Always Crew by Tijan

CROSS

“Dickweed.”

Not this again.

I rotated on a pivot, my hand already up in the air. Blaise was coming in from behind me, and I grabbed him by his throat. The momentum of him coming to a stop, and I backed him up to a tree behind him. Slamming him against it, I was in his face. “Stop. Calling. Me. That.”

I’d been walking to class, not enjoying that I left Bren back at the house alone. Jordan left early this morning, and I knew he was hoping to get back either tonight or tomorrow sometime. With everything that happened yesterday, Brock thought it’d be a good idea if Bren took a leave of absence until the whole Red Demons thing was laid to rest.

Bren didn’t know when that would happen, so she was also not only taking a leave of absence, but she was studying for her bounty hunting license. So at least she wasn’t wasting her free time.

All that said, I was on edge.

I had two crew members out of town, one who wasn’t keeping in touch enough to make me feel comfortable, so the other had to go get him and bring him home, and then there was Bren who was home after dealing with some serious emotions. All that shit, and just my normal ‘brother’ anger was getting channeled into Dickweed right now.

His eyes opened. “Whoa.” He stiffened, then his hands were up and he shoved me back. It was a brief hit, almost like a pop, but I didn’t fight it. I let him go, stepping back, and my head lowered, but I kept my gaze on him.

We had a whole crowd around us.

He rubbed at his neck, reassessing me. “What crawled up your finger hole?”

“Don’t.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets because I wanted to hit him.

Badly.

Reallybadly.

He rolled his eyes, stepping away from the tree. “Yeah, yeah. Guess I had that coming.” Then, his bag was picked back up from where he dropped it, thrown over one shoulder, and he started for our class alongside me. “Girls’ night is tomorrow. Aspen’s going to call Bren herself, but I’m extending a reminder about what she said she’d do. Oh, and they’re planning on starting at Aspen’s dorm room. The RA’s a soccer groupie, so she lets Aspen do whatever she wants.”

I wasn’t surprised.

About any of that.

“Bren will do what she promised.”

“Good.” Then he looked around, making a big show of it. “Noticed your one boy’s been gone for a while. When’s Dickwit coming back?”

We stepped inside the building and I pushed him back out, grabbed the door and shut it in his face. Hitting the doorjamb, I flicked him off and backed away from the door, smiling.

NowI was in a good mood.