I return to the table and retake my seat next to a grinning Xavier. “Not winning any popularity contests here, are you?” he says.
“Hey, I was much more popular beforeyoufucked it up for me. Now I have to try to convince everyone that you’re not evil so they’ll like me again.”
A murmur travels through the room, drawing my gaze to the doorway, where Adrienne just walked in with a dark-haired man in his late twenties.
Jasper Reed. I instantly recognize him from his dossier photograph. Bronzed skin, devilish brown eyes, an endearing dimple in his chin. It’s hard to forget such an attractive face.
I watch him greet a few people, his cocky attitude evident in the way he carries himself. The lazy stride, the confident set of his shoulders. He’s tall but not bulky, more the lean, sinewy cheetah than the hulking lion, and he’s very sure of himself as he touches Adrienne’s arm and leans closer to whisper something to her. She rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s amused.
“Reed is mighty cozy with these people,” Xavier remarks. “That’s…interesting.”
“You deserted the Command,” I remind him, or maybe it’s more of a warning. “You’re not gathering intel for them.”
“I’m gathering intel forme.Haven’t you figured that out by now, Darlington? The only team I’m on is my own.”
Xavier is driving me crazy.
We’re floating in this nebulous no-man’s-land between dinner and bedtime, forced to entertain each other. I don’t know how I got tasked with entertaining Cross’s best friend, but I sort of wish he’dbeen eaten by a red cougar in the Blacklands. Xavier has just spent the last hour describing his favorite sexual encounters to me. In great detail.
I know way too much about this man.
“But if you really want to talk about voyeurism—”
“I don’t.”
“—there was this girl in upper school who always wanted me to go down on her in the tech lab even though she knew the school cameras were—”
“No,” I interrupt with a groan, jabbing my finger in the air. “If you tell me one more sex story, I will actually kill you in your sleep.”
“Fine, then you tell me one,” Xavier pleads. He’s stretched out on his bed, bare-chested and barefoot, his boredom etched into every line on his face.
“Absolutely not,” I retort.
He scowls at me. “This place sucks. I don’t get to fuck. I don’t get to drink. I don’t get totalkabout fucking and drinking—”
He’s interrupted by my comm going off. I eagerly snatch it off the night table to find a message from Gray.
Get dressed. Party in the cave.
I use my index finger to scribble a response on the screen.
What’s the cave?
You’ll see. I’ll come grab you in 30.
Oh, thank fuck. Maybe this will finally shut Xavier up.
Can Ford come?
Sure, but I’m not breaking up any fights tonight. If he says or does something to get his ass kicked, I’m letting it happen.
Deal.
I slide off the bed, arching a brow at my roommate. “You’re about to love me.”
“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, sweetling.”
“There’s a party tonight. And I’ll have you know this place is crawling with glenshade…”
