Chapter 292 - 290: Inappropriate Behaviour.

Chapter 292: Chapter 290: Inappropriate Behaviour.

Defeated, he melts down onto the table and buries his flaming face in the wood.

Rogard offers him a consoling pat on the shoulder.

​"It’s okay Khobi," he chimes sympathetically, "Gandy is right. It happens to be best of us."

​It sounds like he means for it to be reassuring.

(It is not.) But what it does do is disarm him just long enough that he doesn’t sense Rogard’s nefarious intentions before it’s too late.

​"...So how was he?" He inquires cheekily, and Khobi groans again. Louder, this time. "Details, Khobi!"

​Not ever happening. It’s bad enough that they’ve seen the marks; they don’t need to know how far they go, or how far Khobi almost went.

​"Like I said," he grinds out, because there’s only so many ways he can say it, "We didn’t have sex." It is really so hard to believe that they didn’t? "We just..."

​The words are out before he can stop them, the unintentional admission of guilt rolling off his tongue even as he tries to defend himself, and he doesn’t even get to finish his sentence before the wolf whistles start up again and the table shakes from how much the soldiers at it start cackling.

​(He’s not even all that sure what he was going to say anyways; because shit, they didn’t even get naked. What can he say? That they just kissed? Like goddamned teenagers on a first date? Not happening; that’ll get him mocked for sure. And he’s certainly not going to give them a play by play.

​He seriously can’t win.)

​Fortunately, they seem content enough with having weaseled some semblance of a confession out of him.

​Unfortunately, that’s when Loac decides to finally grace them with his presence, and in classic fashion, makes everything worse.

Because where Khobi had at least made some sort of effort to hide what he’d spent his evening doing, when Loac finally shows up for dinner, his shirt collar is shamelessly hanging open for the world to see the dark line of hickies stretching down his neck.

​The soldiers do a really, really terrible job of pretending they don’t notice, and an even worse job at pretending they don’t know full well that it was Khobi who made them.

Gandy stuffs a hand over his mouth and doesn’t quite manage to stifle a snicker.

​"Hey," Loac greets casually, and there’s a small, knowing smirk toying around the edge of his lips as he adds, "...Yo, Khobi."

​If Khobi wasn’t quite so damn hungover, he’d hurl his plate at him. As it is, he has to settle with a glare, and even that just glances right off.

​" –Oh, hey Loac," Rogard chimes breezily, eyes glinting devilishly. Khobi immediately gets a terrible, terrible feeling. "...You’re just in time! Khobi here was just filling us in on his night." He flashes Khobi a wicked grin.

"...And it was getting juicy."

​"...I’ll kill you," Khobi warns thickly, but clearly there are some things worth dying, because he makes no attempt to backpedal.

And not a single other one of the soldiers moves to save him, all too busy trying not to laugh.

​"Oh?" Loac remarks innocently, eyebrow rising as he sinks down into the seat directly across from Khobi. "...Well, don’t stop on my account."

​"You’re a real fucker, you know that?" It’s not a great choice of words, and Khobi immediately regrets opening his mouth when Loac, the shit, flashes him a goddamned wink.

​You’d know, right, Khobi? Is what it says, and if it wasn’t bad enough that the entire fucking table just saw, Khobi’s face immediately flames, and they see that, too.

​"Can you not?" Khobi heaves dramatically, because they already don’t believe that they didn’t have sex; he does not need Loac joining in and making it worse.

Loac just snickers and turns his attention to his dinner, but the expression he’s wearing is about as shit-eating as they come, like he’s seriously enjoying this.

​"Should’ve just lied," he smirks reproachfully, and Khobi sends him a withering look. Because this is all his fault.

​Somehow.

​"I tried," Khobi huffs childishly, with as much heat as he can muster, "They figured it out."

​That sound that Loac makes better fucking not be him trying not to laugh, because it’s not fucking funny.

​It’s embarrassing, is what it is.

​(Khobi’s pretty sure that’s the asshole’s shoulders starting to shake, too.)

​At least the rest of them don’t know the half of it. And if Loac says one word to them about what happened between them last night, Khobi will not hesitate to flip this goddamned table.

​But Loac doesn’t say anything else.

​What he does do, however, is somehow worse.

​He looks up at him across the table; a coy smirk playing around his lips as he chews and a mischievous glint in his eyes as he toys with his open collar.

Khobi’s gaze dips before he can stop himself, and a flutter of heat rushes to his face and to his gut as he catches a fresh glimpse of the marks he’d left in his momentary madness.

​(They look so good on him.)

​The stray thought makes Khobi come down with a sudden coughing fit.

​Blue eyes gleaming, Loac’s grin widens.

​("Oh boy," Gandy mutters under his breath to Montrel, "...This should be good.")

...

Gurdet takes back what he says about winter being boring.

​It’s not every day his faithful Second Captain asks for a private audience with him.

​Even more interesting is that Gurdet honestly has no idea what it could possibly be about.

Drogger doesn’t make a habit of bothering him with things he could deal with on his own –he’s very reliable like that –so the fact that he’d put in a request to speak with him, and through the proper channels, too, is...unprecedented.

​"This is quite unusual, Drogger," he remarks conversationally, eyeing his Captain from head to toe as he comes to stand at crisp attention.

Most soldiers only wear their formal uniform for special occasions, but on Drogger Noog it’s practically casual wear.

He wonders if Drogger knows how much the kingdom’s nobility hate that, and if so, if he continues to wear it just to spite them.

​Probably not.

​Not everyone is that petty. And certainly not Drogger.

​A pity. It would be a lot more fun if he was.

​Predictably, he jumps right to the chase. It’s one of his best and worst traits, honestly.

Gurdet personally prefers to start with a bit of back of forth; test the waters, and all. But that’s how the nobility play. And Drogger has never been ashamed of his common roots.

​"I have a request, Your Majesty," Drogger states, expression stern and terribly grave for someone his age.

​"Also unusual," Gurdet hums, gesturing for him to proceed with said request.

​"...I have been..." Drogger mulls on his words long and hard, and grimaces before he finishes his sentence, "...Behaving inappropriately."

​Well it’s about time.

​"Show me someone who hasn’t," Gurdet scoffs, rolling his eyes dramatically before adding, "In what way?"