8. I hate the stupid. #2
“Fine! Got tast-ee treat, smoosh their car with my not-fat ass. Gave cops coffee. Their Ther-mos now. I make more cof-fee in new Ther-mos!”
“The pair was across the street?”
“Yes. Can walk across street by self. I talk with them, give cof-fee. Then par-rents come. I stop them. Did not want to lose to car. Lost to trans-port once. That hurt, no do that again. Fell off car when stop, but no hurt me. Did not burn car.”
“You did great, Bailey. Not quite to regulation, but we’re allowed to use force to stop a vehicle in situations like this, and you did so with no damage to anything other than their vehicle. I don’t even think you damaged the road.”
“Leave some holes in asphalt. I blow fire for fixer people and help ree-pair in spring. It cold. Open door, puh-lease? Keys inside. I ride sunbeam through window to say hello to cops. No sunbeams in house. I go change. Talk hard.”
Quinn kissed my nose before letting me into the house and giving my rump a slap. “Go enjoy your fire and catch a snooze. I’ll be a while sorting this mess out. Since you went through the trouble of lighting it, go enjoy it.”
I had the best husband. “I love Queeny.”
He smiled at me.
Naps by the fireplace were the best, especially when my sneaky husband lit a proper fire and cranked the temperature in the house so I wouldn’t get cold. By the time the cops finished with him, the sun had set. I woke to Quinn running the brush over my coat while talking to someone on the phone.
“He asked her to call you, but she’s sleeping in front of the fireplace.
Cold weather isn’t great for cindercorns, and we had some excitement earlier.
No, no. Everybody is fine, so please don’t worry.
Ra wanted her to tell you that he wanted to see you in the morning while the moon was still up.
As soon as Bailey gets up, we’re going to resume our vacation.
All right, I’ll let her know, and I’ll try to have her call you tomorrow night. ”
My mother. Ra had put her number into our phones, but I’d figured out early on the phones only worked when they were active.
I hadn’t quite figured out the specifics.
Magic worked in mysterious ways, and I’d learned not to think too hard about some of the odder impossibilities—like why I couldn’t call my father when the sun shone brightly on the other side of the world.
Before I could notify Quinn I was awake, he hung up, and then he smacked my rump with the brush. “Up, my beautiful. I need coffee, and your machine refuses to give me good coffee. It laughs at me.”
I whinnied a laugh, rolled, and scrambled to my hooves. “Mother okay?”
“Ah, caught part of that conversation, did you?”
“Some.”
“She’s fine. I opted against notifying either of your parents about the incident with the assholes. The last thing our house needs is an angry divine coming over and raining hell on a pair of assholes.”
No kidding. “Go change, make coffee,” I promised.
“While you were sleeping, I printed out all of the old banking information I had on Audrey’s accounts.”
“You have her bank info?”
“She had me go over her accounting work because she’s hopeless with money, so she dumped all of her transactions into a spreadsheet for me.
I never deleted it. Technically, because she never asked me to delete the files, it’s legal for me to have.
Even after our divorce, I helped her with her paperwork. She wasn’t exactly a bad woman.”
“She just not stay loyal.”
“Right.”
“You ruined me for other men. Tragedy.” I shook off and stretched. “Go change now. Then coffee. Then we run away in rented SUV. No more assholes try to light things on fire?”
“We have a pair of cops parked in our driveway to discourage anyone from trying anything stupid. Oh, that reminds me. I saw Valorie flirting with the cops. In our driveway.”
“Do we have older, single hot cops?”
“Bailey, we’re not playing matchmaker for our neighbor.”
“Why not? Else your uncle may get her.”
“Maybe we’ll play matchmaker for our neighbor, although it depends which devil he has in mind for her.”
“I worry for world. We may destroy it. Bring ruin.”
“Or marry everyone we know to demons or devils.” Laughing, Quinn kissed my nose. “Go get changed, lawbreaker.”
“I such bad cop.”
“You’ll learn. Just try to keep your general lawbreaking ways somewhat contained for a change.”
“Break a few laws once…” I muttered while my husband laughed.
Reversing back to human took a lot out of me, and if Quinn wanted me going anywhere, I’d need a lot of coffee.
Some days, I regretted not having a coffee maker capable of brewing my dark brew a pot at a time.
It took me almost half an hour to fill the new Thermos and both of our travel mugs with coffee, and as I was not a complete monster, giving the cops outside their fair share, too.
I even gave them a light dose of pixie dust to make their night a little happier.
“House sitting isn’t precisely prestigious, but it’s not so bad you need to dose the cops with pixie dust, Bailey.”
“It’s cold, so it is that bad.”
“You realize we’re going north, right?”
I heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately. I might freeze to death. What will I do if I freeze to death?”
“You’re not going to freeze to death. I did go over your winter clothing, and we’re going shopping specifically to make it so you don’t freeze to death. Get that pretty little ass on the move. I’ll take the coffee out to the cops, but it’s time to load up the SUV and leave.”
“You’re way too energetic.”
“It’s your fault. You’re just so good to me.”
“Keep talking, gorgon-incubus doohickey. That’s how you get dragged into a shower at a hotel.”
“Strangely, I figured that one out on my own.” Quinn took the older Thermos he’d stolen from some of his cops at work outside to the cops on duty so they could enjoy a warm drink while I cleaned my beautiful machine, polishing the stainless steel to a shine.
I hadn’t quite finished when he returned, and he wrapped his arm around my waist and dragged me out of the kitchen. “Hey, I wasn’t done!”
“Your baby will be fine without having every inch of it washed four times before we leave.” To make it clear it was time to go, he hauled me out of the house, took me to the SUV, and shoved me into the front passenger seat, buckling my seatbelt for me. “Stay, you.”
Pouting earned me a kiss. He gave me his phone to play with while I waited, and I opened my favorite puzzle game and went to work trying to beat a hell level determined to drive me insane.
In his typical, efficient way, within ten minutes, he had the SUV packed to his liking, and he’d brought everything I’d packed, plus his own contributions. “It’s a good thing your grandfather has the kids, as they would not fit right now,” I observed.
“They really wouldn’t. I wasn’t sure how long we’d be doing this, so I may have overpacked while you were napping. You were too peaceful to disturb.” Quinn gave me my new bag with my laptops, and he handed my new cindercorn purse to me, too. “Your guns and ammo are in the new purse.”
“They’re both new.”
“The one bag isn’t really a purse.”
“I am using it as a purse, so it is a purse.”
“Is that how purses are defined? If it is a bag you use as a purse, is it a purse?”