So I bury my annoyance deep and wrap my arms around his body as I lean in to him. “No, I’m sorry. I know this can’t be easy for you.”
“None of this is easy for either of us,” he answers as he bends down and drops a soft kiss on the side of my neck. “I think I need to remember that more.”
“We both do,” I answer. “I’m sorry I get caught up in fighting with Hudson and I forget sometimes.”
“Don’t be sorry. Being annoying is my brother’s singular talent.”
“Whatever,” Hudson growls, and he sounds even more pissed than he did this morning. “It barely cracks the top ten of my talents.”
It takes every ounce of willpower I have, but this time I ignore him, keeping my attention completely focused on Jaxon—or at least as focused as I can considering Hudson is yammering away at me in the background.
“Thank you for understanding how hard this is for me. I know it’s hard for you, too, and I appreciate how much you’re trying to make this as easy for me as possible.”
Jaxon sighs, his arms tightening around me just a little as he responds. “Thank you for understanding my side of this mess, too. I promise, we’ll get him out of your head as soon as we possibly can.”
“Sooner than that would be better,” I joke, and it works. Jaxon laughs.
He holds me for several seconds longer, until we can see Flint and Macy entering the practice field with two other people I don’t know.
Jaxon drops another kiss on my neck before pulling reluctantly away. But just before he lets me go, he leans down and whispers, “Does he really know what underwear you’re wearing?”
“Black with white polka dots,” Hudson answers without looking up from his book.
I sigh. “He really does.”
Jaxon looks disgruntled, but he doesn’t say anything, thankfully.
Hudson, however, has no such qualms. “You should wear the red ones with the white flowers tomorrow, though. They’re my favorite.”
Before I can think of a comeback to that, Flint sneaks up behind me and grabs me in a giant bear hug. And as he swings me around—chanting “Grace, Grace, Baby” much to my chagrin—I can’t help but notice that Jaxon is showing a lot more fang than he usually does.
Then again, so is Hudson…
Forget YA novel, I’m living in the middle of a paranormal telenovela, and what happens next is anyone’s guess…
Fuck. My. Life.
61
The Monster Mash-Up
“You ready to show these guys how it’s done, Grace?” Flint asks when he finally drops me back on my feet.
“How what’s done?” I ask, surreptitiously checking to make sure all my clothes are in all the right places. Flint is a very enthusiastic hugger.
“How to fly, baby!” He throws his arms out and does a really bad impression of wings and flying as he zips around me like a three-year-old pretending to be an airplane—cute, sweet, and absolutely ridiculous.
“I’m ready for you to show them how it’s done,” I tell him.
“No way! We’re in this together. Well, you, me, and Eden.” He turns to the girl behind him with a grin and beckons her forward.
She gives him a look when he waves, like there’s no way she’s going to give him the satisfaction of responding to such a plebian method of communication. But after making him wait just long enough that everyone knows she’s moving only because she wants to, she swaggers toward us, all glorious hair and “don’t mess with me” attitude.
“This is Eden Seong,” Flint tells me when she finally reaches us. “She’s one of my closest friends and also happens to be fire with a Ludares ball.”
“And everything else,” she drawls, and somehow even her voice is cool.
I can’t believe I haven’t noticed her around school before, because she’s totally not the type to blend in. She’s tall like Macy, with straight black hair that falls all the way to her butt and thick, severely cut bangs that hit below her eyebrows to the very tops of her purple eyes. I look closer, sure that they’re just really blue, but nope. They’re totally purple and the coolest eyes I’ve ever seen.
She’s dressed completely in white—white workout pants, white tennis shoes, and white tank top that shows off a wild Korean dragon tattoo that stretches across her shoulders and down both her arms. So she’s a dragon like Flint then. Badass.
She’s got multiple piercings—several in her ears, plus her nose and her eyebrow—and each piercing is adorned with a glittering gemstone in a different color. She’s also wearing close to a dozen flashy jeweled rings on her fingers, but instead of being overkill, it all just kind of works together to make her sparkle even more.
Not going to lie, I love her already, even before she thrusts out a hand to shake mine and says, “Being a gargoyle is the most kick-ass thing I have ever heard of. Good job.”
I laugh. “It’s not like I had a choice in the matter.”
She shrugs. “No one actually gets a choice of what they are at the molecular level, Grace. It’s what you do with it that matters, and so far everything you’ve done is pretty badass.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. And you should listen to me. Everybody does.”
Again, she should come off as completely arrogant, but instead it just kind of screams of charming and total rock star. No wonder Flint adores her.
“It’s true,” Flint tells me as he drapes an arm around her shoulders and squeezes tight enough to make Eden glare at him. “She gives the best advice.”
Eden shoots him a “why are you touching me” look, which only makes him squeeze her harder. But when he reaches up to ruffle her hair, she ducks out from under his arm and twists it behind his back hard enough to have him squealing—not to mention coughing out a couple of pathetic blasts of ice—which has Jaxon, Macy, and the guy who came on the field with Eden, who I don’t know yet, cracking up.
“Are you done?” Eden asks, eyes narrowed.
“For now.” Flint gives her his most charming grin, and she just rolls her eyes. But she also lets him go.
“Anyway,” Flint continues, “this is Eden. And this”—he turns to the white guy dressed in navy track pants, a gray compression shirt, and a navy baseball cap—“is Xavier. He’s a wolf, but we try not to hold it against him.”
Xavier cheerfully flips him off before nodding my way. “Nice to meet you, Grace. I’ve certainly heard a lot about you.”