41. Novi
EPILOGUE
We get to Aleks Emerson’s house—though it’s more of a mansion than a real house—and knock.
“Remind me why the Collective meetup had to be here?” Colby asks. “Technically, there are more of us in California. We should have overruled them.”
“Aleks said here they have firemen on speed dial. Apparently, that is important, but I think they’re overselling things. I have not seen mayhem from them yet.”
“On speed dial? Isn’t that just 911?”
I shrug and drop a quick kiss on Colby’s lips, loving that I get to do that now. Whenever I want.
The door swings open, and Westly Dalton watches us for a moment, swaying on the spot. “You’re late.”
“Time is only a guideline.”
He cracks a smile, going to lean against the door and stumbling when it swings wider. “Welcome! And I apologize for everything you’re about to see here. I need to take a leak.”
He disappears across the enormous entrance hall, and Colby and I step inside and close the door behind us. Music is blasting through the back of the house, and we follow the sound of it.
Now, I’m not sure what Aleks’s house looked like before tonight, but I am almost positive it was not this.
There’s what looks like fruit splattered all over one wall, spaghetti on the other, and in the middle of the cleared living space are boxing gloves, helmets, and way too many cushions to count.
“Ah … should I ask what that is?” Colby points to the roof above the blender, and I’m going to assume it’s a Bloody Mary and not someone’s blended body parts.
Which is a pity. That would have made for an interesting party.
And when we make it into the backyard, West’s warning all makes sense. Oskar, Ayri Quinn, and Dex are in the middle of the yard, dressed in morph suits, while Aleks stands at the top of his patio with a paint gun.
I watch as he takes aim at the other three, who bolt, and a second later, there’s a muffled fuck as Oskar’s hit.
Lane buries his face in his hand, and Anton turns to him. “At least you’ll be able to kiss his boo-boo better later.”
“It doesn’t make up for what a crybaby he is when he’s sick or in pain.”
Colby and I sit across from them.
“Drinking vodka?” I ask, nodding at their glasses.
“Water.” Anton sends a dark look Ezra’s way. “I still have PTSD from the last time.”
“Bringing on the alcohol, I say!”
As soon as the words leave my lips, Tripp redirects where he’s walking past and zeros in on me instead. “Alcohol? You said alcohol?” He shoves a glass each at me and Colby.
“What is this?” I ask, eyeing the fancy drink.
“My specialty margaritas.”
“What makes them so special?”
He giggles in a way I’ve never heard Tripp giggle before. “I literally have no clue how to make them. Bit of rum, bit of vodka, bit of absinthe?—”
“Absinthe?” Colby repeats, holding his drink out from his body.
Tripp pulls a face. “Probably better I don’t tell you the rest, then. Bon Apple Tea.”
I light up. “Oh, you know the game too?”
“What game?”
Colby sets his hand on my thigh and shakes his head at me.
“Oh …” I wink at Colby. Tripp is not playing my mix-up word game. He is just stupid.
“Bon Apple Tea!” I throw back his drink, and it burns the entire way down.
“Woo! That’s the spirit. Now, where did Lachie go?” Tripp sways as he looks around. “I swear he had the other pitcher …”
Colby looks between us both, then to the water Anton is drinking, then back again. “Fuck it.” He downs his drink, too, and gets through about half of it before he dry retches. “So … good.”
“We’ll take two more,” I tell Tripp, and he cheers before stumbling back inside for them.
“My turn.” Asher Dalton’s boisterous voice cuts through the night. He appears out of nowhere like a ninja and takes the paintball gun from Aleks. Then he turns, his back to the spandex trio, and aims at where Ezra is leaning over an ice bin.
Before I can warn my bestie, Asher lets off a shot and hits Ezra right in the left ass cheek.
“Mother fucker ,” he cries as the hit sends him face forward into the deck tile.
Asher cackles with laughter. West, who’s just stepped outside, takes a look at them both, then shouts, “What’s that, Tripp? You need help with the drinks?”
“Traitor!” Ezra shouts.
Connor Kikishkin takes the chance to grab a fistful of ice and shove it down Ezra’s shirt.
Things get wilder as the night wears on, and Tripp’s lethal cocktails fill our bellies.
Anton has given up on the water, the morph suits are gone, and now they are taking turns being moving targets in their underwear.
The purpose of the cushions becomes clear as Ezra and Asher run at each other, as hard as they can, and send each other flying, and Tripp and Lane are trying to talk Dex away from the fire pit—something about the last time.
“Is okay,” I shout, sounding more like my old self than ever. “They haff fireman on speed dial.”
“Strippers?” Oskar asks, popping up from behind an outdoor couch.
“I haf never seen stripper.”
It’s like a record scratch the way they all stop and turn to me. I’m saved from being interrogated when Easton stumbles out of the house and almost runs into the couch I’m sitting on. “Has anyone seen Lachie?”
“Not since we got here,” Colby answers.
East slaps a hand over his mouth. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh what?” Connor demands.
“Uh-oh, we’ve lost our baby brother?”
Considering baby brother is in his twenties, I don’t know why that’s such a problem. “He will be fine,” I say.
“I’ll call him,” Lane says with the tone of someone who’s been here a thousand times. It rings out. “No answer.”
“When did you see him last?” Connor’s eyes are wide with panic.
“In the kitchen with …” Easton trails off and turns to Tripp. Connor follows his gaze, and it takes Tripp a second to realize they’re both looking at him.
“More margaritas?”
“You said Lachie has the other pitcher,” Colby reminds him. “Tell me he didn’t drink the whole thing?”
“He … didn’t not drink the whole thing?” Tripp’s innocent smile needs work.
Connor swears, pulling out his phone, but before he can call, a high-pitched scream pierces the air.
Ezra comes tearing from the house, and he throws himself behind Anton. “There’s a demon animal in the house!”
Aleks staggers toward the open doorway then backtracks quickly. “There’s a demon animal in my house!”
I hurry to turn around as Lachie Kikishkin walks outside … pulling a llama with him.
“Where the hell did you get that?” Connor gasps.
Lachie looks from Aleks to the llama and back again. He’s barely able to stand upright. “What, he’s”—he hiccups loudly—“not yours?”
“No, I don’t own a fucking llama!”
Lachie hiccups again. “Oops?”
“Where the hell have you been?” Easton asks.
“You and me both would like to know that.” He scratches his head. “I can’t promise this is the last of the”—hiccup—“wildlife.” The llama looks around the group with its huge, creepy eyes as Lachie wraps his arm around his neck. “Can I keep it?”
“And how are you getting it back to St Louis, genius?” Easton asks.
“I dunno.” He and the llama look at each other. “I’ll ride him?”
“I think it’s a her,” Dex says.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Easy. Tripp has big balls. The llama doesn’t.”
“We don’t need to know about your husband’s balls,” Asher groans.
“He means dog Tripp,” Tripp hurries to explain. “It’s the dog he’s talking about. Though that’s not even true anymore since he got the snip. But he is not talking about me. Not me . My balls are perfectly normal size. Not too big or too small. Like Goldilocks. The Goldilocks of balls.”
“I dunno …” Dex squints up his eyes. “The left one is kinda big …”
Asher scowls. “Enough. About. His. Balls.”
“Can we please get the llama out of here?” Ezra begs, covering his eyes.
Anton moves from blocking his husband and drunkenly approaches the animal. “I dunno. It’s kinda cute.” He takes off his cap and puts it on the llama’s head instead. “If you can ride it to St. Louis, I could ride it to Boston.”
“But there’s one of me,” Lachie points out. “And two of you.”
“Sure, that’s the only issue with this plan.” Connor sounds close to fainting. “Can you put it back wherever the hell it came from?”
“Fine …” Lachie turns and walks back inside.
“He didn’t mean go through my house!”
“Maybe someone should go with him,” Connor says.
“On it!” Quinn leaves too, and he’s probably maybe the least drunk of the rest of us.
Lachie’s back a second later though, and this time, it’s not a llama he’s got his arm around. It’s a giant, good-looking man in a fireman uniform.
“That speed dial is speedy,” I mutter as Ezra says, “How did you turn the llama into Gabe?”
“Ah, babe?” the fireman says to Aleks. “Why is there a llama in our house?”
“We’re taking care of it.”
“The stripp-ahs are heeere!” Oskar shouts, hands around his mouth like he’s calling a boxing fight.
“For the last time,” Aleks whines, “Gabe is not a stripper.”
Gabe’s huge dimples show as his face lights up, and another fireman walks in behind him. “We heard there was a noise complaint?”
The second fireman picks up a remote that must control the music, turns it off, and hits Play on his phone.
A base-heavy beat comes from it.
Then he says, “I can’t believe you’re making me do this,” to Gabe, and they both start to undo their shirts.
“What’s happening?” Aleks asks weakly.
Ezra climbs off the floor with his jaw hanging open. “Maybe the greatest thing known to man.”
I’ve never seen a group of men converge on one area so fast. Oskar is waving a wad of cash in the air, Asher and West are pretending not to look, Lachie is whooping and cheering them on, and when Colby drops down next to me, he’s laughing.
“You should see your face.”
“The pretty public servant is taking his clothes off.”
He smiles at me. “You sound very Russian right now.”
“I am very Russian always.”
Behind Gabe and his friend, the llama walks back out again, still wearing Anton’s hat.
“Oh no,” Ezra slurs from beside me. “Now Anton has turned into the llama.”
“That’s not?—”
Colby covers my mouth. “Oh really?” he asks Ezra.