And just like that, we all froze like we’d gotten caught.Leave it to one scrap of a female to put a group of dangerous espers in our places, our gazes all down to not make eye contact.
“You told them, huh?”Her question could have been to anyone, but the way Kenyon responded said he knewexactlywho she meant.
“I just said you were a little stressed.”His words came out sullen and apologetic.“Figured a day away from the compound would do you well.Stress isn’t good on the body, you know.”
I could almosthearher grinding her molars at that, a pretty good indication she didn’t agree.Or, at least, that she didn’t want to have everyone in her business.
Which I got.Carter and Kenyon had some idea of why I acted the way I did, but only Shear had gotten a first row seat to it.Only he knew exactly how fucked up I really was, only he’d gotten to experience it at it’s worse.I wasn’t all that interested in broadcasting it, so I understood why she might not love it, either.
“Yeah, well, you suck,” Yun muttered, words soft and angry, before she reached out, across the table to snag my glass of tequila right from my hand.She tipped it back, downing one hell of a large gulp, followed by a cough that Kenyon tried to help by hitting his palm against her back.Once she’d ended the coughing fit, she didn’t slow at all, swallowing two more gulps that finished the entire glass.
She slammed it against the table, her gaze locked on me like one hell of a challenge.
And it seemed like my erection was going exactly nowhere anytime soon.
Chapter Forty-One
Carter
The way Yun went from sitting up straight to leaning against the table happened so quickly that it was like I blinked and she was down for the count.
Then again, she’d downed that tequila in just a few big gulps, and she was hardly above a hundred pounds, so it wasn’t a shock that she might not handle her liquor that well.Ingram normally sipped the stuff, taking his time to finish it off, sticking to one for the whole night.No one needed a blackout-drunk esper, after all.We could cause problems all on our own—reducing our mental faculties wasn’t a great idea.
I recalled the time when we were still at Diamond, and another squad had managed to smuggle in a bottle of vodka.They’d drunk to their little stupid hearts’ content and had managed to level an entire dormitory.It had taught me that drinking that much was a horrible idea.
Occasionally alcohol could help me with others, but more often than not, it simply made people unpredictable, which was the last thing I wanted.I’d much prefer to be able to predict them, to know what they might do and guard against it.Drunkenness caused people to act in ways they never would otherwise.
Much like Yun, who hadn’t seemed this comfortable in her entire time around us.
Her cheek rested against the wood of the table, as though the coolness helped her flushed skin.She smiled, listening to the conversation between Ingram and Kenyon about whether a bear or a gorilla would win in a fight as though that were the most interesting conversation she’d ever heard.
Her plate of food had been pushed forward, out of her way, after she’d eaten a few bites of the cheese enchiladas.I would have preferred she eat more, but she hadn’t seemed to have any more interest.Pushing someone to eat after drinking that much often didn’t go well, and she seemed content enough just to listen.
Did she enjoy hearing such an idiotic conversation that much?It made no sense to me, but her gaze bounced back and forth, following the two men and their inane comments about everything like it fascinated her.
It made me stare and try to work out what went on in her mind.Was she that happy just to be here?What I’d found with her thus far was that she wanted connection.It terrified her, but that didn’t stop her from craving it.I’d watch the way her expression changed when she’d witness any of us bickering back and forth, as though there was some enviable closeness between us that she desperately wished she could experience.
And yet, even if it were right before her, her own fears kept her from reaching out and placing herself inside that, keeping her on the sidelines to watch with that same longing.
Kenyon paused as he looked to the side, noticing that Yun no longer sat upright.His gaze moved over her, his powers taking in her state, evaluating it in a fraction of the time it would take anyone else.The way he nodded said he’d found nothing seriously wrong—just drunkenness, no doubt.
“You look tired,” he said, his voice soft and kind.
At least he’d actually talked to her.Since their little run in the night before, he’d kept her at a bit of a distance.Then again, if I’d left bruises like that on someone, I think even I would feel guilty no matter how unintended they were.I knew what had happened, didn’t blame him, but it would still hang on him more than most.He was just such a bleeding heart that the thought of causing harm to a guide would stick harder with him.
Yun turned her head slightly to see him, with that same smile on her sweet lips that made her appear softer overall.Damn did that do things to me, the way it was so unlike her usual edges, the way she typically seemed ready to take on the entire world by sheer will.It wasn’t that I preferred her this way so much as I enjoyed witnessing something about her that I doubted she showed to many people.
“A little.”Even her answering that without a cutting jab went to show the tequila running through her system had altered her behavior.She sat up, then put her palms on the table and pushed herself to her feet.
She teetered, swaying side to side, but kept her balance due to the table.“I have to go to the bathroom.”She didn’t wait for anyone to give her permission or tell her where it was, instead stumbling off in a direction that I was pretty damn sure the bathroom wasn’t.I already considered having to rescue her and help her find the way.Before I had to do that, however, her feet caught up on nothing but each other, and she toppled.
If she’d pulled this anywhere else, she’d have ended up flat on her face.She didn’t even attempt to catch herself, to break the fall using her arms, too drunk to maneuver her body in a useful way.Fortunately for her, she stood beside a table full of espers, and I was faster than her drunken ass.I caught her, my chair falling back and striking the floor.
Fuck the chair, though.Let the whole damn place look at us—I didn’t care.
I expected her to yank away, to curse at me for touching her—even if it was for her own good.Instead, when I stared down at her face, she looked back at me with the sweetest expression I’d ever seen, her pretty lips tipped up in a charming, confused smile.
Which went straight to places on me I doubted she wanted anything to do with.The fact that she would give me that look, it shoved me over the line of sanity and had me picturing a future so different from anything I’d had before.I saw her living in our home, not as a temporary measure but permanently.I pictured her smiling like that when we got home, being actually happy to see me, to see us, instead of that trepidation she normally wore.
