before. He must be feeling pretty guilty this morning."
It shouldn't have, but that statement gave me warm fuzzies inside. "Good," I muttered, "maybe he'll lose the surly grouch bullshit."
Both Kody and Steele started laughing at that, and even I had to crack a smile. Yeah. Right.
"Come on, gorgeous," Kody said, pushing back his own chair. "Me and Steele will give you some training today."
I cocked a brow at him, and a lust-filled grin crept over his lips.
"On how to use your knife without cutting a finger off, obviously." He rolled his eyes, but that smile still played over his lips, as Steele and I wandered out of the dining room with him. "Unless you were into whatever else you just thought of? I'm totally on board for that, too." His wink said it all, and my cheeks heated.
Sex. He meant sex. With him and Steele.
Fuck me, that was tempting.
"Maybe later," I teased, giving him a grin. "I want to know how to safely carry this thing first. I've got enough scars to last me the rest of the year at least."
"Boom." Kody held his hand up to Steele for a high five. "Maybe later is as good as a yes, bro."
Steele snickered a laugh, threading his arm around my waist as we walked down the long corridor to a section of the mansion I hadn't seen yet. "I'm not high-fiving that, Kody. God damn, how do you ever get laid?"
Kody's grin was pure arrogance. "Dude, have you seen me? I'm like walking sex."
Steele laughed, and I groaned.
He wasn't wrong, though.
16
We stayed at the D'Ath estate for the rest of the weekend, but as my exams were set to start bright and early Monday morning, we needed to drive back on Sunday. By the time we loaded our bags into Archer's truck, I felt like I was leaving my own extended family.
Ana hugged us all, as did Constance, but I hung back when the boys all climbed into the truck.
"Thank you for hosting us these last few days," I told the impeccably dressed D'Ath matriarch. "I wish I'd known in advance that I'd be meeting you so I could have brought a gift or something."
Constance—or Connie, as she'd encouraged me to call her like the boys did—laughed and waved my comment aside. "Nonsense, Madison Kate. Just meeting you and getting to know the woman in my boys’ lives has been the best gift an old woman can get."
"Well then, I hope you'll forgive a moment of bluntness before we go?" I asked it tentatively, knowing I was overstepping. If Archer heard me... yeah. I'd make it quick. "Connie, your grandson loves you more than I actually believed he had the emotional capability to love. And he wants you to be happy and comfortable to be yourself with whoever you want to spend your life with." I shifted my gaze to Ana in a deliberate way. "You don't need to pretend. Archer loves you both."
Connie's face flushed red and her hand fluttered over her pearls, but Ana just started laughing and made her way back into the house while waving goodbye.
I pressed a quick kiss to Constance's cheek, then turned to get into the truck. But, the back seat was already full.
"They were fighting over who sat beside you," Archer told me with a grunt when I peered through the open passenger-side window. "And I'm not in the fucking mood for bickering. Sit in the damn seat, Princess. You've got exams tomorrow, and I'll put money on it that you haven't prepared."
I scowled but climbed into the seat anyway, buckling my seat belt. It could always have been worse. At least I wasn't sitting in Archer's lap.
"Don't you guys have exams this week too?" I asked, shifting in my seat so I could look back at Kody and Steele. "Surely I'm not the only one who legitimately attends SGU. I'm starting to think you three are faking it."
Steele laughed, giving me that wide, secretive grin, and Kody acted offended.
"Babe, the fact that you think we'd lie about our status as students offends me." He blinked those clear green eyes at me in total innocence and I gave him a flat stare back. "And for the record," he continued, "I do have exams this week. I'm just confident enough in my subjects that I'm not stressing over them."
Typical Kodiak fucking Jones. Confidence should have been his middle name.