“You realize that you’re dating the human version of a Belgian Malinois, right?” I say. “You know how people call me a golden retriever? Your man is a Belgian Malinois.”
“I’m going to tell him you said that,” he says, chuckling good naturedly.
“Do it,” I taunt playfully. “And just in case you talk to his cousins: Jace and Jax are Cane Corsos, and Killian is definitely a German Shepard.”
“Have you been watching animal fact videos instead of doing your homework again?” he asks, and I can practically hear him grinning.
“No comment.”
“Quick, tell me three facts about octopuses that you learned recently,” he says. “Get it out of your system so you can get back to work.”
“Easy, they have three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood.”
“What the actual fuck?” He bursts out laughing. “Are you shitting me?”
“It’s all true.”
“How can they haveninebrains?” he asks incredulously.
“One in their noggin, and one in each of their arms.”
“Arms?”
“Yeah, fun fact number four, they don’t have tentacles, they have arms.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Arms have suction cups all over them and are used for moving and manipulating objects. Tentacles only have suckers on the ends and are used for catching prey.”
“And the blue blood thing?” he asks.
“Their blood has a copper-rich protein in it that makes it blue, kind of how the iron in our blood makes it look red.”
“I’m beginning to believe your ‘octopuses are aliens that evolved on Earth after their comet or whatever that brought water to the planet crashed into us’ theory.”
“No one can convince me they’re of this planet,” I tell him. “And don’t get me started on sea gigantism and how little of the ocean we’ve actually studied. I will die on the hill that megalodons still exist and they aren’t the only creature from the past we’ve just randomly decided is extinct or never existed.”
Damon chuckles. “You don’t need to convince me. I became a believer back in tenth grade when you took that marine biology course and made learning about the ocean and its secrets your entire personality for about six months. What’s the fear of deep or open water called again? Because you definitely gave me that.”
“Thalassophobia,” I tell him. “And you’re welcome.”
There’s a muffled sound, like he momentarily covered the speaker on his phone to talk to someone in the room with him. There are a few more seconds of muffled voices and loud scraping sounds, like his hand is moving over the speaker, then it abruptly stops.
“Do you want me to come over and hang out?” he asks. “I can be back at the house in thirty minutes if you want some company.”
“Back at the house?” He’s not in his room?
“Yeah,” he says, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell anyone this, but the Rebels have a cabin in their area of the woods.”
“A cabin?” As far as I know, the Keepers don’t have a cabin in our part of the woods, but it’s also entirely possible that we do have one and I’m just too low in the frat hierarchy to know about it.
“Yeah. We meet here because there are no cameras or swipe logs, so it’s pretty much the only place we can have any privacy.”
For some dumb reason, my chest clenches and my heart sinks a bit. Of course Damon is with Xave right now. He’s not going to put his life on hold just because mine is imploding.
“It’s fine,” I tell him, trying to sound casual and nonchalant.
“Do you really think you should be alone right now?”
