The Boys

I feel asleep on the couch in the basement after Adam left for the night. I didn’t want to go up to an empty bed. It was my bed. I don’t know why I felt like it was our bed. Our family. Our life. Our house. But it was. He was so much apart of me that I knew I should call him before he left. But things Adam said to me last night after he’d left made me think. Maybe he and I weren’t meant to be.

I stretched my neck and back and wished I’d gone to bed. I ached.

I smelled food coming down from the kitchen and my heart leapt. Food meant Nox was home. Maybe he decided not to go. I rushed upstairs to find Matt in the kitchen with the other two boys perched on the bar stools chatting away about their day like nothing happened. Matt had a pot of coffee simmering for me.

Matt looked at me with a frown. “You okay?”

I sighed. “I’m just tired. Stayed up too late.”

Fae was up off the stool and so was Drake and both of them were wrapping their arms around me. “We love you.” Drake said.

I looked at the young Ventori who was happily flipping eggs in the pan with a smile on his face. “Drake told us what happened. Nox will be back.”

“Why aren’t you mad at him?” I asked. I almost wanted to scream at them, he left you too.

Matt shrugged. “Nox is just doing what Nox does, Sage. He saves people. He helps them when they need to. It’s who he is.”

“No, he was done with that.” I blurted out.

Fae squeezed me tighter then let go and walked back to his bar stool. “He’s miserable too.”

Drake giggled and I picked up the little dragon and he kissed my cheek. “Daddy saved me. He saved Fae. He saved all those boys in the forest – remember.” Drake ticked down a few fingers then looked back up at me and grinned. “Daddy’s saved me lots more times, that icky black thing, and those other kids with the demon. “

Geez, how much did this kid know. As if Matt read my mind he answered my question. “Drake collects all of Nox’s saves like he collects cars. If you let him, he’ll go into detail about it.”

I nodded and set Drake down. “You need to eat breakfast so you can go to school.” I looked at Matt, “Do you have this?”

The sixteen year old boy with dark hair and dark eyes looked back at me with a grin reminiscent of Nox’s and nodded. “We got this. He won’t be gone forever, no matter what you said.”

I wasn’t so sure about that but I went up stairs and took a shower. And by the time I was done the boys were already gone. School beckoned them. They were all integrating well – well maybe not all of them, Fae still had a lot of things to work on. He was about as messed up as Nox was. I shook my head and headed down stairs to do work – real work – not fucking chasing vampires and getting myself killed.