“Good,” he declares softly.
Jace’s voice breaks through. Jace joins Alec and Mase. Him and Mason grin at each other before they start attacking while Alec jumps into a defensive position.
Holy shit. Alec’s fast. Likereallyfast. He slips between them, striking out at Jace before he goes back on the defence.
“He’s got a smaller, leaner build to us so he uses that to his advantage,” Luc murmurs in my ear as I find my gaze stuck on the guys.
Mase finally manages to get Alec in a strong hold, breathing heavily. Alec taps out, having barely broken a sweat despite the movement. Clearly Mase and Jace had to work a lot harder than Alec as they were attacking.
My gaze moves across to Dominic and Maverick. They’re a lot more evenly matched with Dom only having a few centimetres on Maverick who stands at around six foot three.
They’d be talking quietly, watching Alec, Mason and Jace. Once they see that their friends are done, they turn back to face each other.
Dom and Mav touch knuckles with huge grins before breaking apart. Maverick attacks instantly, doing some crazy looking jujitsu or something like that while Dom defends himself, moving from side to side.
I see Dominic grin as he ducks Mav’s dunch and pops back up, clipping him on the jaw.
“Dom!” Jace warns but Mav recovers quickly. He sweeps his leg while Dom’s distracted. They wrestle for a bit, Dom’s size coming in handy as he pins Mav to the ground. I don’t see what happens but he yanks one hand back.
“You dickhead!” Dom scowls, rubbing the top of his hand. My eyes flick across to Luc who has a puzzled look on his face.
“The fucker bit me!” Dominic yells out.
Luc and I look at each other before bursting out in laughter. The others quickly join in as Mav rolls up and off the ground. Dom moves to smack the back of Maverick's head.
"Nuh-uh-ah. Luc says train like the real thing," Mav taunts. He runs up the verandah steps when Dominic goes after him again.
"I never said embrace your inner three year old," Luc tells him loudly.
"Tomato-tomato." Mav waves it off.
Alec walks over to where Dominic’s standing and picks up his hand. He scrutinises it for a moment before he seems to realise what he’s doing and drops his hand quickly.
Guilt shines unopposed on Dom’s face when Alec releases his hand like it burnt him. Alec masks the pain on his face instantly. The others pretend they didn’t see it.
They pair up again—the twins together while Dom, Alec and Jace join up.
“I wish they would just kiss and make up,” Luc murmurs in my ear and I nod silently.
“Come on,” Luc says, apparently sick of watching and not being able to do it. “We’ll start cooking.”
I get up and follow Luc, rolling my eyes at Mase who’s grinning suggestively at me. I think they’ve all lost their minds.
I pull myself up onto the bench while Luc rummages around in the freezer, getting out a few bags of steak. He puts them in the sink to defrost.
I take the opportunity to admire his tanned, defined arm muscles when they flex as he reaches up into the cupboard.
My gaze moves across his shoulders to his back.
There's old faded scars everywhere across his taut skin. The cigarette burns I recognise instantly. There's huge upwards raised lines that look a lot newer.
How dare anyone put their hands on him!
I cool my anger when he starts to turn. He hands me some painkillers, seeming unaware of the anger I'm trying to hide as he fills me a glass of water.
I didn't even realise how sore I was feeling.
"Thanks, Luci," I tell him and he smiles softly.
