Page 5 of Revenge
The guy was even worse than Alice. Not only did he not have a filter, but he was actually crazy enough to touch Haruka. And then Haruka would kill him long before Eli had a chance to, which would be a shame, because Will was a lot of fun to be around.
“Will’s working on a photoshoot off campus right now. You’re safe for the moment,” Isa said, looking somewhere over Eli’s head—far, far away from where Haruka’s torso was. Eli wasn’t sure what Briar was looking at—his own soul, maybe. It was hard to tell with Briar. Whatever the case may be, neither he nor Isa were looking at Haruka, and that made them superior to everyone else they’d run into so far.
“Thank god. You wouldn’t believe the afternoon we’ve had.”
“Oh, I can imagine,” Isa said. His eyes were still averted from Haruka, but his cheeks were growing pink, which had Eli wondering about how good Isa’s peripheral vision was. Just because he had his own giant, hot boyfriend didn’t mean Eli was keen on parading Haruka around half naked in front of him.
Briarwaspretty big…
“Hey, Briar, let Haruka borrow your shirt.”
Briar didn’t stir. He was already nose deep in his sketchbook, and once that happened, it was difficult to get his attention. Before Eli got desperate and waved a hand between Briar’s face and his sketchbook, Isa said, “Sorry Eli, Briar’s only wearing one layer today, and as much as I love you, I’m not giving you Briar’s shirt. Then I’d be where you are now, and I can tell from your mind that you are hating life right now.”
“But…”
“Friend love only goes so far, Eli.”
“Okay, fine,” Eli huffed. “But you have to help me get him out of here. If I see a single picture of this on the internet, you are going in the princess tower, Haruka!”
“Once again, you’re acting like I did this on purpose,” Haruka said, lips twitching. The fucker was pretending like he wasn’t dying inside from holding in laughter. “I can assure you that I didn’t.”
“Even through the distortion of your omamori, I can tell you are loving every minute of this, Haruka.” Isa said, because he was a loyal friend. Even if he was a selfish little jerk and wouldn’t let Haruka borrow Briar’s shirt.
Eli and Isa spent a few minutes brainstorming ideas (after Eli had arranged everyone’s bodies to form a visual shield around Haruka, of course), but other than robbing a random person of their clothes, they weren’t able to come up with anything reasonable.
“You can’t crank up your shield to maximum and cover Haruka with it, Eli. How is he supposed to see well enough to walk?” Isa said, trying not to laugh and failing because, as Eli had established before, he was a tiny jerk.
“Maybe I could push him around like he’s in a hamster ball.”
“No.” Suddenly Haruka was no longer amused. Too frikking bad for him.
“But—”
“Don’t make me burn your new Luna slippers, Eli,” Haruka warned.
“I just got those!”
“That’s where my slippers went?”
“You wouldn’t burn Isa’s slippers would you?” Eli loved those slippers—not as much as he’d loved his now least-favorite hoodie, but still.
“Please. Like you were planning on returning them,” Isa snorted.
“I might have.” He totally wasn’t.
“If you try to roll me through campus inside your shield, I will torch every single bit of Sailor Moon merchandise you own,”Haruka said finally, ending the only idea Eli had been able to come up with.
“I mean, robbery isn’t the worst idea…” At the very least it bore revisiting.
“You don’t have to rob people, Eli,” Isa said. “Listen. Briar was going to sketch me in the forest, but if you want, we can walk you back to your house instead. With this many people, no one is going to see him.”
What was Eli doing right now? He was being crazy. Heknewhe was acting like a psycho. Was Eli really considering having his friends escort them home to make sure no one else would see Haruka? Haruka was his own person. If he showed off his rippling abdominal muscles and his equally toned back for a few minutes, it wasn’t going to be the end of the world. People weren’t going to ogle him that much, were they?
Eli took a peek at Haruka, who had pulled the hood back up and was playing with one long bunny ear with a bored expression on his face. Was it Eli’s imagination, or had Eli’s hoodie shrunk even more?
Chapter 2
Haruka
