(This picks up immediately where the previous part was, I just broke things into two pieces for easier reading.)
I take her at her word and we enjoy some time together in silence. Our bubble of quiet is set adrift in a lake of coffee machine hisses, idle chatter, cat mews, and the clattering of silverware on ceramic. Our feet find their way together, and before I know it, her ankles are criss-crossed.
I pass some time away catching up on my social media feeds, ignoring everything related to that photo – I mute notifications from it. I have a DM from my brother asking me what's going on. I ignore it. I haven't even come out to him yet, and have no idea how he'd take it.
I eventually find myself playing a dumb waifu-gacha strategy game Finley had me try out. Gotta get my dailies taken care of. Even though this entire game is a pointless time-suck. But there's an event going on and like the one character from the entire series that I actually care about is available for once. So.
Still no luck today, though. I'll have to try again tomorrow.
But I take the opportunity to savor that my luck in real life is better than some mobile gambling game.
"Hey, what the hell?" Ah. Right on cue, it's Reese. "We've got a crowd downstairs waiting for Jelly Donut to show up, what are you doing?"
"My job," Finley groans. "Managing our online presence."
"Psss!" Reese flicks a dismissive wrist. "Sure, you get to dick around on your phone and get paid for it..."
"Look," Finley huffs, tucking her phone away and getting up. I lament our feet disconnecting. "I'll go do the other part of my job if it'll get you off my back..."
"Maybe it would," Reese grunts back as she brushes him by again. He dodges her attempt at bumping shoulders, but she ends up taking a swipe at his hat and knocking it off his head and onto my table.
He snaps at her, flustered, and scoops his hat up from in front of me – I lean back to avoid him. He makes a weird, disgusted sound at me.
"Look, you got a problem with me, bub?" I snipe at him. I'm just so not in the mood for his mood today.
"What?" he peeps, his face pink as he shoves his hat back on. "Puh-problem? It's...Finley. You and-..."
"You need me to leave, or something?" I propose bluntly, kicking my chair out and shoving myself up.
I approach Reese, get right up in his face – er, well, he's a little short, so it's more like I'm staring down at him, but you know what I mean.
I add, "'Cuz I can just go, if I'm causing that much of a problem, here."
"I didn't say nothing like that," Reese sighs, scooting sideways to let a customer go downstairs. "It's Finley's job to act professional when...she's...on the job."
"And I'm a distraction, that it?"
"You tell me."
"How'd that little talk with Mason and Aves go, then? Huh?"
His frown gets more embittered at my question.
"Yea," I spit, letting my jaw hang open as I nod tartly. "Maybe stop getting up in her shit, I'm not holding her back from anything. But ya know what?" I flick my ponytail, adjusting it a little, then my hat. I walk right past the twerp. "Just so you can calm your ass down? I'll leave for a while."
"You don't have to react like this," Reese grumbles, following me. "I'm doing my job as the assistant manager."
"Right, and I can tell my being here causes a real problem for you," I counter, continuing downward.
"I didn't say that," he sighs with exasperation.
I stop halfway down, swivel on my heel, and jam an index finger at him so hard I nearly pick his nose.
"You didn't," I agree. "But you might as well be. Get off Finley's back. You have no idea what kinds of crap she has to deal with..."
"What does that mean?" Reese hisses into my ear.
I shake my head, swivel right back around, and keep descending.
"Means whatever you want it to," I write off the question.
A flurry of swear words fly from my mouth through clenched teeth as I feverishly flick at the plastic stick wedged in my hand. I jam the ball-tipped stick in wild patterns, I slam my fingertips at the big buttons...It's a cacophony of plastic parts as my knowledge of the mechanics goes out the window in my panic.
I lose the final round – again – and the bitch of an end boss cackles at my defeat.
"Awwww," Finley coos with sympathy, rubbing her slender fingers across my back – she finagles her fingers beneath my bra strap and gives it a tug, snapping it. The gesture startles me from lamenting at my characters defeated pose as the timer ticks down.
"Well, I tried," I point out with a dejected sigh.
Finley aligns my strap back into place, neatly covering it with my tanktop, and gives me a delicate pat on the head.
"You sure did," she agrees in a chirp, like a mother bird encouraging its baby for flapping its wings but going nowhere.
I back away from the arcade cabinet and give her a playful elbow bump in her ribs. She flinches, taking a step back but yanking me by the wrist. We grapple a little, until I have her pinned against a crane game machine, the backs of her hands pressed against the glass, our fingers woven together.
The single, goggled eyeball of one of those damned yellow 'Flunkies' from that stupid animated movie glares at me from over Finley's shoulder, its soul-less form trapped in the machine, its lifeless eye pleading at me to save it from its fate.
I devolve into snort-snickers against Finley's chest, my hat swerving sideways against her shoulder. Our hands dangle downward, then her hands wrap around my back. Mine find their way against her hips.
She's laughing, but is confused. "I don't-...What it is? What?"
Still struggling to calm my laughter down, I nod my head over. She cranes her head around to look, yelps with fright, and pulls me a step away, sighing. She smacks the base of my neck, scolding me as if I've just played a prank.
"Ow," I laugh, though it didn't really hurt. "Not my fault those creeps are everywhere."
"I've been, like, scarred now. From this. Emotionally scarred." Finley is nodding as she says this, putting on a serious look.
"How?" I dare her to sell me on the bit she's started.
"I was...exposed to...-" She gestures her head toward the crane game machine. "-...that. While I had you against me. I was forced against that machine, made to be...aroused, and then that. Just staring at me."
"Hey, it scarred me, too."
"You laughed. I screamed."
"You did not scream. You yelped."
"I 'yelped?'"
"Yea. Like-...'Eughh-!'" I try to imitate her, but my voice is a little too deep to do it accurately. And her voice has that rasp to it I can't quite capture. I try a second time. "'Eeeuggh-!'" I make a face as I do so.
She smacks me on the back of the neck again, but her hand plants itself there.
Before I know it, she's pulled my head forward, and her lips are mashed against mine.
I lose track of the fact that we're in an arcade, out in public, and let my hands start getting a little frisky. She catches me, but keeps kissing me, my wrists pinched in her palms.
And then her tongue makes a leap, and I'm out.
Sucking in air and choking on it as we separate, I laugh weakly in spite of my own lack of...courage? Interest? I don't know. It's not my first rodeo, I've just never been much of a fan of-...But I mean, anyway, we're in public, and so...-
"Heh." She's smiling stupidly with that sneaky, sneaky look of hers, like she's up to no good. Which, well, maybe she is. We are. She wipes my lips with her thumb, her own lips with her sleeve, and takes in a deep breath. We're still pressed together, the lights and sounds of the arcade a weirdly comforting cocoon to this moment. Grinning like a child, Finley wriggles her hands down my hips, reaches behind, and-...
She bops my butt cheeks like bongo drums a couple times.
I knew these shorts were a good idea.
"Double standard," I whine facetiously.
"Oh?" she tests.
"I was gonna...-" I wriggle my hands toward her chest and she bats them away.
"Boobies are for indoors," she cites quietly, as if this is some pre-established rule, which neither of us take seriously. "Butts are for outdoors."
"We are indoors," I point out, given the whole...interior, where we are currently located. "Also, hold up – butts are off-limits when we're inside, or...-?"
"Outdoors as in...erm...public," Finley spits out, her tone prim and proper, but she's obviously just making shit up to toy with me.
We stare each other down.
And yea, so, now we're at the whole 'eyes glazed over, kissing, blabla' that I was trying to get to. Had to skip the middle part where I spent the whole day wandering aimlessly through town, waiting for Finley to get off early for this date. Don't get your hopes up too high, though, because what's a story without a little conflict?
And that conflict is staring us down almost as intently as we are each other.
Wobbling my head mischievously, I propose, "Maybe we should settle this indoors..."
"Maybe," she agrees, flicking her finger up into my nose.
Giggling like stupid school girls, we grab each other's hands and head outside.
Not more than a minute off toward Finley's place, though, and a voice echoes down the street from behind.
"Jelly Donut."
Finley freezes. Her fingers are suddenly squeezing against mine so hard I'm worried her hand will snap off if I turn around. So we just...stand there, for a moment, afraid and confused. I don't recognize whoever this is. Maybe she does?
Are we about to have trouble?
"I knew you'd take your thot around here one of these days," growls a bitter voice, closing its distance on us. "Recycling dating spots, too? On top of all of the other stuff you pull on us? You really have sunk low."
"Fin," I whisper at her, "Who the hell's this?"
Finley isn't responding. She has her phone out with the hand that isn't crushing mine. I can see her pulling up her contacts, getting ready to text someone. I pry myself from her grip – she pops her hand open as soon as she feels my resistance. I spin around to face off with whoever this is. Some kid in a beanie with a visor. Beneath the street lamp at night, I can't make out his face. But his face doesn't matter to me much at the moment, seeing as he's approaching us with a pretty creeptastic swagger.
"Yo," I bellow, trying to puff myself out, arms akimbo. "What's your deal? Are you the fuckboi that's been stalking uh-"
A blinding flash of white light stuns me out of my sentence. A 'snap' sound accompanies it. A camera?
But my vision is way too hazed out for it to just be some camera. I blink and I blink, but my eyes can't seem to get the flash cleared out of the way.
"Kass!" I hear Finley cry out. Then she coughs, whimpers. Something clatters to the concrete.
I spin around toward the sound of her pain, stumbling around. Is this sicko choking her?
Because he sure as hell isn't going to get away with that.
Seeing things is still damned difficult, but I can hear the struggling enough to know I'm close.
I hear Finley shout, "#BLOCKED" and the weirdest tingle sweeps over me as a gust of wind rushes across the street. My hat gets blow off.
"That two-bit mighta worked on my friend," grunts the stranger, "but not on me. You're gonna pay for what you did to him – what you do to us."
I don't know what he is on about, but I am gonna make him off about it so fast.
"Kass," Finley gurgles out, "INDOORS..."
What? Why is...-?
She winces in a squeaking, awful sound that makes me shudder.
I reach out at the bigger of the two person-like shapes and pry them apart. I get tapped on the head by a single finger, twice, just as I'm about to-
A blinding flash of white light stuns me out of my sentence.
Er, thought.
Damnit, just as I getting my sight back, I can't fucking see again!
"Kass!" I hear Finley cry out. Then she coughs, whimpers. Something clatters to the concrete.
Wait, what?
How are they both behind me again?
He's totally trying to choke Finley again! What the hell is with this guy? And why's he weaponizing his goddamn epic-bulb phone on me?
"You prick," I snarl, ready to deck him square in the jaw – if I could see where his jaw was.
I stumble toward them again, my fists like cocked pistols, ready to fucking go, bro.
"#BLOCKED"
There's that weird tingle again – and whoa, hold up, my hat gets...blown off? Again? I never put it back on. How...?
"That two-bit trick mighta worked on my friend," grunts the stranger, "but not on me. You're gonna pay for what you did to him – what you do to us."
Oh, fuck.
This is some of that magic shit, isn't it? Damnit.
"Kass," Finley gurgles out, "INDOORS..."
I'd really been hoping my first run-in with non-cat-related magic would be, like...more fun?
I hear Finley groan and wince, and I use that to differentiate the person-shaped thing that needs to be punched from, well, Finley.
My fist definitely connects with something person-like, but definitely not its face, and definitely not hard enough to bring it down.
Turns out, my bark is worse than my bite.
I rub at my eyes, desperate to see again, and before I know it, there's that damn finger, double-tapping at my forehead again.
"Kass!" I hear Finley cry out. Then she coughs, whimpers. Something clatters to the concrete.
And the choking noises again.
Yea, this is old. Replaying memes on a loop is one thing, this is something else.
I close my eyes, the circlular flash of white still bouncing back at me from the insides of my eyelids.
"#BLOCKED"
That shiver up my spine – Finley casting a spell of some sort? I guess?
That gust of wind – ha, I keep my hat on this time, though.
"That two-bit trick mighta worked on my friend," grunts the stranger, "but not on me. You're gonna pay for what you did to him – what you do to us."
"Kass," Finley gurgles out, "INDOORS..."
I'm at a damn loss. If I try to attack the jerk, he'll just...bop me back again. Like I'm living in a vid clip on loop. So this time, I wait a sec for my vision to clear. I take deep breathes – which is damn difficult with the sounds of Finley in pain, exactly the same as before.
This dude is fucking dead. I don't know how, but he just...he is. He's...-
Gone?
I'm being shaken by the shoulders.
"'S not working. She's just...staring."
Whoa, wait, Mason?
"I found Finley's phone..."
Avery.
I rub at my eyes, gently, but my legs give out. I sink to my knees, gripping at Mason's shins for support, and cough out a glob of spit that's caught in my throat. Yum.
"Kass?" Mason growls, shifting her feet away from the little puddle I've just dropped in front of her.
I catch my breath – my chest is on fire, my head is light and my ears are buzzing.
"Some-...Some asshole...-" I pant out, spiddling out more coughs.
Finley. That guy took Finley.
INDOORS.
Finley's callout reverberates through my skull. I'm filled with that warm, glowing sensation I'd experienced minutes ago, though it feels quite a ways back.
My body is washed clean of the awful gunk clogging it up, and as I hop to my feet and regain my balance, every inch of my being is being pulled in a very specific direction.
"That way," I say, pointing down the street. "She-...She's that way," I declare, not understanding how I know this, but knowing I know this.
Mason slaps me on the back, getting me to follow her. Avery stumbles along beside us, inspecting Finley's phone.
"Ooh," they bemoan. "She's not gonna like this..." Avery is tapping, clicking, swiping, but the phone is cracked to hell and not turning on.
"Gonna like getting saved from some freak," Mason dismisses their worry, flicking her hands out in front of her, fists balled at her sides.
I hear an unsettling '-fwoosh-' and realize that Mason has lit her fingers ablaze. A blue glow resonates from her clenched hands as she marches down the street.
"What happened?" Avery asks, leaning across Mason and glaring at me. "Was it some guy with a...a rough voice? A creepy smile? Spiky hair?"
"Huh? No, it was...some idiot in a beanie," I tell them.
"Oh, OK," Avery sounds relieved for some reason. Hello? Our friend got freaking nabbed by some stranger?
"'S not important," Mason decrees in a guttural growl. "Whoever it is, they're gettin' beat into pulp."
Yikes. I've never seen Mason like this, though Avery has told me just how scary she can be when she needs to.
"Sure," Avery acknowledges their girlfriend's rage. "But, like, it would be nice to know what we're up against." They stuff Finley's phone into their hoodie and pull out their own. "No signal? How in the...-?"
Realizing that it might be a good idea to try and call some kind of backup, I pull out my phone, but...same deal.
"Magic?" I mutter, at a loss.
"Maybe," Avery theorizes. "Look, look, listen, Kass – what they did they do to you?"
"Huh?" I'm a bit lost in the conversation, my guts yanking me toward a left turn at the end of this block. I indicate this to the others, and we cross the street, narrowly avoiding a car.
"Were just standin' there," Mason explains. "Grabbin' yer hat?"
"Oh!" I suddenly remember. "Some kinda time-loop," I tell them, simply. They'll know what that means, right? Magic crap? "They blinded me with some...kinda light, and then...I was looping the same moment a few times, 'til you found me."
"Whoa," Avery grunts, apparently surprised. That's no good. Aves is the one reading up on this stuff all the time... "Well, uhh, OK, but how did they do it? With their hands? With their voice?"
"Their phone's flash blinded me," I advise. "But way way worse than a normal camera flash. And then...-" I try to imitate with my own finger what they did to my head. "Something like that, and that keep sending me backward in time."
"Your perception, anyway," Avery corrects. I raise a brow at them, and they grin half-heartedly. "I, uh, that's-...It's a certain kind of magic, it...distorts...Y-Ya know, let's...not fuss over the details."
"Good idea," I agree, suddenly remembering my usual penchant for dragging things out so much. I guess being so scared about Finley has jarred me from my usual habits.
Another junction of streets, and my insides scream toward the left, so leftward we go.
"'S the way to Fin's apartment," Mason mumbles, the flames in her fingers dying down.
"Is it?" I prod, having not yet been there before.
"What do you mean, 'is it?'" Avery puffs with disbelief.
"Thought you knew where we're going," Mason darkly states, freezing in her tracks.
"I do," I insist, equally determined, stomping right up against her. She looks pissed, but I am not up for her moodiness when I know where we're going. "She's this way," I seethe, stabbing my finger onward.
Man, maybe I'm just as moody as she is right now.
I don't care if she has fire hands or Avery has...garbage power, I know Finley is this way, so that's where I'm going.
I walk off on my own, but they follow a few moments after, catching up.
There's a tense silence as we approach...wherever we're going. Finley's apartment? Maybe? I hadn't really thought of where, exactly, but the more I dwell on that thought, the more I decide it must be it.
'Indoors,' she'd said. Referring to, like...a private place? Huh. Like, based on the convo we'd just had, she had to have been referring to her home. I just kind of assumed she was, anyway, but...-
Wait, wait – Finley had used some kind of magic, hadn't worked, but she's spoken it. '#BLOCKED,' right? Had she...charmed me? Like, literally, magically? With a tracking charm, or something?
I try to explain this to Avery, who seems to buy it. Mason doesn't care either way, but she's shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, as if saving her energy for a fight.
When we hit the apartment building, Avery heads for the nearest recycling bin – when they join us at the door, they've got a pair of glass shivs attached to plastic handles. They conceal them in their hoodie.
Damn, going hardcore on me, huh? Didn't know you had it in you, Aves. Guess dating Mason must be rubbing off on them.
Mason sticks her wallet up against the doors scanner, and we're granted access. Huh. So, yea, totally all 'family' and what-not with this group, right? I know Mason and her are close, but had no idea they were that close...
We make our way up to Finley's apartment, and I find myself desperately wishing my first time here was more private, more romantic, more...not whatever all this is.
We reach the apartment. The door is already open slightly.
That's a bad sign.
The others turn to me expectantly, and I give them a fervent nod. I know Finley is inside.
But for the door being open, it's eerily quiet. We enter.
The place is...a bit of a mess. Fuck. A struggle definitely happened. This is awful. My insides are sore. I can't step far into the place, like I'm motion sick, so I linger by the door.
I'm so scared I can't even hear myself breathing. But I know where Finley is. I point at the bedroom, and the others nod. Mason pulls out her fists, lighting them up – but there's no sound.
This puts me off. Something isn't right. As the others approach what I presume is Finley's bedroom, I'm impulsed to close the door to the apartment – it doesn't make any noise. None at all. Maybe I'm just...really good at being sneaky?
But then I see the freak lunging up on Avery from behind. I shout out a warning – but, sure enough, nothing comes out of my throat. I'm on Mute.
Goddamn magic.
There's a tussle, and I'm honestly too spooked to follow what's going on. I'm a Muggle. Or a Normie. Or whatever the hell their slang word is for it. I'm not cut out for a damn magic duel. I hide behind the kitchen countertop.
The living daylightsgets scared out of me when a hand clamps down on my shoulder, but that gut feeling that's been yelling at me instantly melts away, like a tether being snapped off.
It's Finley. She looks like shit. I try to say her name, but, of course, nothing comes out. So I grope my trembling fingers at her face, and we hug briefly, foreheads pushing together. I feel pieces of something fall against my hat, my shoulder – shards of ceramic? I notice a fresh stain of brown liquid against the wall of Finley's kitchen, and pieces of what I assume are a broken coffee mug are all over. As I brush the shards off me, I realize that the droplets of coffee that have splashed on us are...hot?
Finley peeks around the corner of her island counter, then looks back to me, her eyes flickering with some kind of thought process. My heart is pounding, the veins in my neck undulating with discomfort from the vacuum-like feeling of all this bizarre magic-Mute crap. I feel the floor shake.
Sound rushes back into the room, and I feel my ears pop.
Finley and I both peek our heads over the counter. Avery is in a heap in the corner of the living room, and Mason is lurched over our dickhead of the evening, her hand leveled near his face.
But nothing's happening. I notice that even the flames consuming her hands aren't...animating? Flaming? Like they're frozen.
The jerk's hand is pointed at her forehead. He's curled defensively.
My head puts one and one together and draws the conclusion that he's...'Paused' Mason?
Stupid magic, man! I'm already sick of this.
The guy squirms his way out from beneath Mason, who's definitely frozen solid in place. He notices us.
And then I notice that his face is...concealed? No, no. Censored. Blurred out. Fucking A.
"There you are," he breathes raggedly, rolling up his singed sleeves. His voice sounds all weird, too, like its been filtered. "I told you, you meme-whore, your bright-eyed bullshit and tricks won't work on me."
He's approaching us, and I'm suddenly scared to hell as to what he's planning on doing.
"He's right," Finley murmurs under breath, as if something has dawned on her. Maybe that we're screwed? But she grabs my hand, squeezes it tightly, and stares me straight in the eyes. "Kass," she says firmly. "You're like a SPONGE."
Her words ripple through my skull. I'm completely taken out of the moment.
I'm transported to that instant at the café, earlier that day, when Finley was teasing me about how I...-
Oh.
I suddenly know what to do.
I lean against the counter, slipping a little on the slick linoleum as I gain my footing. I roll up my sleeves. I see the guy starting to make some weird hand gesture, and I somehow know what he's about to do.
He's about to use magic, his swipes like gestures on a phone screen watching a video. Rewind, pause, mute…
I'm like a sponge. Absorb, squeeze back out — something Finley did makes me know I can somehow reflect this weird bullshit right back at the prick.
Like she's working magic through me somehow.
So I lunge at him, slapping my hand on his forehead before he manages to hit mine. Every ounce of my being is consumed with the idea of…rewinding the video — of his life.
So I swipe my fingers left against his stupid face. A few times, for good measure.
And when I release my hand, he's…not there.
Mason suddenly bursts back to life, her hand slamming into the floor. Wheezing, she collapses into a heap. Avery is groaning, too.
Finley gasps, pattering her fingers together in front of her chest with excited relief.
"It worked!" she squeaks, tackling me and giving me wet kisses on the cheek.
I'm dumbfounded. Did I just do magic? It felt more like...magic was done on me. Through me, actually. Or something.
"Where...-?" I murmur, dizzy. Did I just make that guy stop existing? No. No way. I sent him back to his home. I know it, somehow. Just like I knew Finley was here.
"It worked, it worked-it-worked-it-worked," Finley is cooing, hopping on her toes. "That was amazing, we outsmarted his creepy ass!"
"Not bad," Mason says, trying to sound all tough and casual, but barely holding herself up by her elbows. "Wasn't...expecting that," she coughs out.
"I told you we should've figured out what he was capable of," Avery whimpers, fluttering their lips irritably.
"What if he comes back?" I pose, my chest tightening right up with the fresh memory of how scary all of that was.
"I doubt he will," Finley decides. "You used his own magic right back on him. If he even comprehends what happened, he won't be dumb enough to try it again."
I try to think back on that moment – from what Avery has tried to explain about all of this crap, my gut is telling me that...the asshole just got rejected, hard. Magic rejected. Probably won't even have the will to look me or Finley in the eyes anymore. But, yea, even if he tries something, we have an idea of how to handle him.
"Wait, you used magic?" Avery asks cautiously, giving me a suspicious look.
"Technically," I correct, "Finley used magic on me, and I...just sorta...did what I do? I think? But like...magically?" I wriggle my fingers awkwardly in front of myself.
Avery huffs, wiping their hands across their head.
"Guess it's...good that I made everyone study that book, then," Avery sighs. They give me an uncertain glance. I immediately shake my head and take a step back.
"I am staying the hell away from all of this noise," I insist, looking around the trashed apartment.
"'S not a good idea to stick yer head in the sand," Mason grumbles, dusting herself off. "Sorry 'bout yer couch," she adds flatly to Finley, noting the flipped-upside-down state of...said couch.
"It's OK," Finley shakily assures. "Think I'll maybe see if Graves will let us stay at his place tonight."
"Only if we tell him the truth," I say, sticking my nose right in this. "Maybe you guys wanna keep this stuff a secret, and that's fine, whatever – but from each other?" I shake my head vehemently. "I am not about that."
"Hoo-hoo," Finley laughs, intrigued as she wriggles her arms across my hips. "Stickin' your foot down, are ya? I like it."
Mason finishes inspecting a begrudging Avery for injuries, then pulls them in close with one arm, kissing them on the head roughly.
"I'm fine, Mom," Avery dryly teases her. "Isn't it past my bedtime?"
"Ain'tcher Mom," Mason bellows darkly, but quietly, jamming a finger into Avery's ribs. "Never call me that again."
"R-right, yes, Ma'am," Avery ekes out with alarm, shrinking before her.
"Ma'am's not better."
Finley and I exchange endearing looks at this...adorable? Exchange?
"That was pretty hot, by the way," Finley whispers into my ear, giving it a feline-like nibble. Yeeeeeeshhhh, oh, gosh. 'Gosh?' Crap.
But I manage to, uh, 'sponge' her sultry teasing. Gripping her waist and rubbing my thumbs against her stomach, I pose, "What was? Obeying your beck and call?"
"Ha. You are more of a dog person," she slyly taunts, toppling my hat off my head and yanking my hair-tie loose.
"'Ey," Mason grunts from the doorway. "Can't save yer mush for later?"
"So this is what it's like," Avery notes, bemused.
Mason groans impatiently.
"Give us a sec, guys," I call out to them, eyes locked against Finley's "We need a minute before we, uh, go outdoors..."
Finley giggles through a toothy grin, ruffling her fingers through my hair before diving at me with a kiss on the mouth.
I end up, ya know, 'absorbing' her tongue a little, while we're at it, and return that in kind.
