"Jack, shush. I'm going to be fine," Damien said flippantly, starting to walk back over to Zoey, who was discussing something with Aphrodite.
"No, you're not! You're going to die and I'm going to have to tell my adopted children the story about my first boyfriend dying to some weird evil god-thing named Kalona!" I snapped, grabbing his arm. He tilted his head back at me, and the look I received was rather interesting. It was kind of protective, mixed with concern and adoration.
"Jack, I'm not going to leave you. If stuff starts to go down that is unacceptable for my safety, I'll haul ass, okay?" he softened. I couldn't stop my slightly hurt pout, and paused to hug him.
"I'll miss you," I inserted, getting a firm hug in return. Stevie Rae and a couple of other red fledglings stared at the sight, but I didn't care of course.
"I'll miss you too. And I swear, if I'm going to die to some weird god, it won't be one who's name sounds like some pathetic type of cologne," the others heard that, and they started laughing, quietly at first, and even though it wasn't even that funny, we needed the uplift, and the laughter scaled up until most of us were dying on the floor, clutching our stomachs and snotting ourselves. I was one of the few who hadn't and with that joke fresh, I kissed him and let him go.
Later, I realized, Kalona sounds like cologne if you take the 'a' off the end. Maybe that's why it was funny.