35. Crashed Party #3
“See! I told you those classes would come in handy!” he crows proudly while Qiang's face breaks out into a massive grin, until their eyes meet mine and widen.
“Oh my god, babe, are you okay?” they ask, rushing to my side and brushing their fingers across my cheek where Kingston’s elbow had connected.
The clip may have been hard enough to throw me off, but I doubt it’ll even leave a bruise.
I’m not so much worried about any of the hits I took as I am just caught up in how ridiculously hot Qiang looked while knocking his ass to the ground.
Okay, and maybe I’m soaking up the fact that their wide eyes are on me, full of care and attention too.
Not gonna lie, it’s kind of nice to have my most important person baby me for a minute.
There’s a rush of murmurs through the crowd, probably speculating what started the fight and whether it’s over yet. But I hear Derrick’s voice over the din, while he tries to lend Kingston a hand up.
“Come on, big guy. Just walk it off,” he coaxes, and I don’t know why he bothers because Kingston is too hot-headed to ever willingly accept someone else’s help.
It comes as no surprise when Kingston slaps Derrick’s hand away and hauls himself up.
“Get the fuck away from me,” he grunts brusquely.
Derrick shakes his head at him. “Dude, when is it gonna be enough?”
Kingston glares at him. “Fuck you!” he barks at Derrick before looking over at Qiang and me. “And fuck this,” he spits out before slamming out of the house.
A few more murmurs run through the crowd before it breaks up. Everyone is going back to their previous party mode now that the drama has subsided. Qiang is still trailing their fingers down my face, prodding my cheekbone a bit to make sure I’m not bruised.
“Goddamn, pretty. That was so fucking hot,” I praise, nuzzling into their fingers.
Qiang snorts and rolls their eyes. “Leave it to you to focus on some way for me to be hot even in the middle of a damned fist fight.”
I roll my lower lip between my teeth, trailing my eyes across them appreciatively until their cheeks flush and they shove my shoulder.
“Stop it,” they say, getting shy at being so brazenly ogled.
I huff out a laugh before Qiang looks at the door that has long closed after Kingston’s retreating back. They glance back at me with a slight frown.
“Why do I feel kind of shitty right now? I mean, definitely glad he’s gone, but…” they trail off, leaving the thought in the air.
I reach up and hook my finger under their chin. “Because you know there's more to him than what's on the surface, and you know he has feelings, and it bothers you knowing that you hurt them. Even though he came here specifically to hurt ours.”
Qiang looks pensive at that, and I heave out a sigh. Not because I’m sad that they care about Kingston’s feelings, because I’m not. That’s very much how Qiang is. But I don’t like that there’s space in their head being taken up with guilt over someone who so thoroughly hurt them, either.
“Don't worry, we're taking care of it,” I tell them, not really ready to divulge everything just yet because we don’t have all the details.
“What does that mean?” Qiang’s eyes search mine, fear surfacing as I realize how much they read into my simple admission.
“It’s nothing to worry about right now. You'll see soon enough,” I try to reassure them, but the fear only grows as they hold my gaze sternly.
“Marcus, I get that it seems like Sterling doesn’t care about Kingston, but he does care about reputation, which means protecting his son on a public level. If you go after Kingston, Sterling will retaliate. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into; you can’t just–,”
“I can just,” I interrupt them. “I don’t think you realize just how far up the food chain Tristan and I are, pretty. Trust me, those two fuckers aren’t gonna know what hit them when the time comes.”
Qiang leans in until their forehead rests against mine and their arms wrap around my neck. Their body is vibrating against me with anxiety.
“Marcus, please don’t do anything that can get you taken away from me,” they plead quietly. “Please, he’s taken enough from me; don’t let him take you away too. Not when we just got here,” they whisper, and the fear in their eyes is something I can’t ignore.
I lean in and capture their lips with mine, soothing their fear with my tongue until their trembling slows and their body relaxes into mine. Once I feel like they’ve calmed down, I pull away from the kiss and meet their eyes with a resolute gaze.
“Everything is gonna be fine, pretty. I promise. I’m just gonna make sure they understand the cost of hurting what’s mine,” I reassure them.
Qiang swallows hard before slowly shaking their head. “I wasn’t yours back then, though,” they breathe out as though they think fairness has any room in a situation like this.
I brush their hair away from their face. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve been mine since before we even existed,” I tell them before kissing them again.
Before Qiang can respond, a light clearing of the throat has us turning to the side to see a rather bored-looking Cade standing there. Once he knows he has our attention, he nods lightly towards Qiang.
“Little pixie. Lovely as ever,” he says in greeting, and the small smile that curls at Qiang’s mouth irritates the fuck out of me.
Little pixie? My back bristles and I tighten my arms around Qiang. I thought I heard him call them that at the party where these two ended up lip-locking. Evidently, it’s a whole fucking pet name, and nope, not liking that at all.
To make it completely worse, there’s a twinkle of amusement in Cade’s eye as he reads the annoyance that I’m sure is plastered all over my face.
“I think it's about time to get the show on the road, don't you?”
“We were waiting on your call,” I remind him, a little sharper than necessary.
He just nods his head like he either didn’t pick up on the annoyance, or that he did and just doesn’t care. Although, knowing him, he probably did and is being smugly happy about it.
“I was still gathering intel, but I have enough now to speed things up. Give me a few hours to get everything in place, and keep your phone close,” he instructs before walking away.
Probably a good thing; I’m like one more wrong word or another flirtation with Qiang away from losing my temper. My fingers curl tighter around Qiang’s hipbone, making them shiver against me. Their obvious pleasure at my touch soothes me a bit. Now is not the time to start fighting with Cade, too.
“You got Cade in on this?”
“His reputation is ridiculously shady, but he’s friends with Gio and Holt, so he can’t be all bad,” I shrug, once again questioning my judgment.
Not that I don’t trust Cade with this, but I’m feeling rather prickly towards him right now, not that it’s the first time, and if he doesn’t drop the flirting, it won’t be the last, either.
“He's not, of course; he's not, but he's also not afraid to use scare tactics to get his way either. He's a great friend to have, but he's still scary as hell,” Qiang points out.
“Well, it's a good thing he's on our side then. Not that I really appreciate the way you two express your friendship. Little pixie? Really?” I mutter, knowing I’m being completely irrational, because even though their dynamic irritates the hell out of me, I don’t actually think either of them would do anything to hurt me, even if Cade gets way too much enjoyment out of ruffling my feathers.
“That was a one-time thing, Marcus,” they say, something suspicious in their tone, and I can’t bite back the question before it escapes my mouth.
“We aren’t just talking about that kiss, are we?”
A flush runs from Qiang’s temple all the way down their neckline, and a petulant seed of jealousy grows even though I know it’s unfair since I know it had to have been before we’d ever met.
“Oh my god, you can't fault me for what I did before you. Cade and I have the same rule: one-and-done. We were acquaintances before, and friends after, and that’s all we’ve ever been. Besides, it was years ago, anyway. You are the only one I've broken my one-and-done rule for.”
“There was Kingston,” I point out.
Qiang rolls their eyes. “You’re being petulant for no reason, Marcus,” they hiss in annoyance. “Kingston was before the rule was created, and he was the reason why it was created, because I never wanted anywhere near something like that again, so it doesn't count.”
“I don't like it,” I huff out honestly, even though I know Qiang is right about me being petulant. I’m letting too many of the things that happened before me weigh on the us that exists now.
“Then don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to, especially when they don't pertain to us,” they say haughtily, and it takes some of the wind out of my sails.
I’ll never get over how much I love it when they get sassy like this.
I reach down and wrap my arms around their waist, bringing them closer to me.
“Why don’t you get jealous over me?”
“You say that, but neither you nor Imani has any idea how close or how often she came to death over the last few months,” Qiang says, and as much as I know that shouldn’t make me feel all giddy inside, knowing they were jealous over me does something to me.
“So then maybe we should stop wasting time with conversations about jealousy and start talking about rewards…” I suggest, while walking my fingers up their spine.
Qiang coyly bites their lower lip as they snake their fingers down my arm and thread them through my fingers.
With a tug, they pull me towards the stairs, and before they have a chance to protest, I’m lifting them until their legs wrap around my waist. Between the crowd, the noise, and the booze, no one is gonna notice or care anyway.