Twenty-Three

Khush

Okay, this wasn't good. How the hell did Quest know that?

I glanced up at Dustin to find him watching me with a surprised look on his face, his blue eyes wide.

Silas and Touya, on the other hand, quickly and quietly snuck away, clearly not wanting to be a part of this drama. I wished I could run away with them too.

"Um, Khush?" Dustin asked, his voice full of questions, and I sighed.

"It was before I met you. I stumbled upon Quest's channel and I thought he looked nice, and I liked the things he talked about. It was just a crush," I said, peering up at Dustin. I'd hate for him to think I still felt anything for Quest, but at the same time I didn't want to hurt Quest by sounding too harsh. He was Dustin's closest friend, and I'd kill myself before I damaged their relationship.

"Well, that's true. He stopped replying to me weeks ago after giving me a polite excuse," Quest said, and I sighed. I was glad he wasn't making it out to be anything bigger than what it was.

"Wait. When did I ever directly talk to you?" I asked, shooting Quest a confused look, and he gave us a sheepish smile.

"I have this throwaway account I use to snoop on the chat server."

"Oh. You're IndieGamer," I realized, feeling a little unsettled. It felt like I'd been tricked somehow, and I didn't like it.

"You talked to him using a fake profile? After you knew he was into you?" Dustin demanded, and Quest ducked his head, looking a little ashamed.

"I just wanted to know if his crush had anything more to it than just, you know, fan stuff," Quest said in a low voice, and I relaxed a little. In a way, I understood what he meant. Being a public figure must be difficult. It would give anyone trust issues.

"It's okay," I said, mostly to Dustin. Reaching out, I took his hand in mine, and he glanced over at me, his eyes still troubled. "He was just looking out for himself. It's okay. If it was anyone else, you'd have told him to do exactly that, and you know it."

Dustin opened his mouth, as if to argue, then snapped it shut with a sigh. "Yeah, you're right."

"Okay, so can we all sit and have a few drinks now?" Quest asked, and Dustin nodded quickly.

"Did someone say drinks?" Silas asked, as always appearing from thin air. Touya was right by his side, and they both placed trays full of drinks on the table.

"Shots?" Dustin asked with a raised brow, and I shrugged before downing one. While I didn't drink often, I had a high tolerance for them like most supes.

As the night progressed, we somehow ended up in a drinking competition. Dustin was on refill duty since he'd declared himself the designated driver, so it was just Touya, Silas, Quest, and me.

Touya called it after six shots, and then Quest after eleven, which was pretty damned impressive for a human.

Silas and I, though? We kept going until Dustin declared there were no more drinks, which had to be a lie, but I was buzzed enough to not notice right then.

Touya dragged Silas onto the dance floor, and then I told Dustin to go dance with Quest. I didn't want him to not have fun because of me, and we could always dance together at home where I wasn't disguising myself.

We ended up staying until last call, and despite the rough start to our evening, we ended up having a lot of fun.

Dustin drove on our way back to the Sanctuary, and Touya sat with him in the front while Silas took the back with me. He was a little drunker than me, probably because he was half-human, and he spent the whole drive singing, his voice loud and slurry and very entertaining.

I wasn't drunk enough to miss the opportunity to catch him on video, and I saved the file for a rainy day, knowing sooner or later, I'd find the perfect use for it.

Once we reached the Sanctuary, I had to help Touya carry Silas home since he kept tumbling about, and his poor human mate just wasn't built to support a drunk troll, especially when he'd shifted into his troll form as soon as we stepped into the Sanctuary.

After dropping Silas off, Dustin and I made our way home, our arms linked together as I swayed gently into him.

"About what Quest said," I started to say as we stepped into our cabin, and Dustin shushed me, placing his palm on my mouth.

"You don't have to worry, Khush. Like you said, it was before we met, and it's not like you guys did anything. Quest is an amazing person, and so are you. There's a very good chance the two of you could have ended up together."

"Maybe that's why Fate sent you to me the first time I stepped outside the Sanctuary," I said, meeting his gaze as I slowly led him into the downstairs bedroom so we could change out of our outside clothes. "Because she knew Quest and I weren't the right match, and she didn't want us to get our hearts broken."

"Yeah. If you'd dated Quest, I could've never dated you. You know, bros before hos and all that," Dustin said with a smirk, and I chuckled softly.

I'd always wondered what had made me lucky enough to find Dustin so quickly, but I felt like this truly was the answer. Fate had seen our paths crossing in the wrong way, and she'd corrected the course. I was glad she had. The other route would've just caused everyone so much pain.

After I helped Dustin change into his sleepwear, which was basically just a really old, really big hoodie, we made our way upstairs and slid under the covers, leaving the door open for Scrappy.

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?

Maybe someday he'd tell me, but for now, I was just glad he had. I was glad Fate had brought us together, and I was glad to have this new life with him. I was going to treasure and protect it with everything I had.

"Um, shouldn't you be working?" Khush asked in a tone that implied he did not want me to go back to work but he was too good of a mate to let me get in trouble.

"Shit, yeah," I mumbled, scrambling to my feet then offering Khush a hand. He rose up to his full 'height,' then pressed a kiss into my palm.

"Go, go. We can talk later."

So I got back to business, and as I spent the morning dealing with unhappy customers, I wondered what the fuck I was doing. Why was I clinging to this job that was very rarely fun and most just a monotonous crap pile that kept me away from my mate?

I'd barely spent a cent since I got there. Touya and Silas had even added cat food to their grocery list, and they used the Sanctuary money to get it, despite my insistence that I could pay. Apparently, Scrappy was now a resident of the Sanctuary, and therefore the Sanctuary would provide for all her needs. Simple as that.

So what was I making this money for? I didn't want to be independent anymore. I wanted to be able to depend on Khush, and on this place full of the most wonderful people I'd ever met. Maybe later today, I'd talk to Khush about leaving my job. I doubted he'd have any protests, though. He might just throw a party instead.