Page 45 of The Fake Divination Offense
“This is…” He coughs. “A fancy car.”
I fiddle with the keys. “Compared to some of the outrageous vehicles my teammates drive, a Maserati might as well be a soccer van, I swear.”
He gives a look that saysthat’s your best excuse for having such an ostentatious car?
“Hey, I’m allowed a vice,” I say with a grin and step down the curb to open the door for him.
Alexo’s expression swings to amusement.
“But he was such a gentleman,” he says, his voice intentionally too high. “How could I not get in the car with him? It would’ve been rude.”
I cock my head.
“Just reciting what I’ll say to—to the adventure party who has to rescue me from you later.”
I ignore his stumble and lean on the open door. “If you want, I can call a rideshare for you and have them drop you where we’re going. Which is somewhere public, I promise.”
Alexo narrows his eyes. “Oh, fuck all the way off.”
I recoil. “What?”
“You—this.” He waves his hand at all of me. “Your wholeknight in shining armorroutine. This level of chivalry should be illegal.” But he’s talking to himself now, and he sucks in a deep breath that evolves into a moan. “Idiot. I’m such an idiot,” he mumbles as he slides into my car’s passenger seat.
I hold, processing what happened, before I grin and shut the door.
By the time I fold myself into the driver’s seat, Alexo has his seat belt on and is fiddling with the radio. He looks almost comically small in my car—I got an adjusted model for customers with bigger ancestries, and it’s the same as seeing Seb or Thio here. Only with Alexo, it highlights that size difference in a few very obvious ways, and I clamp my lips against the rush of saliva that fills my mouth.
Alexo finds a radio station he seems satisfied with and glances up at me. “So. Where are we going?”
I shake out of my stupor and focus on the road. “It’s a surprise.”
“Hm.A surpriselike an abandoned warehouse where no one will hear me scream, ora surpriselike a roll of duct tape and a creepy basement?”
A laugh bursts out of me. “Okay, fair point. We’re going to a magic smash room.”
“A—” Alexo twists toward me. “A magicwhat?”
“A smash room.” I take a turn and begin working our way toward the city. “It kind ofisa warehouse, but other people will be there, even this late. It’s full of magically warded rooms that are stacked with various obstacles or breakables—pottery, electronics.And you can buy stuff for spells and use whatever you want to blast the shit out of things. Do you do any magic?”
I glance at him quickly, and he shakes his head.
“That’s fine. They have potions that can give you temporary attack abilities. Or you don’t need to use magic at all—they have weapons, too. It’s a fantastic stress release.”
I found it when I was in college, researching ways to help Seb with his anger issues, but I never took him; I was honestly terrified of what he’d do if he was allowed to attack shit with abandon.
Alexo’s quiet for a beat. I keep my eyes on the road, but I can feel him looking at me, the heated weight of his gaze on the side of my face.
“And you think I need to relieve stress?” he asks. I can’t pin his tone—is he upset?
I risk another look at him. “I think you’d appreciate not having to restrain yourself.”
He blows out an exhale. The spacious interior of my car is quickly feeling very, very small, and the steady gusts of the AC swell his apple scent, filling the whole car with the saccharine aura of fruit. When he moves on the seat, arms crossing over his stomach, it wafts more of that scent, and a hint of the mint soap the stadium provides in the showers. I bet his curls smell like that, a combination that absolutely shouldn’t work, peppermint and apples, but I want nothing more than to bury my face in the spot behind his ear and breathe.
“His name’s Tem,” Alexo says softly.
My hands spasm on the wheel and I snap my gaze forward to keep from swerving off the road. “Who?”
“The guy I live with. Tem Raussec. And he’s not my boyfriend or my partner or anything romantic at all. He’s like my uncle. And he can be… overprotective. He hates that I insisted on working with the Hellhounds, but I got the internship, and it let me be at least performanceadjacent, so I took it. And then this whole PR thing…” He sighs, head thumping back against the seat. “I can’t say too much. Okay? Please don’t ask. But Tem’s… he’s not allbad. He hates when I’m in the spotlight. Hates me being vulnerable.”
