Emerson laughed and squinted at Bash, who stood with a beer in one hand and a pair of tongs in his other as he settled food on the giant grill someone had dragged out here. “That doesn’t surprise me. I’ll do it.”
“Yes,” Audrey said with a little fist pump. She dragged a plastic baggie of sliced cucumbers from her tote bag and handed her a couple.
Emerson stretched her legs out, heals on the sand, as she relaxed back into the chair and settled the green, soothing circles over her closed eyes.
“Thank God,” Kirk said from right beside her. “I’m glad she has someone to do girly shit with. Audrey tried to paint my nails last week.”
“I did not! I wanted to try one line of color on one fingernail so I could see if I liked it better than the one I was wearing, and you pitched the biggest tantrum.”
Emerson stifled her laughter so she wouldn’t dislodge her face-fruit. Carefully, she pulled her cup out of the holder on her arm rest and took a long sip.
“It’s good you have another girl around here,” Mason said in a somber tone. “You deserve to build some healthy relationships.”
“Mason, Diem turned out fine. Stop feeling guilty about that.”
“Who is Diem?” Emerson asked.
Audrey explained, “Mason used to be the driver slash bodyguard for Damon, the last immortal dragon. Or at least, he was the last one until he gave up his mortality for his mate, Clara…anyway, long story. So he raised his dragon shifter daughter in solitude, and Mason helped.”
“Helped keep her in solitude?”
“Yeah,” Mason gritted out. “It wasn’t my favorite part of the job. New subject. Babies. So you didn’t have fake sex in the doctor’s office today?”
Emerson choked on the drink she was sipping, and her cucumbers fell off. When she could speak again without wheezing and coughing, she carefully told the shirtless boar shifter who sat in the sand in front of her, “No. I didn’t have fake sex.” She’d had real sex with Bash.
“Nards had babies,” Bash said helpfully.
“Really?” Mason asked.
“Yeah, three of them,” Audrey said.
“I call one,” Mason said quick.
“Man, what are you going to do with a baby mouse?” Harrison asked from beside the grill.
“Put it in my trailer.”
Harrison rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and groaned. “Sounds great. We’ll just get overrun with mice in every single trailer.”
“Nards Junior,” Bash said happily. “I want a magic mouse, too.”
Harrison’s eyebrows arched up so high he made forehead wrinkles. “They shit little chocolate droppings everywhere.”
“You call them droppings,” Bash said, flipping over a steak. “I call them presents.”
Harrison growled and opened the cooler, then pulled out a beer and popped the top. And then he chugged it. Audrey looked at Emerson and made a ha-ha face, so Emerson took a sip of her juice to hide her grin.
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Bash pulled a plastic container of fruit salad from the cooler and offered it to Emerson. “I packed girl food.”
“Bash, that isn’t girl food,” Audrey muttered as she snatched it from him and wrestled the top off. “It’s just healthy food.”
“It ain’t meat,” Bash said. “How healthy can it be?” He took a draw of his beer and looked pointedly at Audrey as though he’d won that argument by a landslide.
With his back to them as he manned the grill, Bash lifted the metal tongs and clicked them once. “Poop Chute Clinton is here.”
“Stop calling me that, asshole,” Clinton said as he appeared out of the woods.
“I’m making you a steak, Clinton,” Bash said, ignoring his vitriol. “It’s small and shaped like an anus.”
“You guys make me so tired,” Harrison said. “No fighting tonight.”
“What about arguing?” Clinton asked.
“No, because there ain’t no difference in this crew. Arguing always turns to fighting. Why don’t you just shock us all and get along with everyone instead?”
“I’m trying to save your lives.”
Kirk snorted. “With abstinence?”
“I have in my hands proof that Emerson Elliot,” he said, pointing a stack of papers at her, “is an anti-shifter traitor right here in our midst. That’s right. I Internet searched you.”
Harrison narrowed his eyes and asked in a dangerous voice, “What are you talking about?”
Bash abandoned the smoking grill and placed himself between Clinton and Emerson. “Careful, Clinton,” he warned, and now his voice was too low and growly to be mistaken for human.