Page 41 of False Comeback

“No, it’s not,” I shouted. Maybe it had been that first time, but now…

“Then why did you do it?” he shouted back.

“I don’t fucking know!”

His nostrils flared again as he took a step back, breathing hard. “I hate you.”

“I—” For some reason, the same words got clogged in my throat. Gritting my teeth, I lifted my chin and croaked, “Likewise.”

“I hate how much I let you get to me.” His chest was heaving now with angry breaths. “I hate how you make me feel. I hate that you…” A strangled sound of pure frustration tore from his throat, and before I could react, he was lifting his arm.

I jumped in shock when fabric smacked me in the face, my hand quickly reaching up to fumble with it.

I stared down at it in disbelief, then looked back up at him. “Did you just throw your jockstrap at me?”

Crossbody lifted his chin and made great effort to wipe the emotion from his face. “Yes.”

That kind of made me want to snort, but I knew he’d grow even more furious if I did.

Before I could think of any kind of response to being nailed in the face with a fae prince’s worn jockstrap, his enormous wings were bursting from his back and fluttering rapidly, filling the empty arena with a low, humming buzz. He flew out of the ring and landed with a stumble halfway to the door, then began striding the rest of the way without looking back.

A few seconds later, a loud clang echoed through the arena as the door slammed shut behind him. I slowly looked down at the jockstrap in my hand, not sure what the hell I was currently feeling.

Chapter Fourteen

Uncle Robbie

Vince

I stayed in the arena for another ten minutes to give Crossbody a chance to get changed and leave without us having to cross paths again.

Goliaths was completely empty when I finally went to my dressing room, pulled on my jeans, grabbed my duffle bag and left. I nodded at Serge, the night-time security guard for the building, as I crossed the lobby on the ground floor and stepped outside.

Crossbody’s car was gone. As I slowly walked over to mine, a memory popped into my head. Not long after I’d first started at Goliaths five years ago, Biff and I had been making our way to our cars after work when I’d pointed out the fancy one in the parking lot and commented, “Someone here is obviously doing well for themselves.”

Biff had chuckled and told me, “That’s the High Lord’s. The royal fae. He only recently got it. He spent his entire first year here getting cabs to and from work.”

I remembered snorting and calling him a pompous tool. That was when I’d started judging him, everything he did or said, because I’d written him off as a rich asshole and nothing more.

But now I was realising that he probably hadn’t been able to drive at first. It wasn’t like they had cars in Otherworld. He’d probably spent that year learning and had no other option. I mean, he could’ve taken the bus, but it was Crossbody. I couldn’t even picture him on a bus. The two things didn’t go together.

I hadn’t ever really let myself consider what it had been like for him when he’d first moved here. He’d been alone in a world that was mostly strange to him, having to learn everything he’d never really experienced before, years after the rest of us did.

I’d always just assumed that he had his family’s support, that his mom looked after him and gave him money and made sure he still lived in luxury, but if that were true, wouldn’t she have arranged for her son to have a car and a private driver or something? That was what rich people did. They didn’t use public cabs. Lots of them didn’t drive themselves anywhere.

Guilt churned in my stomach once again as I climbed into my car and chucked my duffle on the passenger seat. I didn’t want to go home and contemplate how I may have judged Crossbody somewhat unfairly from the very beginning, so instead I drove to my uncle’s place.

He lived on a street of small, single-storey houses. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the trailer he’d raised me in. I’d bought it for him once I’d saved up enough for a deposit after I’d started working at Goliaths and actually earning decent money. I’d bought it before I’d even bought my own house, and I paid both our mortgages. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to afford it.

I parked behind his beat-up old truck by the kerb and climbed out. I’d offered to make the down payments on a new car for him, but he’d refused. Said I’d done enough.

It had been a battle even getting him to move into this place, but I hadn’t wanted him to live at the trailer park anymore. A group of shady gargoyles had started taking over the place, tormenting the long-term tenants and driving them out of their homes, and Uncle Robbie was getting older. As much as he refused to admit it, he would struggle to defend himself against a bunch of towering, beefed-up gargoyle assholes. Us ghouls weren’t exactly known for being jacked and bulging with muscle. We tended to run lean and sinewy, almost gaunt unless we worked hard to bulk up, like I did.

The screen door squeaked as I opened it and stepped inside, calling out, “It’s me, Rob.”

“That you, Vinnie?” he shouted back from the kitchen. “Come in here. Come see this.”

I crossed the living room, skirting around the frayed armchair he’d had since I was a kid that was permanently reclined. The TV was on and turned down low, just like it always had been in the trailer when I was growing up.