The four of them look at it each other.
Kingston pulls out his chair. “Let’s just sit.”
We do. And for a long moment, nobody says anything.
“Well, now.” Kai says, drumming his fingers on the table. “This is awkward.” He shoots at glance at Kingston. “Did you actually bother to think through how you wanted to present this?”
Kingston, for his part, is staring at the table. His face…
Is Kingstonblushing?
“Present what?” I say, an edge of panic in my voice. “What’s going on?”
I look to Lanz and Cal, desperate, but they just exchange a wordless glance.
Kai heaves a sigh. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He gets to his feet and starts pacing, dragging a finger along the edge of the table as he goes. “This thing we’ve got going, the whole knightly society, brothers-in-arms deal. It’s very…three musketeers.”
“Except that there are four of us,” Lanz says. Kai glares at him.
“There were four musketeers, too,” Kingston puts in.
Callahan frowns. “There were?”
“Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan.”
“Oh my God,quit changing the subject.” Kai runs a hand through his hair. “My point is, we’ve got thatall for one, one for allphilosophy. And as it turns out,someof us have been very bad boys.”
He tips his head at Lanz and Callahan. Callahan turns a burning shade of pink, while Lanz’s fidgeting intensifies.
My mouth falls open. “Wait.” I turn to the two of them. “They know? About?—”
Kai stops in his tracks. “Youknew?” He looks at Lanz and Callahan. “Gwenna knew?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Kingston look up at me. My own cheeks get a little flushed.
“Ah…” Lanz looks at Callahan, who—judging by his shell-shocked expression—is incapable of speech. He shrugs. “Yeah. She…sort of stumbled over us. Back in the fall.”
Now both Kai and Kingston stare at me. I shrink a little in my seat.
“I didn’t…what?” I say, suddenly defensive. “I didn’t see any reason to narc about it.”
“Okay,” Kingston says, a bit brusque. “Once again, this isn’t really the point.”
Kai snaps his fingers and points at Kingston. “True that. As I was saying…” He resumes his pacing. “It turns out some of us have been bad boys. Which is no bueno. Gets you kicked out. But if we’reallbad boys…”
He shrugs.
I wait for more.
Nothing.
And then they all start speaking at once.
“We’d leverage the risk, is the idea.”
“And since technically you and Kingston already…”
“You could have whichever of us you want, whenever you want.”
