“You sound jealous.”
Cornelius gives me a disgruntled look as he responds honestly, “That’s cause I am.”
“That’s fair.” I slap him on the back, then squeeze his shoulder as I tease, “Maybe she can give you some lessons on how not to be a little bitch.”
Eyes narrowing, he tilts his head, his fist connecting with my stomach before I even realize he’s moved. I bend at the waist, the hollow sickness expelling the air from my lungs in a rush. My fists clench, resting on the tops of my thighs as I prepare to retaliate, knowing a good old-fashioned drag-down fight between friends is often therapeutic.
Cornelius’s hand presses into my back, and he leans down, worry in his tone as he asks, “Are you okay?”
I launch myself at him, taking him to the ground in one move. He doesn’t give me time to get in a sucker punch, immediately grappling for dominance, and we roll on the ground, each of us determined to come out the victor.
“Come on, guys,” Jacob reprimands in his typical no-nonsense tone. “Is this any way to act after all we’ve been through?”
Neither of us responds, but Cornelius takes the opening to kick Jacob in the ankle. Jacob yelps in pain, raising his footoff the ground, his hand gripping his injury as he curses. Not wasting any time, I use the moment of distraction to sweep his leg out from under him, and he falls to the ground in a heap, his cursing much louder.
Without pause, he jumps into the fray, taking whatever potshots he can when one of us is busy defending from the other. Cornelius gets a good jab into my lip, and I jerk my head back, my fist already drawn back to get even, when a shadow falls over us.
“What are you doing?”
Vivian’s question has me freezing mid-punch. Jacob stretches, his hands moving beneath his head as if he was only on the ground to relax. Cornelius and I extricate ourselves from our obvious wrestling move with far less finesse, eventually separating and sitting sheepishly beside each other.
Vivian continues to look at us, hands on her hips, her gaze moving from one to the other as she waits for someone to say something. When we don’t, she finally says, “Are y’all seriously having a little bromance wrestling match?”
“I wouldn’t call it a bromance, per se,” Cornelius responds somewhat snippily.
She raises a brow at him. “Is that so?”
Eyes widening, I scurry to my feet, stepping in front of Vivian before Cornelius can get us into more trouble just because he’s not privy to the true meaning behind her short question. “Everything okay?”
She nods, peering around me to glare at Cornelius as she replies, “Everything is fine.”
I rest my arm on her shoulders, steering her away from Cornelius and Jacob. At first, she balks, but with a final glare, she turns with me, allowing me to lead her a few feet away. “Seamus is good, then? I figured you’d hang out with him for a while.”
She shakes my arm off, giving me a knowing look. “I would have, but Cami showed up looking for you.”
“She say what she wants?”
“Not really,” Vivian answers, a worried crease in her brow. “But it seemed like someone was in trouble.”
“Was Kaian with her?”
She shakes her head. “Didn’t appear to be.”
Scowling, I cross my arms over my chest. It’s not unusual for Cami to come to me for my problem-solving skills. Nor is it unusual for her to show up without Kaian. But both at once is concerning. “What did you tell her?”
“That you were off on business and will be back tomorrow.”
“She was okay with this?”
“Yes. She said she had some recruitment to do and would be back by tomorrow evening with reinforcements.”
My arms drop to my sides, my scowl turning into a frown of concern. “Reinforcements?”
“That’s the word she used,” Vivian answers with a shrug. “I tried to get more info out of her, but then she was gone as quickly as she arrived.”
“Sounds like Camilla,” I respond dryly. “She’s the tornado to your hurricane.”
She smiles almost impishly, pressing her front to mine as she leans in and whispers, “So you got a thing for natural disasters?”
