“Are you texting him a play-by-play?” Vince asked.
“He told me to,” Paul said. “Because he couldn’t move up and down the stairs like he used to.”
“I would also like to go back upstairs,” Vince said.
“We can’t,” Paul said. “We’re Helena’s entourage.”
“Ooh,” Vince said. “I’ve never been in one of those before.”
“We might even have to rumble,” Paul said.
“Throw down,” Vince said.
“Get jiggy with it,” Paul said.
“Hammer time,” Vince said.
“Go ninja, go ninja, go,” Paul said.
“Oh my fucking god,” I hissed, whirling on the both of them. “Would you two fucking focus?”
“Meep,” Paul and Vince said.
I turned back around.
Darren’s eyes had never left me from the moment I came onto the patio, not even for a second. I was close enough now that I could hear the hipster twink by his side, “…and I don’t suppose he meant anything by it, but you know how those things get…” and it was a nice voice, a pleasant voice, one that suited him just fine, if I cared about such things.
But I didn’t.
I walked up the three steps to the higher patio.
“Helena,” Darren said, sounding amused and aggrieved all at one, which was quite the feat.
“Darren,” I said in that sticky-sweet voice.
The skin under his left eye twitched.
It seemed even he knew what that tone meant.
I wondered if alarms were ringing in that tiny little brain of his, screaming ABORT ABORT ABORT.
It was far too late for that.
The twink stopped talking and eyed me curiously.
I ignored him. For now.
“Biff, Chet, Xerxes,” I greeted the other homo jocks, nodding at each of them in turn.
They smiled, but it was in confusion, the poor dears. Xerxes even looked behind him to see if I was talking to someone else. Such a gentle soul.
Darren sighed. “It’s James, Nico, and Scott.”
“That’s what I said.” I smiled at them. Their own smiles got bigger. I liked them. I would auction the shit out of them. They would be so pretty by the time I was done with them. Well, in a manly way. Handsome women, they’d make. “Has Darren here spoken to you of what I will require?”
Biff (James, whatever) nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
Chet (Nico, seriously, what the hell) winked at me. “I don’t want to look easy.”