Page 66 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes

If he comes back to me...

“Where the fuck is Butch? Don’t tell me you murdered him already.”

With another groan, I hauled myself off the couch, squinting against the harsh morning sun as I stumbled over the sea of empty bottles littering the floor.

It had been a long time since I’d fallen intothisdeep of a self-loathing spiral. Between Butch running away after an inevitably disastrous family dinner and my father mildly threatening me with an impossible assignment, there hadn’t been enough alcohol in the house to make it better.

I even drank the cheap shit.

“Boone’s Farm wine?! Omg, youdidkill him, didn’t you?” Kai continued to squawk, even as she straightened up my shameful mess.

“Kai…” I weakly rasped, but she ignored me.

“Why not drink some White Zin and show me the body while you’re at it? Jesus, Xander, this is practically a confession!”

“Kai!” This time my voice cracked with emotion, but I no longer had enough self-respect to care.

“Oh, no…” she gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth in horror as she finally got a good look at me. “Something happened. Here, sit your ass down and tell Mama Kai everything.”

For once, I believed she actually wanted the details for reasons other than rubbernecking—or maybe I’d reached a new low. Either way, I sank back down to the couch and even allowed her to rest my head in her lap.

Maybe I’m coming down with something...

“I brought Butch home to meet my family last night,” I haltingly spoke, ignoring her dramatic gasp as I concentrated on not giving her the wrong details. “My mother was soawfulto him he asked to be dropped off at his place afterward. Alone. He didn’t even want to sleep in the same bed…” I had to stop talking before something liketearsgot any ideas about making an appearance.

Don’t show any weakness.

“Why would anyone be mean to Butch?” Kai absently mused, running her fingers through my hair. I usually wouldn’t allow anyone to touch me like this—besides Butch—but the mother hen routine was working for me at the moment.

I will take that admission to my grave.

Swallowing hard, I rallied. “I never should have brought him there. It was so fucking selfish of me when Iknewthere was a possibility of the dinner going south. I still did it, because I just wanted us to be a normal couple, and now I’ve—”

“Oh, there’s no hope for that,” Kai cut in.

“What?” I snapped.

“You being anormalcouple,” she replied matter-of-factly, as if I wasn’t perilously close to hidingherbody and buying some White Zin from Sun-Mart. “I mean, look at you! Look at Butch!”

I sat up. “What do you mean,look at Butch?”I hissed, my focus narrowing on my ignorant prey, ready to defend my love. “He’s the most straight-laced, 9-5er I’ve ever—”

“No, he’s not,” she scoffed, crossing her arms and bratting me way more than was wise, given the circumstances. “Never mind that he’s chosen to shack up withyou,have you seriously notnoticed that something’s…offabout him? Not in a bad way—more like in the same way something’s off about you.”

When I simply gaped at Kai in reply, she added, “What I’m getting at is that neither of you is what I would call ‘normal,’ so why worry about doing things in thenormalway? Pave your own path. Fuck ‘em!”

“You’re right,” I murmured, unsure if I was more awestruck by the fact I’d insisted on such a traditional ‘meet the family’ in the first place, or that Kai had said something that made sense.

“Okaaaay…” she drawled. “So why aren’t you immediately calling him?”

I sighed. “Because he said he needed space. I asked him to call me after work today—”

“Christ!” Kai shouted, so abruptly I jumped. “This is what happens when you don’t date women. Idiot.”

I felt miraculously recovered enough to herd her out the door. “Thank you for your Very Important Opinions, but Butch knows he can trust me to respect his wishes. I don’t want to do anything to betray his trust.”

Any more than I already have, that is.

“Okay, sounds good,” she agreed—a littletooreadily.