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It was the sculpture Aleks had thrown through the

Con stepped through the shattered , his boots crunching on the broken glass He was rubbing the green rock as if to get soly decoration had survived Aleks’s rare show of force Con glanced at us and shook his head like he was disappointed But I could tell he was just fooling around

Aleks, on the other hand…

“This thing cost er as he went to open theoutside it “Look, Luca, it’s okay,” he said with a big smile “No reason to worry”

Concerned Aleks would take Con’s pretend irritation to heart, I said, “Stop fucking around with him, Con”

Aleks was tense in my hold but relaxed when Con winked at him

Luca grabbed the sculpture “Oh good,” heokay in here?” he asked His face was a mess He’d cleaned the blood off the worst of the wounds I’d inflicted on hiry as I’d been when I’d storh the door, but my fury was tempered by the fact that Aleks was safe

“Yeah, we thought we heard yelling,” Con said He looked pointedly at Luca and King “Told you fighting isn’t what they were doing in here Pay up,” he said as he held out his hand

“You need to grow the fuck up, brother,” King said with a shake of his head, then he went to sit down on the sofa

“What?” Con asked innocently

Luca warily approached us His eyes ly, they shifted to Aleks I was stunned to see what looked like protectiveness in ood?” he asked

Aleks nodded “I’m sorry about your … and your rock,” he said as he motioned to the sculpture He was still a little stiff ininto me like he was afraid And I loved the fact that he was still inup and down the forear to soothe

“Thecan be fixed,” Luca said “As for this thing,” – he held up the sculpture – “we just need to work on your aim a bit” With that, Luca drew back his arh the brokenIt landed in the huge pool that was a good deal away

“Hey!” Con called indignantly “Do you kno long it took h for this roo for your next birthday”

I couldn’t help but smile But it was Aleks who surprised us all because he looked pointedly at Con and said, “Con, I’ly as fiddlesticks”

We were all silent for a beat before bursting into laughter