“My driveway isn’t made of stone,” Ellison corrects.
“That’s right, you’re rich and fancy,” Landon says.
“You live in a literal mansion,” Nolan reminds Landon.
“In my defense, the mansion was the only place big enough to fit all of my books.”
August says, “I have told him that if we maybe movedsomeof the books out of one of the many spare bedrooms, we could put a bed in there for when Brandon stays over. And then he wouldn’t crawl in bed… naked… with me.”
“Demons rest your soul,” I murmur as I stroke his cheek.
August kind of seems confused about what to do with the hand and ends up taking it, which seems to cause him more confusion.
Landon dramatically places a hand on his heart. “First Deus shoots my book and now he steals my man?”
“I was simply stroking him. You can stroke mine,” I say, pushing Ellison toward him.
“Wait… that’s Ellison?” Landon asks as he points at Ellison in his t-shirt and jeans. “I assumed it was another illusion.”
Ellison huffs. “Of course it’s me.”
“But… but your suit… he’s having a midlife crisis, my friends,” Landon declares. “We should do something about it. I’m going to read while the rest of you do something about it.”
“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re actually here for a very important reason,” Nolan says.
“Wow, you’re so good at controlling the group,” Lex, head to toe in red, tells Nolan. Even the tips of his dark-brown hair have been bleached and dyed red.
“Um… thank you?”
Lex beams and Nolan looks minorly uncertain.
“You said there was something important going on, and instead, you have just started a stare down with Lex,” Ellison says.
Nolan clears his throat. “Right.”
“We could like rent a movie instead?” Landon suggests. “That could be fun.”
August gives Landon a one-armed hug. “Hon, has ignoring our problems ever gone well?”
“Yeah. I ignored those mice that kept getting into our stuff and they just… poof, went away.”
“That’s because I assassinated them. All besides one; Zacia assassinated that one and tore its head off with pride,” I say.
Landon gapes at me for a moment, then looks over at Zacia who is playing a game of Whack-a-Mole as she sits on the coffee table and whaps Pocket Lint’s head every time the ferret tries to look at her.
“Baby, you should not hunt mice. They are icky.”
“Uh… thank you for… controlling our mice problem, Deus,” August says. “I apologize that we didn’t do it ourselves.”
“It was fine. The battle was rough, but I did manage to make it out in the end.”
“They were just mice—what’s that mean?” Landon asks.
“Shhhhh.” I press a finger against his lips to silence him.
Moving away from my finger, he says, “We had that shower that wouldn’t work and then suddenly, it randomly worked one day…”
“I just kicked it and it worked,” I assure him.
