“I am not a twink!”
“Shrieked the twink,” Gary whispered.
“I think I’m pretty much done. With the both of you. Good day!” I turned from the bar and walked away.
“Regrets, kid,” Zal called after me. “If you never try, then you’ll only know regret.”
I thought to avoid Ryan altogether, but he saw me and broke away from the guy who was still holding on to his bicep and met me halfway. People danced around us as the music swelled.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Ugh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. Who do I need to kill?”
I tried not to grin. I failed. “No one. Everyone. I don’t know.”
“That clears it up. Good job.”
“Sass master.”
“I thought I was the God of Sass?” he asked. “It sounds like I was demoted.”
It was easy, this. Banter. I could do banter. So, like a tool, I said, “I got invited to a twelve-way orgy with a team of trapeze artists and the guy that sang about cheesy dicks.” Shit. “Wait. That wasn’t banter. I meant for that to be banter.”
He scowled, eyes darting over my shoulder where Gary and Zal still stood at the bar. “You’re going to an orgy?”
“What? No! I don’t want to be destroyed and sticky and have my feet sucked on.”
His nose wrinkled up. “You… what?”
“That’s what happens at orgies,” I explained, because it didn’t sound like he knew. I felt overwhelmingly relieved at that. “You don’t know where to put your feet, so they go into Oyev’s mouth.”
“Are you drunk again?” he asked.
“Only a little bit,” I assured him. “And now I realize that I’ve been drunk a lot around you, but I promise I don’t have a drinking problem. Mostly. And I’m not drunk enough to go to an orgy. Apparently I want someone’s seed to bloom in me and make flowers turn into treasure. Or something. I don’t know. I might be drunk. Let’s banter.”
“I don’t think you have the capacity to do anything but have words fall out of your mouth right now,” he said, a small smile on his face. Like he was amused. Like I amused him.
“I don’t want to have regrets,” I blurted out. I took a step back.
He took an answering step forward. “And what do you regret?”
“Ignore me. I didn’t mean to say that.”
“But you did.”
I took another step back. “Wine loosens lips. Not that I need it.”
Another step forward. “Maybe,” he said. “But for all that you talk, it’s superficial.”
I scowled at him. “Nice word usage. You dick.”
He shrugged. “I have a shield. It’s made of metal.”
“Fun.”
“Yours is made of wor