck area right near the collar of the black shirt with white buttons he was wearing that night.
The same night in which Alastor had practically forced him to accompany him to the Lenox Hill fundraising evening, so ‘you can act as a diversion for all those inappropriate women in the midst of a hormonal crisis who try to seduce me every time’ even if diversion meant more human shield than anything else.
The asshole was indeed a very coveted prey.
And so, on a Friday night when Henry could have spent the evening with the culprit of that dark red lipstick mark, he had put on his Armani suit – freckled fingers knotting the tie for him, an excuse to touch him and leave a kiss on the tip of his nose – and he had gone to pick up Alastor with the still smitten expression of someone who spent the pre-evening in a certain way.
Coming.
“All good?”
“Yes.”
“I should check to see if there’s any left on my—”
“I don’t think I want to know where else you have lipstick, Husker.” Alastor cut off a potentially awkward conversation without even looking at him, checking with bored indolence at the contents of his glass – rye whiskey, neat – and swirling it a couple of times.
The flash that crossed Henry’s mind – strands of blond hair clutched between his fingers, a pair of hazel-green eyes staring languidly and liquidly up at him, a freckled nose tucked into the tuft at the base of his cock – made him actually agree that nope.
“Yeah, no, you don’t wanna know.” Husk’s absolutely stupid smile, placid and content with that very recent memory, was met with yet another vaguely disgusted sound from Alastor.
“Gross.”
Henry wisely decided to drop the subject, downing the rest of his glass.
Only the second one, so far everything is under control. See? You can do it very well.
He rubbed his bristly salt-and-pepper beard, looking around for a waiter or something. Maybe both.
“So, tell me again what the fuck am I doing here.”
“You are my chaperone and you elevate your essence only by being in my company, of course.”
“I’m not a fucking chap— What did you just call me?”
Alastor’s sigh, accompanied by yet another sharp smile, was answer enough. Husk adjusted his red tie, loosening it a bit and looking around again.
“No, seriously, what is tonight? What I have to do.”
“Nothing, Husker, you just have to smile and try to seduce some old, wealthy, maybe slightly bored lady from the Upper East Side into shelling out a lot of money for our hospital.” Alastor explained, looking around to see if he could spot the exact category he had just described. “You’re pretty good at it, huh? Like good old days.”
A stolen mascot. An unlikely evening. A bizarre friendship born out of debt.
Henry watched the doctor in silence for a couple of moments before shaking his head and sighing — walking down memory lane was always nice, even if it was absurd.
“If I really have to do this, I need a drink.”
“Isn’t that what you always do?”
“Drinking or seducing people?”
“Both.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re gratuitously rude sometimes.”
Husker ignored him, grabbing a flute of champagne from one of the trays the waiters were carrying around the room, when…
He choked on it.
And not because Vox had just arrived, taking off his coat and dropping it without even looking at the poor cloakroom attendant; it was one of the people accompanying him who had caught his attention.
He coughed silently, Alastor didn’t even bother to pat him on the shoulder; Husk heard him make a sort of annoyed and exasperated noise at the same time.
“Of course Vox has to come and show off at these events. I’ll use you as a distraction again, Husk, just so you know— Is everything fine?”
An odd modicum of empathy from Alastor told Henry that he must have looked really unhinged right now.
Henry caught his breath, still staring at Valentino, who had an arm around Vox’s shoulders as they walked around the room and greeted various guests, accompanied by another young woman in an elegant dress, short, dark eyes glued to a phone screen and the bored look of someone who has come here but would rather be somewhere else.
“Husker?”
Vox’s hand around Valentino’s waist, a possessive caress, and the man murmuring something in his ear with a languid smile, making Vox sigh patiently.
I wonder if he smiled like that, everytime he hit Anthony.
“No.”
Nothing was fine.
Alastor tilted his head slightly to his right shoulder, his perpetual smile tinged with a puzzled edge; he followed the path of Henry’s amber gaze and focused on Vox’s companion.
“Do you know Vox’s flamboyant lover?”
“Yeah.”
He said no more.
Alastor didn’t probe, but judging by the way his dark eyes narrowed, he was connecting a few dots here and there, something he’d sensed from the past few weeks; perhaps, the night he’d bumped into Anthony, who’d come to see Husk at work and spend the evening there, at the bar, constantly finding excuses to touch his hands.
That adorable, manipulative bastard Alastor was far too good at reading people. Above all, at understanding Henry Husker’s weaknesses.
“I see.”
Without further warning, Henry felt the doctor’s hand grab his elbow, as peremptory as the look he sent his way.
“I swear if you do anything, anything , to embarrass me, I will kill you and make it look like an accident.” he warned calmly, sounding like he wasn’t joking at all.
Husk rasped yet another harsh, rather sarcastic laugh from the back of his throat.
“As if it were the first time.”
“That I kill someone by making it look like an accident? No, it wouldn’t be the first time.”
Henry’s gaze stopped piercing Valentino for the first time since he’d entered the room to look at Alastor with a politely shocked expression.
“… You’re not serious.”
“Do you really want to find out?”
Well, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to find out if that particular ‘killer’ nuance of Alastor’s smile was a real threat or yet another mysterious statement from the man – who in the meantime had let go.
Henry decided to grab his fourth drink of the evening from a tray and down it – which made the doctor’s left eyebrow rise.
“Are you going to kill yourself first from an ethyl coma?”
“Imma take a piss.”
Henry ignored Alastor’s remark that reminded him of how little he cared about his bodily functions as he made his way through the various elegant people present and reached the bathroom.
The water in the sink had been running for ten minutes now without Husk actually managing to do what he was supposed to do: wash his hands.
Gripping the edge, his amber gaze fixed on his reflection and a lively internal exchange with his irritating little voice that this time was murmuring words of anger in his ear. For once, not aimed entirely at his behavior.
Anger.
A gnawing sensation that sank teeth into his stomach and made him tighten his bite – a thought suggested to him that he would have growled, if he hadn’t gritted his teeth.
Calm down Husk, calm down.
What’s the point of calming down? Don’t you wanna smash his face?
Alastor would kill him – the threat from before seemed very real.
Don’t you wanna give him back the same shit that he most likely gave Anthony every day?
They were at a charity event, along with several doctors and physicians and there was absolutely no point in embarrassing himself even more. He was already out of place as Alastor’s plus one.
Of course, you’re his pet.
Shut up.
You obey everything he says, right? Where are your fucking balls?
Shut up shut up.
You can’t even hold your own with Anthony’s abusive ex, just like you weren’t able to keep Li—
The sound of the mirror glass shattering with a violent crack, under Henry’s fist. The clinking of the shards in the sink, on the floor. The pain that made his hand throb.
You’re a coward, Henry Husker.
Henry watched the point of impact of the fist, following the web of cracks in the mirror and chasing that of his memories.
Lidia crying, on the other side of the closed door. Caroline, at grandparents’ house. We can’t pay for anything, Henry. The world crumbling under his feet. The intoxicating anger towards himself. The little voice whispering to him, sensual, that he would have gambled that money anyway. The fist smashed against the mirror to hear something other than his wife’s tears or his self-hatred.
Just as it had happened years ago, Henry stuck his hand under the tap and watched the water turn red.
No matter what, Henry always ended up punishing the same person: himself.
Distracted by these reflections and noticeably gloomy, he took a thick sigh, turning off the water.
His intention to return to the main room – right hand dabbed with one of the towels provided – was interrupted by a soft chatting and the door to the men’s room opening to reveal the back of a tall man holding onto a pretty young woman.
The man in question – hand lasciviously clutching the ass of his companion, who was giggling in delight at who-knows-what he was kissing against her ear – was none other than Valentino.
As if his thoughts had just manifested there, in the flesh.
Anger sank its teeth back into his stomach.
The girl meowed a surprised sound, trying to compose herself.
“What’s the matter baby, don’t—”
Valentino didn’t finish the sentence, following the trajectory of the girl’s gaze, which locked in the amber Husker eyes. Considerably lower.
Henry clearly saw the tangle of thoughts that meandered deep into the dark eyes of the man who was staring at him, with his hand still on the girl’s ass who was meanwhile rearranging the straps of her dress.
A sizzling, electric silence. The one that precedes storms.
Then, he smiled.
A golden canine, mirroring Anthony’s, as a further lash to Henry’s anger.
What the fuck did Anthony ever see in this douchebag?
“Look who’s here.” Val chanted with a sneer, leaning against the bathroom wall and holding the girl tighter as if she were some sort of accessory. Henry looked at her for a moment, just in time to notice a hint of discomfort – as if she had sensed something tense.
“The old man who’s fucking Angel Dust now. He’s giving you a special price, hm?”
Henry frowned, confused, and Valentino probably noticed because he let out a theatrical, incredulous laugh, slamming his left hand on his thigh.
“He didn’t tell you, did he?”
“Told what.”
“Oh, that’s fucking hilarious.” he shook his head and clicked his tongue a couple of times. “Nah, I’ll let my amorcito explain it to you.” He reached up to cup the chin of the girl in his arms, a sort of coercive caress.
There was a thin and blurred line between what Valentino take forcibly and his ability to take a refusal.
But that wasn’t what Henry focused on.
“He’s not yours.”
Stupid, stupid Husk. Why the fuck don’t you learn to shut up?
Valentino tilted his head slightly toward his shoulder, managing to tickle the girl’s forehead with the fur trim of his coat – for him, the dress code apparently didn’t apply.
The black gaze he shoved at Husk dripped with all the silent danger he’d already intuited from Anthony’s stories or from what he’d heard in the dressing room.
Valentino wasn’t a man to be easily contradicted.
“What did you just say?”
“I said, he’s not yours,” Henry repeated, apparently choosing to ignore the feeling. “He’s not a fucking object. And most of all, he told me you’re his ex.”
Valentine laughed and the girl seemed even more uncomfortable.
“He’s not a fucking object?! Cariño, have you looked at him carefully? That man was born to be a sexual toy.”
The anger inside Husker grew even more, if that was possible.
“To fuck him inside out and start all over again.”
Husker swallowed a growl and marched towards the door, ignoring Valentino and the girl leaning nearby with a superiority he was currently having a hard time maintaining.
Be cool, Husk, he’s just a frustrated dickhead.
“Voxy told me you’re divorced.”
Stop.
Henry froze, his bruised hand still on the doorknob and an eerie ringing in his ears.
The little voice was deadly silent now.
“I wonder if your ex-wife was a whore too, to pay for your debts.”
Husk saw red.
If someone had asked him to explain exactly what had happened, Henry would have had a very difficult time reconstructing the dynamics.
All he knew was that first he was about to leave the bathroom and a moment later that same already sore fist crashed into Valentino’s mouth, in the frightened scream of the girl who ran out of the bathroom. He found himself on his knees on the floor, practically astride the man, trying to hit him again while the other paid back in kind.
In the general confusion, Husk’s anger had become a dull, devouring sensation.
So much so that he didn’t notice the security intervened to separate them, the tug under his arms to remove him from Valentino and the angry spit that landed on him – blood and saliva – along with Spanish cursing that the other poured on him as he was tugged away too.
Along with the security, Vox and Alastor, plus the young woman who had arrived with the other two at the party.
“What the fuck is going on, ALASTOR!” Vox’s voice, who checked Valentino briefly before turning to the one he had just invoked in a snarl.
Husk jerked himself away from the security grip, straightening his jacket and shirt and wiping the blood from his nose with an equally bloody hand.
Alastor’s gaze pierced his forehead and he stubbornly ignored it.
“What happened, Husker?”
“Keep your pet at bay—”
“I’m not his fucking pet!”
“He attacked me, Vox, I didn’t do anything!”
“You piece of shit, you—”
“Enough.”
Alastor didn’t even need to yell. The hiss that interrupted the cacophony of sentences was enough to make Henry shiver, and he raised his amber gaze to finally meet the doctor’s.
He had never seen him so angry.
“I think it’s time for you to go home, Henry.”
Not Husk. Henry.
There was only one reason Alastor was addressing him that way.
Husk swallowed, glancing at Valentino who was dramatizing the whole thing, leaning on Vox as if he were in incredible pain before turning back to Alastor.
“Al—”
“Now, Husker.”
It was an answer that didn’t want any argument.
With his anger turning into burning humiliation, Henry stepped on the mirror shards that he had broken just like the had punched Valentino’s lip earlier and, pushing aside security with yet another shove, left the bathroom, angrily dabbing at his nose blood with a handful of tissues from the dispenser.
In the icy silence that followed him, he only heard the young woman’s voice, followed by Alastor’s as he addressed security. ‘I am mortified by my companion’s behavior— ’
Henry Husker left the fundraiser amidst the general buzz of the guests, his metaphorically ears down and his tail between his legs.
Valentino’s words about Anthony – “He didn’t tell you, did he?” – reawakened the worm from the day before.
So focused that he didn’t notice his exit had been filmed and commented on.
And uploaded online.