Board Thread:Short Stories and Fanfictions/@comment-44907704-20200201232939/@comment-44907704-20200202011322

Sophie squeezed her eyes shut and braced for impact, pressing her hands against her ears. Tears streamed down her cheeks and she was vaguely aware of someone gently dabbing them away and stroking her hair, wishing the lecture would come already. But she didn't dare open her eyes, and she doubted she could even if she tried. Her eyelashes felt glued together, and she had a feeling it would take more tugging then she'd ever done to rip their bond apart. Then... she blinked and light was beaming in her face. Her sight had resumed, and everything was back to normal. ''Or the closest to normal it could get after you tried kissing your best friend.  Was Keefe her best friend?'' It wasn't like she'd made it official or anything, but... still. Dex was her best friend, and she and Keefe had somehow gotten farther and deeper with their friendship than she ever had with Dex. Guilt stormed in her stomach as she wondered how Keefe was processing this — assuming he was reading her emotions, of course. Lord Cassius raised an eyebrow — a habit of Keefe's, she recognized — and said in a cool tone, "Hello, Miss Foster," as he headed up the steps to his beach house. Wait. "That's it?" She hadn't meant to say those words — and she immediately wished she could take them back. Turning as far away from Keefe as possible to avoid whatever adverse reaction he was going to have meant locking her worried, dreadful eyes with Lord Cassius's increasing glare. Lord Cassius sighed. "I suppose we could make this easier for the both of us." She could hear Keefe shuffling his feet in a What-the-heck-do-you-mean way as she resisted the urge to turn around. "What do you mean?" This time, she spun her head around and exchanged a knowing glance with Keefe, only to realize that he was dumbfounded too. So which one of us said it? "For the both of us," Keefe pointed out. "I think there's three." An uncomfortable silence hung as long as his trademark smirk as, finally, Lord Cassius waved his arm in a summon and shouted, "I'm done with this! Get out of here." Sophie instinctively reached for her sparkly teal pouch — a final gift from Fitz she'd received in her locker at Foxfire — and was just about to lunge for her home crystal when Cassius held up a hand. "Not you, Sophie." A vain smile tugged at his lips that seemed to be nothing short of cruel. "My son."