“You’re talking about… like…” He made a gesture that left me frowning.
“What the fuck is that supposed to be?”
“You know.”
“No, I really don’t.” It had looked like… well, I didn’t know. He’d scissored his fingers like he wanted to give her a haircut. “You’ve had sex before, right?”
He blanched. “Sol!”
“What?” I demanded. “Come on, with that little gesture, it’s a valid question.”
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“You’re the one who asked me what I was thinking about. Now you have an answer.” One he appeared to be judging me for, which was completely unfair. “You can’t tell me you’ve not thought about it, because I’ve noticed the abundance of showers lately.”
“Oh, Elements,” Vox said, looking up at the ceiling.
“All I said is she’s small, okay?” I grumbled. “I realize you don’t have to worry about that, but I do.”
“What happened to not wanting to mate with her?” Vox prompted.
“I… I don’t want that.” I think. Maybe. Fuck. I don’t know. I shook my head. “It was just a thought, okay?”
“About her size in bed.”
“And how I could break her,” I growled. “Never mind. Just keep doing whatever you’re doing.”
“Whatever I’m doing is cleaning up the damn mess in the kitchen,” he snapped. “Because you broke the table. I suppose that’s fitting, considering your concerns.”
“Hey, that’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it?” Vox demanded. “You know what? You should fix it.”
“Why are you being such a dick?” This wasn’t like my best friend. Sure, he had bouts of temper in the past, but this seemed deep-rooted, as if there was something else going on. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t fix dinner, Sol. Because we have nowhere to eat it. That is what’s wrong.” He waved at the mess, creating an air vortex that swept it all away and out the open door. “And why in the fae are you thinking about fucking Claire?”
My eyebrows shot upward. “Are you telling me the thought hasn’t ever crossed your mind?”
“Of course it has,” he replied, his cheeks darkening. “I mean, I hear the same things you do.”
“So why are you giving me a hard time about it?”
“Because neither of us wants to mate with her!” Vox exclaimed, a gust of wind amplifying the lie he was trying to tell himself. I hadn’t been exaggerating about the showers, and he knew it.
“We don’t?” I asked, testing the thought aloud. “Because if you wanted to, and I wanted to, then maybe it could work.”
And maybe Vox would stop being such an uptight dirtwad and I could get my head on straight again. The Spirit Quad would be grateful; I’d certainly done enough damage to it over the last month.
Vox balked at me, making me frown. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
He threw his hands up. “It’s weird, okay?”
“Weird,” I repeated. “Mating with a gorgeous woman is weird. Okay,” I grumbled and turned to face the swirl of air that was keeping the table somewhat assembled in the shape it should have been. Fine cracks lined its broken seams, and I forced my earth magic to reach out and command it to remember its form. It was once wood, born of the earth, and had known life and seasons long before it’d been smashed by my careless whims of power.
“We’d be sharing her,” Vox said after a long bout of silence, his voice softer than before. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”
I shrugged. “Honestly, no.” Did I want to be intimate with other men? Not really. But if I trusted anyone to share a woman with, it was Vox. “If anything, you’d help me with my control so I wouldn’t hurt her.” The words came out on a mumble meant mostly for me, but Vox’s affinity for air would have made them loud in comparison.