Page 49 of Clever Eli
He gives it right back.
Takes one step up to crush our chests together, tilts my head back for better access now that he’s taller than me again, plunges his tongue into my mouth so expertly that I go limp in his arms.
Even with my eyes closed, I feel the flash go off, and I hear the digital sound of a camera shutter.
We both jump back. Lex even loses his balance and steps down before swinging around to see...
Hawk.
Wearing an impish, shit-eating grin right as he takesanotherphoto.
“I got it!” he screams at the top of his lungs, so loud he probably damages his vocal cords. Which are insured for fuck-you money, so really,why? He runs away, waving his phone over his head like a lunatic before I can ask, racing back to the family room.
“I win! I got proof,” he keeps shouting. It takes me longer to understand what the hell is happening, and when I do Lex is already running after him.
“Hawk, come back here,” he grumbles loudly.
I still haven’t caught my breath, but I go after them and catch up just in time to see Lex fly over the coffee table and tackle Hawk to the couch. I don’t stop to count how many people are in the family room, watching it all unfold. Instead, I make my way through the bodies to try to help get those pictures back.
It’s not that I’m ashamed, oh no, and I doubt Lex is either, but it’s no one’s business, dammit.
“Give it back,” Lex demands, trying to wrestle the phone out of Hawk’s hand.
“Never!” Hawk cries out triumphantly
Lex sneaks a hand under Hawk and starts tickling him, I guess, because the next second an ungodly screech escapes the singer’s mouth.
“Abuse! This is family abuse, or, or,child abuse,” he keeps shouting and everyone just watches with amused smiles.
“You’re old as fuck, you little shit. Practically forty,” Lex grumbles while still trying to snatch the phone away.
Hawk goes rigid and turns to glare at Lex.
“You take that back,” he demands imperiously
“No. You really are like fifteen years older than me. I’m just speaking facts here,” Lex says, finally amused too. But he’s still battling for the phone until Vinny, on Hawk’s other side, grabs it without a problem and then... looks at the picture.
“Fucking finally,” he shouts, now as animated as Hawk was, and goes to show Si and Lottie.
Lex deflates on top of Hawk and groans, burying his face against his cousin’s shoulders. I’m frozen just a foot away from the couch, my lungs not working, and blood rushing fast to my face—the blush wasn’t needed apparently.
Hawk, with his patented little-shit smile still firmly in place, pats Lex’s head before turning to look at his husband. Derek’s standing with Dad on the other side of the room, looking impassively at the show.
“What the hell, Dee? You didn’t think to save me from the giant tackling me? I thought you loved me.” The whine is really undignified, but I think it’s appropriate. He should be mocked.
“I don’t know how you expect me to save you from a six-five, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound hockey player. You’re the one who pissed him off,” Derek drawls lazily.
“Besides,” Wolf adds. “You earned it. I think it was very entertaining.”
“All right, enough,” Lyla demands and snatches the phone out of Hulk’s hands, sending him a glare that makes him shrug and wince with guilt written all over him. Lex’s dad wasreallyinterested in the picture.
“I do wonder what he won,” he says, trying to divert his ex-wife’s attention.
She ignores him and walks over to hand me the phone... it’s still unlocked
“Eli, do what you must with thisunlockedphone.” She stresses the word, then sends Hawk a telling look with her eyebrow raised.
Hawk protests immediately.
