“What?” Dame answers, unaware of the bear he’s poking.
“What does it look like?” Kitty snaps. “We’re here to shake some ass.”
Dame’s ears flatten against his head as he cringes.
“Ew. Chill.”
“Can you move?” Elsie cuts in.
Dame looks at her.
“What?” he says.
Yeah, I’m starting to see why that pisses Elliot off.
“You’re in the way,” she says, shooing him with a hand.
“Oh. I?—”
He steps aside, but as Elsie pushes past him, he reaches for her, then thinks better of it and drops his hand.
Kitty follows, wedging herself between Dame and the dark-haired boy on his right. He seems to stiffen as she draws nearer, but he makes no move to give her space.
I stand there a moment, trying to sort through what I’m looking at before Elliot’s voice comes husky and crisp, just over my shoulder.
“You didn’t text me.”
A chill rises on my skin as his breath skirts down my neck, and I spin on my heel to find him standing over me, glaring.
“I thought we had an agreement, Iris.”
“We do,” I say.
“Then why didn’t you text me?”
“Because I don’t need a babysitter,” I hiss.
“Don’t be stupid. You know that’s not why I want you to check in.”
There is no smile on his face as he speaks, only a gut-wrenching pain in those soft, green eyes, and I’m not sure how to respond to that.
His answer doesn’t fit the script.
Usually, when I say something snarky, he says something snarkier, followed by a dirty comment, which I then tease him for. Then rinse and repeat. Until one of us “wins.”
But the game is no fun by myself, and I have a feeling it’s finally over. And we both lost.
“I just wanted a night to myself,” I confess.
He nods, moving a braid out of my face.
“That’s fine, but I still need to know where you are.”
“Well, here I am, Elliot.” I lift my arms as evidence. “Still in one piece. So maybe you can take the night off.”
He scoffs, rubbing at his neck.
Now that I know what the thick leather choker is for, I can spot it tightening, but he doesn’t pull at it as he usually does.
