He holds out one of the mugs, and I have to extract myself from the twin sandwich to take it.
Our fingers brush, and his jaw tightens.
"Thanks." I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic. "RJ, you remember Bjorn and Njal. Kraken and Magnolia's boys."
"I remember."
Silence stretches.
The twins exchange a look—the kind of wordless communication that only siblings can manage.
"So," Njal says, leaning back against the cushions with a smirk, "you're very close to our Dalla for a security guard."
RJ's eyes narrow. "I take my job seriously."
"Yeah?" Aren's voice carries from his corner, where he's apparently been eavesdropping this whole time. "You like getting deep up in it, and we all heard it."
The common room goes dead silent.
Then Bjorn snorts.
Njal chokes on air.
Bodul drops his head into his hands behind the bar, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
Even Hakon has stopped mopping to stare.
RJ looks like he's calculating exactly how many of them he could kill before anyone stopped him.
"Oh my god," I manage, burying my burning face in my coffee mug. "I'm going to murder every single one of you!"
"Worth it," Aren says, grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
RJ sets his jaw and turns to me. "I'll be outside."
He's gone before I can respond, the door to the back porch swinging shut behind him.
The moment he's out of earshot, I round on the prospects. "What is wrong with you?"
"What?" Bjorn holds up his hands innocently. "We're just having fun."
"You're antagonizing the man who's responsible for keeping me alive."
"He can take it. Besides—" Njal's expression softens slightly. "Anyone who looks at you like that, like he'd burn down the world if someone touched you wrong? He's all right in my book."
"Even if he does have a stick up his ass," Bjorn adds.
"That's the Irish in him. They're all like that."
I shake my head, but I can't quite suppress my smile.
They're idiots, but they're my idiots.
My iPad buzzes with an incoming notification, and my stomach drops when I see the name.
Greer Mackenzie - Video Call Request
"Shit. Shit shit shit." I scramble to sit up straighter, shoving my hair out of my face. "Everyone shut up, I have to take this."
