“She’s not going to go tumbling into the Zone and break her neck.” Arc pulls me closer to him.
Hazard glares. “That’s oddly specific.”
“And you’re oddly predictable.”
“Wait,” Richter says, helping Laurel come over to us. “Why would Chrys wipe them out?”
While Laurel hugs me, Hazard looks at him with his head tilted to the side. “If Laurel dies, you die.”
When Richter looks confused, Hazard continues, “Do you not know that? It’s important to me that you know that.”
“I forgot.”
“It was in your bondmate application paperwork. Did younotread that?” He mutters something and looks away. “No wonder you came home with the wrong bondmate.”
“I came home with therightbondmate, thank you.”
“Yes he did.” Laurel looks at my hand, still firmly gripped in Arc’s, and doesn’t try to dislodge me. “I don’t think anyone hastold Jess yet, so… you may want to sit down and fortify your position beforehand.”
“How does Hazard know before her again?” I ask, looking at him for the answer.
“She ignores the group chat.” He winks at me, and I know that Jess only has herself—and maybe Hannah—to blame for finding out after him.
“Kimba,” Arc says. “She can blame Kimba for not making sure that she knew when the others did.”
“I should have told her.”
Risk shakes his head. “She and Trench have been… radio silent?” His eyes narrow the way I’ve found they do when he’s been given a word he didn’t know before. “For a while. Not a bad silence, just, very focused on their work.”
“Great.” Which means that she’ll have been pulled away for this and want something else to sink her teeth into.
Lips pressed against my hair, Arc whispers, “Please don’t think about her eating them.”
“That’s not…” I press my lips together when I realize Arc is teasing me.
I do want to sit down, and as soon as I think it, Arc moves.
Laurel is too distracted by Richter offering her various fruits and snacks, but Hazard chuckles as we go.
I hope the thoughts that elicited that laughter aren’t ugly.
“He’s a masochist,” Arc whispers. “He likes seeing the rest of us happy, even if it makes him feel like he’s being stabbed in the gut.”
We sit in the exact same place we did before, and when I question if it’s assigned seating, Risk says, “No, we’ve just formed habits.”
Kilo isn’t trying to hide. He holds Andrea’s baby while she talks to Kimba about numbers and I wonder, but…
“No, Andrea’s basically adopted him as a full-grown son,” Arc whispers the information as he kisses my temple.
Shock and Risk sit close on my other side.
I watch Hazard pour two different kinds of coffee together in a single cup and wonder, “How much of that does he drink?”
“Too much,” Kilo says, “The judy is still out, as you say, as to whether he actually likes it or is just a masochist.”
“Jury,” I say, and when he looks at me with a question in the quirk of his brow ridges, I explain, “Thejuryis still out is the way that saying goes.”
“I see.”
