Tense.
Charged.
I can feel the others watching, waiting to see how this plays out. Waiting to see if anyone has ever successfully demanded something from Kai Lawson and lived to tell about it.
"Hurry and eat," he says finally, returning his attention to his plate.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer you're getting."
"Kai—"
"Fine." He sets down his knife and fork with deliberate precision. "You want to know something about me? Something I like?"
"Yes."
He looks at me.
Reallylooks.
Those dark gold eyes scanning my face, my hair, my everything—cataloguing details the way I catalogue numbers, filing away information for purposes I can't begin to guess.
Then he says, very quietly:
"I like pink."
The statement is so unexpected—so completelyrandom—that it takes a moment to register.
Pink.
He likes pink.
My hand rises automatically to my hair.
Pinkhair.
Myhair.
I look across the table at the others—at Sage, whose lips are twitching. At Blaze, who's grinning like a cat with cream. At Jett, whose expression hasn't changed but whose eyes have warmed by several degrees.
They're smirking.
All of them.
Like they understand some underlying joke that I don't. Some secret meaning behind Kai's words that's apparently obvious to everyone except me.
Pink.
He likes pink.
And my hair is pink.
And Sage's hair is pink.
And—
Oh.
