Orok glances back at his teammates with a lip pucker of approval. “He’s a fan. Stand down.”
The group immediately clears. Music starts back up. Ivo and Kenneth cut back to the potion pong table, and I hurry to the door, my face scrunched.
“You know his rawball stats because—?”
“I… go to Lesiara U,” Thio says, like it should be obvious.
“And you watch rawball games?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
He smiles. “Ah. Not a fan?”
“I’m notnota fan,” I allow, and Orok elbows me hard enough I puff out all the air in my lungs.
“Don’t lie to your date, Sebby. That’s rude,” he says in a fatherly, chastising voice.
Thio’s amusement sharpens. “I’m guessing I shouldn’t have bought tickets to the Philly Hellhounds training game for our date tonight?”
Silence reigns. Me, in horror, trying to figure out if I can date someone who likes rawball; Orok, in a drunken delayed reaction, piecing together whether Thio’s joking about the tickets, and if he’snotjoking, whether he could weasel in on our date; and Thio, watching me, bright eyes glittering.
Orok breaks the silence with a barking laugh and throws his arm around me. “I like him, Seb. Don’t fuck it up.”
I shrug him off. He has a habit of mussing my hair, and I managed to tame my curls tonight. I don’t want my clothes wrinkled either, a bright blue crewneck sweater that makes my eyes pop, brown pleated pants, and even my nice leather shoes—sorry, Converse, sometimes I gotta cheat on you.
“Well.” I kick the kitchen floor. All things considered, this wasn’tas awkward as Orok threatened, so I resolve to get out while I’m ahead. “Don’t wait up.”
But Orok grabs my arm as I step away. Thio, who’d turned for the hall, stops and meets his eyes.
The party’s back in full swing behind us. Someone takes a potion that makes them refract light like a disco ball, so we’re bathed in flashing silver specks, but the energy between the three of us dips.
Orok’s expression toward Thio is severe, and I lift my other hand, start to step between them, when Orok says, simply, “Don’t hurt him.”
It’s a plea. It’s a command.
I’ve had relationships before and gone on dates plenty. Orok’s messed with a few of them, playfully threatened people, but that’s where it ends.
This protectiveness is… new. Why?
My usual wall-building thoughts stack up in my head like bricks.
This is just a date.Brick.
It’s still something simple and easy.Brick.
Whatever Orok’s picking up on, about this being different, he’s wrong.Brick.
The wall wobbles. Teeters. Topples right on down, even before Thio steps back across the threshold.
“I won’t,” he promises with a smile, one as vulnerable, somehow, as Orok’s plea. “It took me most of the semester to get him this far. I don’t plan on hurting him or letting him go.”
The noise I make is somewhere between a wheeze and an undignified whimper.
Orok and Thio both look at me, then back at each other, and the serious moment is broken when they share a grin. At my expense.
I free myself from Orok’s clutches. “If you’re done discussing my dowry, we’re off.”
