Kevin nodded and caught the ball in his claws as I chucked it back at him. “All teenagers think the same thing about their parents.”
“I’m twenty! Why are we even out here!”
“Bonding,” Kevin said. “You said that we needed bonding.” Then he leered at me, his lip curling, tongue snaking out between his fangs. “Or perhaps you meant bondage? Is that what you meant, pretty? You need me to tie you up and choke you on my dick? Make you scream as I twist your little nipples? Make you—”
“That’s not what I meant at all.”
The leer disappeared. “That’s what I thought, sport. So, any boys or girls you want to get fresh with?”
“Get fresh with,” I repeated.
“You know. Take to the dance, or whatever.”
“The dance.”
“Sock hop? I don’t know what you kids call it these days.”
“I think that being with Gary has made you both actually mentally disabled. Like your magic broke both of your brains the moment you fellated him.”
“So much fellating,” Kevin agreed. “Oh look, company.”
I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, a small contingent of knights were coming out onto the sparring fields, even though I was absolutely positive there was no need for them to be here. Of course, Ryan was in the lead. Pete stood toward the rear, a look of amused exasperation on his face.
“Sam,” he said, once they passed through the gates. The others headed toward the weapons shed, but Pete dragged behind them. Ryan almost was able to make it all the way to the shed without looking at me but failed miserably at the last minute.
“Pete,” I said, ignoring Ryan completely. “Late training?”
He rolled his eyes. “It appears our illustrious Knight Commander felt we’d been slacking off recently.”
“Is that so.”
“Quite. And apparently, it couldn’t wait until tomorrow, and we had to go to the fields right away. Been here long?”
“An hour or so.”
“Funny, that,” Pete said. “Right around the time the Knight Commander came up with this idea.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go do knight things.”
“Nah,” Pete said with an easy shrug. “Getting too old for this shit. I’ll just observe.” He looked over at the dragon. “Kevin. Nice evening for a game of catch.”
Kevin nodded sagely. “It is, Pete. Always a nice evening when I get to be with my boy.”
“So that’s still a thing, huh?” Pete asked me.
“No,” I said crossly. “It is not a thing. It was never a thing.”
“Forgive him,” Kevin said, frowning at me. “He’s a bit cranky tonight. I think he likes this boy from school, but I can’t get a name out of him.”
Ryan was apparently listening into the conversation like a creep, because he dropped a heavy long sword on his foot.
Everyone stared at him as he grimaced. “It slipped,” he said.
“Oh boy,” Pete said. “This just gets sadder and sadder.”
“And I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“Ah,” Pete said. “We’re at avoidance.”