Benson curses under his breath, and exhales a sound that suspiciously sounds like hesitant resignation.
Why are they fighting the Malones? No one bothers to mention that. Of course. Not sure why I’m surprised.
“What would Lilah Vincent do?” Killian asks Benson with a smirk.
“Fuck,” Benson groans as he starts stretching as well.
Apparently Lilah Vincent would stretch at a moment like this. I only thought I was starting to understand their weird language.
“What the hell is going on right now?” I ask again.
“Remember how you liked the town for its quirk and charm?” Benson asks me, an annoyed expression on his face as he cracks his neck.
“I’m not sure what that has to do with anything at the moment,” I reasonably point out.
“It means, hello and welcome to Tomahawk, land of the nosiest people you’re ever going to meet, and the rumor mill that changes the first story twenty times until you look like a total dick,” Benson says on a long, frustrated breath.
“You lost me at hello,” I deadpan.
“Give him Heath,” Hale says, pointing at me. “Heath is the slowest.”
“Yeah, but he also hits the hardest if he does manage to land a punch,” Benson argues.
I genuinely thought he was the sane one of this bunch. And all those rumors that their particular brand of mind functioning was contagious sounded preposterous before, but now…
“Give him Eric,” Benson adds.
“Why do I want either of them?” I ask flatly.
Still not getting answered.
“Eric will charge him like a bull, and he’ll be too stunned to react fast enough. Hell no,” Killian argues. “George needs to be the one he’s on. He’s older, slower, and half the time he swings a little too far to the right.”
“You really want him pitted against George Malone right now? The father who has raised his daughter on his own for years, only to see this guy break her heart?”
“Stop!” I shout, grabbing Hale by the shirt and causing his eyes to widen as I jerk him to me. “What the fuck are you talking about? How did I break her heart?”
Hale smiles, which causes me to give him a little shake, and Benson smiles to the right of me. As one, all three say, “Give him Jason.”
I’ve never been a violent person, considering I like to believe I’ve evolved beyond that barbaric sort of instinct. But at this particular moment, my fist comes up before I can stop it, and two hands grapple me back before I can hit Hale for no other reason than that they’re actually driving me mad right now.
“And breathe,” Killian says in a cooing voice that is only used to mock me.
I shrug Killian off me, and they all laugh like this is exactly what they wanted.
“Definitely Jason,” they all say again in creepy unison.
“He’s ready now. We don’t have to babysit,” Killian says as he bumps fists with Hale.
Before I can repeat the cycle of asking a question and getting ignored while growing increasingly furious, I notice a very familiar hover boat driving at hellacious speeds this way, manned by two familiar oversized men. Behind them are three very distinct jet skis that would be considered Harley’s on the water because of their size.
Yeah…they look pissed; the men, not the jet skis.
This escalated much too fast, and apparently you need to know a secret handshake to find out what exactly is going on around here.
“If it’s already spreading around town, why isn’t he getting the baked goods like Benson was?” Hale asks, acting as though it’s no big deal the Malones are docking and glaring daggers at us.
“Kylie’s flag is still up in his yard, so people think she’s there,” Killian tells him conversationally, while the Malones start climbing onto the dock and stalking toward us.
“Ahhh,” Hale says as though that makes perfect sense, finally paying attention to the Malones. “We should lower it until at least a few trays of brownies or cobbler have been delivered.”
The dock creaks under their weight, and Killian yells, “If you break Lilah’s dock, we’ll blow yours up again.”
“And this time we won’t fix it!” Hale adds, a wicked smile on his lips.
“You already broke her dock, jock itch,” Jared Malone says as he flips Killian off.
Killian grins and wiggles his eyebrows as George Malone stands about twenty feet from me, next to all his hulking nephews.
My anger flees when I realize it looks like he wants to murder me, and in place of it, exasperation fills the void. Apparently he’s finally pissed at me for keeping his daughter trapped inside my home.
George points his finger at me. “I warned you,” he growls.
That…confuses me. I thought he’d just flipped his lid. “Warned me about what?” I ask him.
“I told you if I found I saw a speck of blue on her, I was going to tear off your limbs and feed them to the bears.”