Chapter 6 #2
“Cowboy Connor!” One of them cried, and I could feel the simper Troian was offering me without even having to turn to view it.
“Holy shit, there’s two of you!” He laughed, glancing at Troian quickly before giving me another nod.
“We met you the other night when we gave our buddy that private dance with you.”
Shit, I thought to myself. Nirvana and Motley Crue.
Obviously not their real names, but I definitely recognized them as the bros that had bought Qwill his private dance in suite three that night at Downpour from the band tees they’d been wearing.
Seeing them in this more natural setting felt weird.
Then again, I’d grown so accustomed to being in nothing but fashioned underwear that normalcy had lost all its meaning.
Suddenly, water thrashed upwards as another virces broke through the surface, another shirtless creature making themselves known. The breath that I hadn’t realized was lodged in the back of my throat caught on my shock as I saw the dark brown hair break through the surface of the water.
It was Qwill.
He was completely shirtless, covered in more of the glittering green and blue scales that littered his face, smothering most of his body. The only article of clothing keeping him modest was the same pair of tattered black cut-off shorts he’d been wearing that same night we’d met at the club.
I hadn't noticed it at first about Qwill's friends, but I couldn't stop staring at the intricately laid gills around their necks, amidst the colorful scales that made up their skin.
Of course I'd seen them back at the club, when I'd been innocently thrusting my ass into their friend’s crotch via private lap dance, but I'd forgotten how captivating they were as I focused on Qwill.
His gills contracted in tune with his breathing, just like how nostrils reacted.
They were beautiful in an otherworldly way that clung to me tighter than the water siding down Qwill's muscled frame.
There was this feeling of guttural something burrowing its way at the bottom of my belly, unable to understand what it was. Doing my best to ignore the hell out of it, I watched as Qwill turned to his friends with a bewildered expression, wiping his face free of the water obscuring his vision.
“Assholes,” Qwill growled, and that feeling in my stomach doubled. “Don't pin me underwater like that again.”
The other two virces cackled wildly, but Qwill careened his head until he saw Troian and I, a double take evident by the way his golden eyes pulsed with awareness.
“Th—I mean, uh, Connor?” My real name died on his tongue, a swivel of his head made back to his friends before he stared at our dueling facades. Troian looked confused, but intrigued. I simply felt my cheeks reddening from the inside out. “What's going on?”
“Cowboy Connor has a twin, bro!” Motley Crue said with a tapered chuckle. “Double the fun for you.”
“Shut up, Teme.” Qwill snarled, but he kept his tone friendly enough that even I could tell he didn't mean it. Or at least, he didn't mean it indefinitely.
“This is so gnarly, man.” The remaining nameless virces snickered, shaking his head in disbelief. “What are the chances of Cowboy Connor showing up to our favorite swimming spot?”
“Garth Lo, it's fucking fate, dude!” Teme replied, a wide smile brightening his youthful face. “It's, like, written in the stars or whatever.”
“Will you two please go back underwater or something?” Qwill sighed, spreading his hand over his face. “This is embarrassing enough without your commentary.”
Teme and Garth Lo dissolved into hysterics like a pair of hyenas, but ultimately shook their heads, saying they'd let Qwill ‘handle his men’ as they dove back into the murky water and disappeared from view with the sounds of the disturbed water echoing their leave.
Qwill retreated from the water to join us by the hiking trail, revealing the frayed black shorts he'd been wearing that night at the club when I'd first met him.
I wondered then if Qwill was the kind of guy that owned the same outfit in multiple pairs and barely strayed from the routine of it all.
Something about his easily distrusted demeanor gave me the impression that he liked having control over at least one aspect of his life like that.
He regarded both of us with wildly intense eyes, not that his golden eyes were ever not intense, but then his eyes fell on me after a quick overview of my messy but purposefully styled hair. “You were the one I met at Downpour the other night, right?”
I looked over at my brother who looked endlessly entertained, shifting his feet so he could gawk at me through lidded eyes of scrutiny.
I was so fucking toast after this encounter was wrapped up and I already knew that Troian was going to wring me like a sponge until I spilled out every detail of the lap dance I'd given Qwill.
“Yeah,” I said with a nervous laugh, feeling every bit the opposite as I had when I'd first interacted with him.
At the club, I was confident because I was in a familiar place, playing a familiar role.
But here, out in the real world, Thayer wasn't nearly as recklessly cocky as Connor. “Yeah, it was me.”
Qwill treaded through the water until he was sauntering up the bank to meet us at the edge of the path we were on, giving me a glimpse at the rest of him.
His feet were webbed between his scaled but otherwise human feet, but the undersides of his feet appeared to just house green skin, making me wonder what other parts of him were void of scales.
That burning in my belly came back and I reverted my eyes back to Qwill’s burning golden irises.
“Sorry about Teme and Garth Lo,” Qwill chuckled, giving Troian a knowing glance, as if he didn’t want to ignore his presence but also as if he wasn’t sure if he should just be addressing me. “They’re idiots, but they mean well. Sorry for whatever dumb shit I’m sure they said before I came up.”
“It’s fine.” Troian scoffed, shaking his head with his arms folded over his chest, giving Qwill a knowing look.
Innocently, Qwill just gave him a smile and gave me a nod. “It’s good to see you again. Despite the awkwardness.” His lips twisted in a half-smirk that coiled around my stomach and made me feel a sudden wave of…something I couldn’t place as it washed over me.
I felt Qwill’s stare pass over my body in a way that felt…
good? There was something in his eyes that told me he was enjoying the view, but I already knew he was attracted to me.
The thing that concerned me was that I was reacting to it with…
fuck if I knew. It almost felt like I wanted to, like, preen and pose while he looked at me.
Fuck, I needed to get the hell away from him.
“Yeah, good to see you.” I blurted out too quickly, looking to Troian as the perfect scapegoat scenario came roaring into my head. Anything to avoid the growing something metastasizing in my gut. “Well, we should get going if I’m going to continue showing my brother around.”
I could see in my peripheral that Troian was about to object, but I sent him a quick side eye and he shut the hell up, the realization that he was definitely going to expect an explanation in return for his silence.
Noticing the glance between us, Qwill just laughed it off and gave me a final nod.
“No worries. Welcome to Piper.” He said to Troian, who, thankfully, just gave him a curt shake of his head in response.
Qwill burned a stare into my temple until I was forced to peer into his golden eyes again. “I’ll see you around, Thayer.”
Oh god, the fact that he’d said my real name in from of Troian meant I had hella explaining to do and I wanted nothing more than to crawl into my bed and hide from the world.
“Nice seeing you, Qwill.”
Grabbing Troian’s hand, I quickened our exit and pummeled down the path. But not before Troian said, “Will you slow down? He’s out of earshot for fuck’s sake.” And the sound of chuckling trailed after us on the breeze of our abrupt leave.