Page 47 of Jacinth

“Who’s this guy?”I asked loudly as Orion stood frozen, his face pale and eyes wide. “Orion!”

“He’s your bro’s evil bestie come back to life to fulfill his plans for world domination.” Harley was sitting cross-legged, back against Jace’s grave with....

“Do you have popcorn?”

Harley grinned and nodded.

With a complete lack of acknowledgement of danger, or any kind of self-preservation, Jace muscled her way from between my brothers and me, and hurried to sit beside Harley.

“Bitch, you’d better have brought enough for two.”

Harley sighed and offered the box.

All three of us had now shifted our stares to our living-impaired girlfriend.

“What?! He can’t even see me. No soul bond. In fact, the more you stare at me, the less incognito I am. Shoo! Go talk to your evil nemesis dude and let me eat popcorn in peace.”

She spoke with her mouth full. And it was still cute. Damn it, I was so whipped. She had a point, though. Without the soul bond, this guy should have no way of knowing she was here.

“But wait... the others just saw that random guy—”

“I’m feeling a little neglected over here. Do I have to take your girl before schedule to get you to notice me?”

I growled before I knew what I was doing. No one was going to take my girl from me. Certainly not some fake ass priest who clearly had some small dick power trip thing going on. I mean, he was wearing a black dress, for god’s sake. Don’t talk to me about robes.

“You’re not going anywhere near her.”

I had my sleeves rolled up and had taken two strides toward him before Orion’s hand snapped up in my face. I reared back to avoid head-butting the unexpected obstacle, and then glared at my brother for making me look stupid in front of the bad guy.

There had to be some etiquette against that, right? We’re the good guys. We should always get to look cool, like Maverick and Goose... without the porn star ‘stache.

“How are you here, Alisdair? You... died... a long time ago.” Orion’s voice broke mid-sentence, and I got the uncomfortable idea that Orion may have been closer to the guy than he was letting on.

Only one way to tell, right?

“Did you two used to bone or something? It’s cool, y’know, just thought we could clear the air. Wicked sexual tension up in here.”

“Oh, shit!”

“No! He didn’t, did he?”

The peanut gallery was loving the show, and I was kind of resenting that I couldn’t have popcorn.

“Hey, Harley, can I...”

“Get your own!”

And then I was showered with pieces. I picked one out of my hair and popped it in my mouth. Huh, wasn’t half bad.

Turning back to the current drama, I found three faces wearing nearly identical dumbfounded expressions.

“What?”

Skyler coughed, definitely covering a laugh, and turned his attention back to the bad guy.

“So... did you pop my brother’s precious anal cherry? I hope you bought him dinner first. There're rules for this kind of thing.”

I choked on spit and residual grains of popcorn, coughing and hacking as I tried to breathe. It was so much funnier when Sky joined in.

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