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“Woah, boys. No need to argue. I don’t need escorting anywhere.” I stepped back from Weston, towards Cassius.
“You can walk with me, babe.” He bent down to murmur in my ear, and I smiled up at him.
“Why can’t Caiden be as nice to me as you?” I didn’t mean to speak as loudly as I did.
I noticed Cassius smirking over the top of my head. “His social skills aren’t as good as mine. It’s sad, really.” He raised his voice. “You want some pointers on how to treat a woman, Cade?”
“Fuck. Off.”
I turned to look at Caiden, his eyes flashing with anger, an irritated frown on his face. Despite his general behaviour towards me, I didn’t actually want to cause a scene at this party. I needed things to go smoothly, so I guessed it was up to me to pacify him.
I sighed heavily, addressing Cassius. “I’m going in with Caiden. If he kills me, you can have my car.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll have your laptop, though.”
“Deal.”
Before Caiden could say anything else, I was by his side. “Shall we?” I held out my hand, silently pleading with him to accept. He stared at me, his mouth set in a flat line.
“What’s that tattoo?” he said suddenly, pointing at my upturned arm.
“You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?” I raised a brow at him.
“I haven’t really taken any notice of it before,” he admitted, finally taking my outstretched hand and pulling me closer.
Why did my hand feel so good in his?
“Quadrantids,” I managed to stutter.
“The fuck are you saying? Is that English?”
“The tattoo.”
He dropped my hand and lifted my arm to inspect it, trailing a finger across the meteor shooting across the sky—well, across my arm. What was he doing? I shivered, again. For fuck’s sake.
Swallowing hard, I tried to concentrate on what he was asking me.
The meteor itself was tattooed near my wrist, and the trail extended almost all the way to my inner elbow, sparks flying all along it. I had a few tattoos, but this was by far my favourite. It held a special meaning to me.
“It’s a shooting star?”
“Yeah. Well, a meteor, really. The Quadrantids are a meteor shower that happens every January. My dad is—was an astrophysics professor, and he liked to tell me this story of how I was born. And it reminds me of him, so I had the tattoo.”
“What’s the story?” I looked up to see Weston, his head cocked at me, and Cassius and Zayde eyeing my tattoo. They were standing much closer than they had been a moment ago. My attention had been so focused on Caiden’s hand on my arm, I’d completely tuned out my surroundings.
Caiden’s head shot up, too, and he blinked several times, as if he’d been as surprised as I was. He dropped my arm, looking away from me.
“You really want to hear the story now? Right before we’re about to go into the party?”
“No.”
Right. I rolled my eyes at Caiden. “I’ll save it for another time. We can compare tattoos and bond with each other. You can tell me all about the matching tattoos you four have.”
Cassius’ lips curved up in amusement at my sarcastic tone. “The more time I spend around you, the more I like you.”
“I’m very likeable.”
“Enough of this. Let’s just get inside and get this shitshow over with,” Zayde commanded, striding towards the doors. I quickly tucked my arm into Caiden’s before he could say anything. He stiffened but didn’t protest.
