I growl.
“Tristen, I’m hungry.” Twisting around, my sight drops to Em’s furrowed brow and thinned lips. “So can you stop your pissing contest?”
A loud laugh sound sputters out of me, making my chest twinge, and steals my breath.
His eye twitches.
“Oh, I like him,” someone calls out, and Emmett’s face goes beet red.
“Too bad,” I answer without breaking eye contact with him. “I already licked him.”
He goes even redder and shrinks back into his hood with darting eyes and covered hands, his plate hugged to his chest like a shield.
“Tristennnn …” he hisses quietly, and I grin, then smack a noisy kiss to his covered temple.
“That’s cute and all, but are you gonna feed him? The rest of us would like to eat today.” I snort at Farrin’s even tone and step back, so Emmett has some room to see what’s available.
He dumps half a scoop of eggs on his plate and all but runs to the corner where Mumford chills on one of the couches.
Loading up my plate with extras, I kick the leg of Declan’s chair as I pass and settle in next to Emmett. He’s just staring at his eggs, no fork to be seen, and refusing to make eye contact.
“Hey,” I whisper and brush his shoulder with mine, a fork held up for him to take. “Okay?”
He’s slow to reach for the utensil, his fingers trembling when he does.
“Y-yeah.”
My jaw grits at the shake in his answer. “Emmett.”
A side eye is what I get in return, and a little bit of my chest loosens.
“Don’t ever lie about it.”
There’s a slight nod from the depths of his hood, one I only slightly believe, and he stabs at the eggs until it’s broken up into a bunch of little pieces.
But then he surprises the fuck out of me and scoops up a full bite.
It only takes two of those to finish what he had.
When he makes no move to get more, I tip my plate over his and dump half my food onto the ceramic in his grip. It tilts a little since he’s not expected the added weight, but he recovers it, then glowers over at me.
“Why did you do that?”
“You didn’t get enough.”
He huffs, then pokes around before finally taking another bite.
My lips tip up at the corner on the outside, but on the inside? I’m fist pumping like a fool.
“Oh,” I finally mumble around a mouthful. “That’s Mumford, by the way.”
“I know,” Emmett says when I point to the lump of sleeping human on the second couch.
“The guy whose shirt I apparently stole is Farrin.” I point at the buzz cut sitting at the table with the others.
“Uh-huh.”
“And then Declan—”
