Page 35 of Little Fury

“Asshole,”Marcus grumbles under his breath beside me.

“What? Why don't you like him? He's funny and nice, and his mom easily makes the best pie to ever exist.”

“Ava, he's a dick,”he informs me.

“No, he isn’t. You guys used to be friends when we were in school. What changed?”Marcus looks at me."What? Tell me what happened with you two.”

“Nothing happened, Ava. Just go on your date with your country boy. It won’t matter in a few months anyway. We leave soon. We have things to do, people to see, and debts to have repaid.” Then he walks away.

I sigh.Seriously, what the fuck is up his ass lately? He used to be good friends with Tommy. It makes no sense to me. But he isn’t wrong. We are almost done here. We turn 18 soon, and then Marcus and I will be free. Harry has a couple more things for us to do before he sets us loose on the world, but soon enough.

The next morning, Wes, Parker, and I are sitting down in the mess hall with our food when Marcus walks in. He nods at us before getting his food.

“So?”

“So, what, Wes?”

“How did the date go, Ava?”

“Ah, that. It went well. Tommy's nice. He’s a good country boy with a body honed from hours on horseback and baling hay. He also started bull riding. The way he moves his hips is a whole other thing. Seriously, guys, do you want to fuck some girl’s brains out? Learn how to ride a bull.”A loud noise startles us all.

Marcus is glaring over at us.

“Dude, what the fuck?”Sebastianloudlyasks him from a table over.

Marcus doesn’t reply. He sits down, glaring at me.“Maybe we don’t talk about fucking the local farm boys at the breakfast table. Have some fucking class, Ava. You may enjoy spreading your legs for anyone, but no one needs to hear about it.”

I’m so taken aback by his words that I have no reply. I just stare back at him, feeling the shift at the table as it becomes awkward for everyone.

“Marcus. Man, that wasn’t.”

“Shut the fuck up, Parker,”Marcus says, cutting him off. He stands up, grabs his tray from the table, drops it on the dish cart, slamming his way out of the mess.

“Ava?”Wes says my name. I look at him and smile slightly.

“It's okay; he doesn’t like Tommy. I should've realized he wouldn’t like me talking about it.”

“Ava,”he says again clearly not buying my nonchalance at Marcus's words.

“It's fine, really; he was an ass. He’ll apologize, it’ll be fine. I’m going to head to the gym.” I tell the guys as I get up to leave. I see Sebastian and Theo looking at me. I give them thesame smile I gave Wes and Parker and keep going. I drop my tray on the dish cart at the same time as Harry.

“Little Fury?”he says an eyebrow raised in question.

“Morning Harry. See you in the gym in a few, yeah?”

“Yup, see you there.”

I step out of the mess and take a deep breath of the morning air.

What the fuck was that?

Marcus is late getting to the gym, I’m already into my run when he gets there. Once we’re done with our warm-ups, we move to the ring. Today is sparring day. I love this day. I really do enjoy beating the men’s asses. We draw names to see who we get. I pull Marcus.

Of course, I do.

I sigh to myself as I walk over to Sebastian getting him to wrap my hands for me. Wes is helping Marcus wrap his. Harry and Theo enter the gym just as we are finishing getting wrapped.

“They first?”Harry asks no one in particular.

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