“Joss wanted me to make sure you were okay. He didn’t want anything to happen to you.”
Jenna’s arms crossed under her breasts now and Andy couldn’t help but sigh at the sight. “And why exactly would he think something would happen to me?”
Mike flicked a somewhat frantic look at Andy over his shoulder as his feet pedaled in the air. As if he might be able to get enough motion going to get free. Andy just lifted his eyebrows at the SPAz. Definitely SPAz.
His new buddy Mike had that look about him.
“Joss just wanted to be sure you got his message. Since I was in the area, I told him I’d make sure you were okay.”
“Bullshit.”
Andy’s mouth quirked in a grin at the heat in Jenna’s tone. He really liked this girl. And when she caught his grin and returned it, that heat sank into his blood.
“I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now. Andy, I think you can let him down. He may be an idiot but he’s not dangerous.”
Andy would reserve judgment on that one. Not on the idiot comment. That was definitely true.
As soon as he put the guy on the ground, Mike made a beeline for Jenna, and, while he didn’t exactly cower behind her, he did stick pretty close to her side.
Mike must’ve seen Andy’s displeasure with his proximity to Jenna but, even though the guy practically quivered like a hairless Chihuahua in a snow storm, he didn’t move.
“Jenna, who is this guy?”
“And why would you think this was any of your business, Mike? What are you doing here? I thought you went with Joss.”
Mike flushed a bright, uncomfortable red. “I was going to but my mom needed me at home. She’d be all alone if I left and…”
Jenna actually looked sorry for the guy and Andy had to admit it was kind of pitiful.
“So now you’re following me around?”
“No! Well, not really.” Mike gave Andy a furtive look before leaning closer to Jenna. “Joss told me why he asked you to come here and I think I found something you need to see.”
Well, shit. That didn’t sound good but Jenna just rolled her eyes.
“Whatever it is you think you found, Mike, I’m sure it won’t interest me.”
Mike deliberately ignored her or, more likely, he didn’t pick up on Jenna’s tone, which definitely told Mike to get lost. Instead, he started tugging Jenna toward the B&B.
Andy was about to go rescue his damsel but the damsel didn’t appear to need any help as she made a short, sharp motion and freed herself from Mike’s grip. Before he could attach himself to her arm again, and before Andy could grab the guy by the scruff and give him a shake for daring to touch Jenna, she held up one index finger and stared Mike down as if he were a first-grader having a temper tantrum.
If Andy had had a teacher like Jenna, he probably would’ve flunked out of school because all he’d do all day was stare at her.
Finally, Mike actually stomped his foot like a child. “Jenna, you gotta come with me. Joss will have my head on a platter if anything happens to you.”
“And again, I say, I’m old enough to take care of myself. And older than you by five years.”
Andy made a mental note not to get on this woman’s bad side. That tongue could cut like a knife. When it wasn’t licking up his—
“Jesus, Jenna,” Mikey’s voice had dropped to a level he probably thought Andy couldn’t hear. Too bad for Mike, Andy had great hearing. “I’ve got a freakin’ fairy trapped in my trunk. You gotta come see.”
It was Andy’s turn to roll his eyes.
Well, hell. That probably explained the mystery of what’d happened to Fry last night.
How the fuck did the guy get himself into these situations? This wasn’t the first time Andy would have to pull his ass out of the fire. Or, in this case, Mikey’s trunk.
But how did he do it without Jenna seeing Fry?
Or maybe…it’d be a good way to gauge Jenna’s reaction to the Fringe. Of course, if she turned out to be just like her brother, he’d never be able to see her again. And if she told anyone she’d slept with a Yeti, well, she’d lose any credibility she’d ever had.
Which would be a shitty thing to do to the woman he had a freaking hard-on for right now.
So what the fuck did he do? He couldn’t leave Fry in the back of the little twerp’s car, though it would serve Fry right if he did, at least for a little while.
“Now, Mike, really. I know you probably think you have a fairy in your trunk but maybe it’s simply a bat or a—”
“Bat’s aren’t almost six feet tall with blue wings.”
Yep, definitely Fry.
“Oh my god.” Jenna’s expression made Andy wince and Mike practically folded in on himself. “Do you mean to tell me you have an actual person trapped in the trunk of your car?”
“He’s not a person, he’s a fairy.”
“Oh, for—Mike! You’re going to get arrested for a hate crime!”
Andy couldn’t help himself. He started to laugh even as Mike began to wave his hands in the air as if he were guiding a fighter jet onto the deck of a battleship.
“No, I mean he really is a fairy. He’s got wings and everything.”
Now Jenna threw her hands in the air and started stomping back toward the B&B. Like a good little boy, Mike fell in behind her. Andy followed at enough of a distance that he could ogle her ass. He figured it’d be the last time he got to see it.
They reached Mike’s car in what seemed like seconds and Andy started to laugh again. He couldn’t help it.
Mike drove a Gremlin.
The damn thing didn’t have a trunk. It had a see-through hatch. The only reason no one had noticed Fry in the back was because Fry had curled in on himself. He looked like a pile of clothes, his dark hair blending into the dark fabric of his coat.
While he tried to hold back his laughter, Jenna and Mike gave him funny looks. Jenna’s confusion scrunched up her face in adorable bemusement while Mike just looked pissy.
Just wait, little man. I’ll show you something that’ll wipe that pissy look off your face in a heartbeat.
“Mike, open this car right now.”
“But Jenna—”
“Don’t ‘but Jenna’ me.” She held up her index finger and Mike looked like a puppy she’d just taken the newspaper to. “Open. The. Car.”
With a huge sigh, Mike trudged over to the car, pulled keys out of his pocket and fumbled around until he got the right key in the slot.
The hatch popped open.
Fry didn’t move and a quick blast of fear swept through Andy that his friend was actually hurt. Then he caught a whiff of alcohol.
Not hurt. Drunk.
How the hell much did Fry drink last night? Not that it took much to knock the guy out. Alcohol did funky things to the fae.
“My god, Mike, did you hurt him?”
“No! Of course I didn’t.” Mike actually looked affronted that she’d even think that. “But I let him have the bottle of moonshine I had in the car. You remember that trip your brother and I took to Kentucky a few months ago? To track down that Bigfoot sighting? Well, we kinda got lost and stumbled onto this illegal moonshine ring. They held us hostage for a few hours before they realized we weren’t with the Feds. Then they gave us a couple of bottles and told us where they’d actually seen a Sasquatch. We didn’t find anything that night and it took us two days to find our way out of the forest. We must not have followed their directions right.”
Andy choked on another laugh. He’d bet those moonshiners had been hoping Joss and Mike would never make it out alive. Probably figured the moonshine and the forest would take care of them. Joss’ uncanny luck had struck again, apparently.
Jenna lifted one hand to rub at her temples as her eyes closed and a long, deep sigh issued from her lips. When she spoke, she formed each word carefully, as if she might trip over them.