Asher was awoken by his phone ringing loudly. He tugged it out of his pants to answer it groggily. “Hello?”
“Hey, Ash,” said Thornton on the other end of the line. “I was wondering if you wanted to meet up. I really need to blow off some steam, buddy.”
“Well, you know that I’m usually always up for being your steam-blowing… guy. Okay, that sounded wrong. But can we do it another time?” He stared around at Amara’s bedroom. “I was hoping to just spend some time by myself tonight.”
“You don’t sound too chipper. What’s wrong?” Thornton asked.
“Nothing serious. I’m just in a bit of a rut from thinking too much.” Asher moved a hand to scratch his hair, further messing up his already wild hair. “Just tonight, I promise. Any other day, I’m all yours.”
“Well, hopefully Pax will be home tomorrow. If she puts an end to my bachelor days, I won’t need you on any other day.”
“Good point. I’ll miss you, man.” Asher grinned. “I will look forward to only seeing you when Pax is on her period.”
Thornton chuckled. “Athletic girls may skip their periods altogether.”
“Then I guess I’ll never see you again. Unless you have a really bad day at work or something.” Asher heard his friend clear his throat uncomfortably at the mention of work.
“Hey Ash—you’re not with Medea, or planning to meet with her today, are you? Have you been able to reach her? I called her a couple times in the past few days, but I think she might be pissed because of the media coverage of our date.”
“I think she said she was visiting her family in England.” Asher frowned. “Why do you ask? I swear, man. If you start chasing after another girl immediately after proposing to my niece—I’m going to start calling you what they called you in high school…”
“Don’t you dare—”
“Horny Thorny!” Asher joked.
“Today is really not the day for me to revisit those traumatic memories. Or do you really want to talk about our younger years… Ash-hole?”
“Ouch, I’d forgotten that nickname. Let’s call it a stalemate. So why the questions about Medea?”
“I just really need someone to talk to. Someone who’s not part of my crazy family. For some reason, I really like talking to that girl. If you must know, I was fired today."
“Come again? I could swear I just heard you say you were fired, but I must be losing it.”
“You heard right. I was fired,” Thornton repeated through gritted teeth.
“Whoa,” said Asher, sitting up in bed. “Seriously? Why didn’t you say so? We should definitely meet up.”
“No, don’t worry about it, man. You sound like you’re deep in thought, and I don’t want to interrupt such a rare phenomenon. I’ll see you another time.”
“Who the hell does Rose think she is?” Asher exploded in his friend’s defense. “Just because she gave birth to you doesn’t mean you’re some puppet on a string she can order around—run my company, don’t run my company, go fetch, run, jump, sit, stay!”
“Thank you.”
“This is the craziest thing I’ve heard in a long time,” Asher remarked. “I am actually more surprised than when Pax showed up and teleported me into the middle of a huge fight on Venus, and you guys were all like, ‘Ash, please save our sorry asses!’ That was pretty surprising, but this is worse.”
“It gets better. So, this insane woman, also known as my mother, fires me, then asks me to suck up to a bunch of major bigwigs. Among them, the Australian Ambassador, my idiot Uncle Bud at NASA who is still disowned by my family, and the fucking commander of NORAD.”
“Ew, your uncle sucks. What’s NORAD?” Asher asked.
Thornton sighed. “North American Aerospace Defense. I knew there was a reason I choose to hang out with you when I’m stressed out—you are too dumb to cause me any further stress.”
“Thanks.”
“Ash, what the hell is my mom doing? Is she starting some sort of war? I honestly have begun to question whether she has lost her mind.”
“I don’t know. What does your dad say?”
“My dad is out visiting every deva alive—he’s sending them back to the Compound. I think he’s building an army.”
“Well then, it seems like they are definitely preparing for war. I just don’t understand how Australia fits into any of this. Oh, well, I’m sure it’s important. Hey, maybe we can find some kind of new employment together!” Asher’s voice seemed excited at this prospect. “I have been looking into getting a job. Something fun and unusual—like a movie stuntman.”
“Our heads are definitely harder than the average human head—why not bash them for money? We could be crash-test dummies,” Thornton said with a laugh. “Although my mom did say that this might only be temporary.”
“Screw her, man!”
Thornton opened his mouth to protest, but then he realized that Asher’s words had made him feel the first tiny speck of happiness he’d felt in a while. Even with the world crashing down around him, Asher was still his friend. The younger man’s defensive anger reminded Thornton of when they were kids and Asher would have done anything to protect him. He smiled.
“Thanks for listening, Ash. I’ll quit bugging you now. See you tomorrow?”
“For sure, bro. Goodnight.”
Thornton felt a lot better, but he was still yearning to get a few things off his chest. He stared at his phone for a few minutes before dialing Medea's number. The phone rang a few times before a message came on:
“Hi, you've reached Medea. I'm not available now, but please leave a message and I'll return your call as soon as possible!”
“Hi, Medea. This is Thorn. I just wanted to apologize for acting a bit strange during our date the other day. You may have noticed that hanging out with me gets your face plastered all over the newspapers—I guess I should have warned you about that. I hope it wasn’t too unpleasant for you. I was kind of hoping I’d get a chance to talk to you, but you’re probably busy. Well, let me know if you have any spare time. I haven’t been killed (yet) but I’ve been... fired. Which is basically the same thing. If you don’t remember what I said my job was—well, I was the CEO of the biggest global technological conglomerate. A business that was in the family for over a hundred years—and I just got kicked out of the clubhouse. So… call me back if you get a chance.”