Chapter 40
LEO’S NOTES
Place: Located in the wall of toilettes des femmes in Le Chat Noir Brasserie, Paris
Favorite recipe: Faerie Fizz Cocktail
Shake in metal canister forged by gnomes and serve in coupe glass
Misc: I doubt Dennis uses the same recipe. I can’t taste the bitter tears
Leo hadn’t been inside the Driftwood since the previous summer.
He paused after he stepped through the doors and inhaled the familiar, comforting scent of dark ale and sea air.
The downstairs room was quieter than he remembered—and cleaner.
A dozen brownies scrubbed the wood-paneled walls, wiped tabletops, and pulled chewing gum from the undersides of chairs.
Which they then chewed, obviously. Gross.
“Evening,” Dennis the bartender called to them.
“Slow night, huh?” Pan said.
Dennis looked around at the empty room. “It’s the normals. They’re staying away.”
“Why?” Leo asked, while Deja said, “From here?”
“From the island,” Dennis explained. “Even the ones who aren’t muttering about poltergeists are a little freaked. Business started dipping a couple days ago.”
“At least there’s all those faerie-kin tourists on the island,” Pan said.
“There’s no replacing locals,” Dennis said.
Leo looked from the empty pool table to the empty bar, then followed Pan and Deja to a square table near the stairs.
Pan wanted to stay downstairs with their drinks, to try to dispel the emptiness a little.
Violet and Daffodil draped themselves on her while Bob helped the orange flower pixie they called “Mittens”—because she wore mittens—stick sword toothpicks into a bowl of olives at the bar.
Leo didn’t say much. He sipped his drink and listened to Pan tell Deja about their day on the boat. This was the life. Especially when Pan’s cheeks warmed as her elixir hit her bloodstream. All glowy and gorgeous. Or maybe she was blushing because of how Leo kept looking at her.
“Hey!” Gabe plopped down beside Deja with a pint of ale and a bag of kettle corn. “You started without me.”
“You said you couldn’t come,” Pan reminded him.
“Ava got a call about work. Something urgent.”
“She’s a realtor,” Pan explained to Deja. “Trying to buy up all the land on Beane for a resort.”
“Shrig already told me,” Deja said. “We hate her. Sorry, Gabe.”
Gabe scoffed. “It’s a nature preserve. Apparently her anonymous client is some kind of conservationist who wants to keep Beane Isle wild.”
“Oh, then we love her,” Deja said.
Pan grabbed a handful of popcorn. “Yeah, but people still aren’t going to sell.”
“She’s good at her job,” Gabe said, proudly. “She’s already making counter-offers, checking the titles and stuff.”
Deja flicked a kernel of kettle corn off the table. “Am I the only one here who isn’t in love?”
“So people are selling?” Leo asked Gabe.
“Mostly normals so far, yeah. I guess the pixies and brownies are getting to them. Though that drone boy you used to babysit, Pandora? His mom’s selling.”
Pan wrinkled her nose. “That farm belonged to his great-grandparents.”
“Something ate her hens and her back field is full of sticky vines. Also, Ava is irresistible.”
“Yeah, we got that part,” Deja said, then frowned into her drink. “Those vines are giving people a major rash.”
“Do you think we released them from the manuscript along with the folk?” Pan asked.
“I guess it’s possible,” Leo said. “Maybe we should go check them out.”
“Tomorrow,” Deja tiredly said. “Let’s get food.”
Dennis let them order in pizza from Jamar and, while they waited, Deja insisted on showing them pictures of her new boy, which led to them gossiping about all of Shrig’s exes.
Well, not all of them, just the few hundred they knew about.
The night dissolved into laughter as Leo admitted that his book-hunting had once led to him being mistaken for a Grindr date.
“He was a good kisser,” Leo told them.
“So are you,” Pan said, with a hungry tone in her voice.
Right. Forget the Driftwood. Forget Deja and Gabe and pixies and gnomes and some Dames-forsaken sticky vine. He had more important things on his mind—and in his hands, as he kissed Pan through the door and into the cart.
He drove too quickly, urged on by Pan’s hand in his lap. When she nibbled his neck, his mind swirled with pleasure—and he almost hit an animal that flashed in front of them. He slammed the brakes. The cart squealed to a halt and he threw his arm across Pan to keep her from hitting the dashboard.
“The hell was that?” he said.
“A kiss!”
“Ha. Something ran out in front of us. Like a—warthog.”
“Is it gone now?”
“Yeah.”
“In that case,” she said. “More kisses.”
The rest of the drive was rushed and swerving, but they managed to reach his house without crashing. They kissed through the side door. Caressed their way upstairs, then slammed the bedroom door closed on the pixies. Well, after Leo tossed Bob’s cigar-box bed into the hall.
Leo undressed Pan, who watched him with a gaze so hot and hungry that his need pounded along with his heartbeat.