Lifting the cup, Zion finished his second serving of coffee.
Knowing him, he was going to be jumping and shaking in about an hour. The participants of his next close combat class were in for a ride.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “What about you?”
“I’m good,” Kali mumbled around a third of a lemon muffin, the pink box hovering under her chin to collect the raining crumbs.
“Nope.” He snatched the food container from her. “It’s your turn to share.”
Her glare betrayed the calculations going on in her head. Zion was going to pay for daring to steal pastries from her.
“I don’t have anything boner-related,” she puffed out. “Or sentimental. Any good memories I have are from my early childhood.” Using the hem of her t-shirt, she cleaned her lips. “You really don’t want to hear how we used to deform the utensils in the school cafeteria or draw mustaches on someone when they dozed off.”
“I will make you another deal.” Lying on my back, I folded a corner of the blanket to serve as a makeshift pillow. “You give usone memory, and I will find a way to convince Ryder into baking croissants with raspberry jam next.”
She had perked up before I could finish my sentence.
My gut stormed. Nobody should react to the notion of a baked good the way she did. All kids should be raised in loving families. If without parents, then in proper schools, ones with teachers devoted to caring for children. Including introducing them to a spectrum of foods, from nutritious meals to desserts overloaded with sugar.
“But it has to be embarrassing. I want all the nitty-gritty details.” Zion pulled a lemon muffin from the food container he had stolen from Kali. “The story better be as scrumptious as this,” he said, and bit into the buttery goodness.
Scrutinizing the box on his lap, Kali huffed, “Fine.” It served as a sole warning before she dived at him, climbing over me, her knees shoving into my thighs and ripping a grunt out of me. Screeching, she snatched the muffin from Zion and stuffed it fully into her mouth.
Half of it instantly burst from her, the clumps showering us and raining down her front as she tried and failed to grin at Zion.
Sitting up, ignoring Zion gaping at her, I drew her between my legs and picked off the golden particles dotting her clothing.
“Do that again sometime,” I encouraged her. “No one else has the balls to challenge him.”
Between fits of coughing out the rest of the muffin, she strained to say, “You have to promise to protect me from his revenge.”
“Deal. Here.” I passed her the half-full cup of coffee, and she chugged it down so fast my chest rumbled from amusement.
Mischievousness gleamed in Zion’s eyes as he licked his upper teeth. “Oh, you’re in for a round of tickles now.”
Sniffling, Kali shot me a look, and I chuckled. “It’s a one-time card. Are you sure you want to use it now?”
Her eagerness turned her nod into a multitude in rapid succession, and I maneuvered her to my side, twisting to hide her from Zion.
“If you leave her alone,” I told him, and then added to drill the point into both of their skulls, “this time only. I’ll owe you.”
Zion pouted. “You’re no fun.” After fishing out another lemon muffin from the box, he cautiously tore a chunk off, glancing at Kali for any further attempts to steal his treat. “But I will take my favor once the time comes. And you”—he pointed the falling-apart chunk at her—“still haven’t told us your most embarrassing memory.” Throwing the lump in the air, he caught it with his tongue. “I will use the favor Gedeon owes me to eat all of your raspberry croissants if you won’t.”
“You can try.” She peeled the lid off the last food container, the blue box containing a mix of two kinds of muffins, and plucked the chocolate one out. “But if you do it, I will tell Jayla she got food poisoning because you wrote the wrong expiration date on a bottle of milk.”
Zion’s jaw fell, and mine widened as my smile broke out. These two were worth each other. Luck had to have waded into my territory to steer them both toward me.
“You’re a mean birdie,” he groused.
“And you’re a bad boy.” She ripped into her sweet, the walnut-colored crumbs raining onto the plastic box in her lap. “But”—she swallowed the bite—“I keep my promises.”
Swiping off the evidence of the baked good off her leather jacket, she cleared her throat. “It was right after I turned thirteen. I was rolling in bed, unable to fall asleep. The dorm room I’d been assigned to held six girls, so when I heard one of them gasping and…crying out, I hurried over to her, afraid she’d gotten injured. I kind of ripped the sheets off her in my rush. She was naked—not that it was out of the ordinary, since we all had lived together for years—but her hands were…” She flushed.
“You caught her touching herself.” It wasn’t that hard to figure out the rest of her story. “That’s not that bad.”
She fiddled with her muffin, destroying the poor pastry by squishing it into a flat chocolate pancake.
Zion wiggled his eyebrows. “Did you join her?”
