by Mary Hughes
I dropped below the bar and quietly opened the fridge and used the ruler. There was just room for the jumbo pickle jar I wanted to use. Double yes.
Quickly, I texted Abigail. We are GO for MonsterMash.
After work, I practically ran home, gleefully anticipating tomorrow’s test. Or rather, tonight’s test, because it was two thirty two a.m. and this was now March thirty-first. T-minus one day.
The instant I got home I got to work, loading our printer with paper, running the steps in my head. Print out picture, let dry while getting a good night’s sleep, waterproof with breakfast, let dry while teaching, then put in pickle jar and take to Nieman’s.
First step, print out picture. Easiest part, right?
Naturally, our printer was out of ink.
I dashed out to the AllRighty-AllNighty, but Kurt didn’t stock ink. Filled with panicked indecision, I finally decided I’d buy a refill at the campus bookstore my first break between classes, and run home to print in my second break, and grabbed a frustrated forty winks.
My half-assed plan worked about that well. By arriving early at school and dashing out three separate times—first to find, then to take to the cashier, then to pay—I managed to get my ink. That blew my schedule all to hell. Even cutting short my office hours, as I hurried home I knew even if I printed the face and waterproofed it before I had to leave for Nieman’s, the waterproofing would never dry in time.
No dry monster, no test, and tomorrow was April Fools. I’d have to do the prank cold, not even knowing if it was funny enough.
I ran the whole way home, trying to figure out how I’d make it all fit in an impossible time frame, fretting as I ran inside—straight into Frankenstein.
I screamed like a little girl.
Laughter broke out. After I stuffed my heart back into my chest and glared black death at my guffawing roommates, who’d seen me coming and had been right behind the door holding the monstrous thing at face level, Gabriella explained.
“I used my art supplies and drew the most horrific monster face I could. Abbie and I tinted the water, then stuck the paper in with just enough distance between page and glass to make it swim murkily. See?” She raised the pickle jar again.
“Yes. Thanks.” I stuck a hand between me and Mr. Monster, who looked horrifically real. I was grateful for their effort on my behalf, but not the new white hairs poinging out of my skull.
I hid the thing in my gym bag and went into Nieman’s, my excuse ready that Nixie asked if she could borrow my sparring gear, and I was dropping it off after work. Nobody asked. I was disappointed.
While Buddy was turned to grab a pricy bottle of whiskey from the highest shelf, I slipped the jar with the head onto the top shelf of the under-bar refrigerator. The thing looked so real, it scared even me. Surely, it’d give Buddy a turn. Maybe I’d even get a little yip out of him. I smiled in anticipation.
This prankster stuff wasn’t so bad. Frankly, now that it was underway, I was having fun.
A more realistic touch occurred to me, and I opened the refrigerator again, shoved the monster jar back an inch, and pulled a bottle of olives in front of it. Then I uncovered the olive dish in the drink prep area and stuffed all but one of them in my mouth.
I was still chewing when Thor turned from talking with Granny and caught me, raising his version of the Eyebrow Of Truth.
“What are you doing?”
I grinned innocently—like an innocent chipmunk with unchewed olives in my cheeks—chomped a few times and swallowed. “Nothing.” It was true. I’d already done it.
Frankly, I was having a lot of fun. I grabbed my tray and went to work, optimism bubbling, waiting for the fireworks.
Even Granny’s stripping seemed less like her trying to creatively maim herself on her underwear and more impish fun. As I ferried beer, I kept half an eye on her, half an eye on the bar where the refrigerator was, and mulled over how I’d set up the camera when I actually played what was sure to be a prize-winning prank at the church. Probably prop my phone on the organ, with a clear view of the low C bell.
It wasn’t long until Buddy reached for the last olive, then bent and opened the refrigerator door to get more. I waited for the shout, trying to control my giggles.
He shut the door, his face unchanged, full jar of olives in hand. Nothing. No scream, no shout, not even a moue of distaste.
Hadn’t he seen it?
The instant I could, without being too suspicious, I sneaked behind the bar and opened the refrigerator. No, there was my head…
Something looked different about it. Sure, there were the fangs, but the cheekbones were too high and broad…I knelt to get a closer look.
And shrieked. That was a real head in there. Broad cheekbones, blond…Cutter. My whole body went cold.
“Miss Camille?” Buddy called from behind me. “Sera saw the…complication.”
I was trembling on my knees when she came around the bar. “Don’t mind that.” Her voice echoed. “Cutter’s boss owes me money for the window, and for that stunt Cutter pulled the other night.” She shrugged. “I’m just making sure I get paid.”
As she stood, I realized Thor was there, hovering with a concerned expression, and that he’d been there for a while. As if…he cared.
“You all right?” He took my elbow and helped me to my feet.
Wow. Cutter’s head was surreal, but Thor’s solicitude was freaky.
“Yes.” Freaky, but surprisingly therapeutic. As his body heat cut through the cold shivers, I sighed. “I was trying out an idea for my April Fools’ Day prank. It, um, backfired.”
“Ah. Your prank.” His tone turned brusque. “I’ll let you get to work then.” Whatever caring I’d imagined was gone now as he turned and walked away.
Sighing again, oxygen suddenly being thin, I grabbed my tray and got back to work.
A short time later, I was waiting to ask Buddy for a pitcher while he tapped glasses for Jenny.
“Hey, Sera,” she greeted. As each came from his hand, she loaded her tray. “Did I hear you’re doing an April Fools contest prank?”
Trying to but failing, I nearly said. But my being grumpy wasn’t her fault. “Yes. I have to. Camille picked me to represent the bar.”
“I’ve always wanted to do one, but I’ve been too scared.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a lot harder than it looks.” I grimaced in the direction of the refrigerator. Grimace wasn’t grumpy, right?
“I’ll keep that in mind.” She picked up her tray and spun away.
“A pitcher,” I said to Buddy, when her words hit me. “Keep it in mind for what…?” I turned, mouth dropping, and watched her hips swing as she sauntered around a table, delivering beers. Oh no. Surely, I’d misread that little saucy spin, that perky walk.
She wasn’t going to play a prank just because I was?
Was she?
Jenny had mimicked me before, in high school—and nearly ruined her life. She was the major reason I cleaned up my act, so she wouldn’t get in trouble trying to be me. But now…
What if she was copying my bad behavior again?
While I waited tables, fumbling beers because my hands were like ice, I told myself I’d imagined that gleam in her eye. Bad enough I’d been scared half to death by my own prank. But what Goddess of Gotcha had I pissed off, that the one time I’d cut loose and had a little fun—because my employer made me, no less—might add a Jenny-size disaster, too?
I was never having fun again.
Gabriella phoned me. “How’d it go?”
“The jar thing backfired.”
“Crap. Okay, Abbie’s on it. We’ll get you another prank pronto.”
“We’ll have to test it while Jenny is on her lunch break.” I didn’t want her getting any ideas beyond whatever ones she already had. “Can you make it in half an hour?”
“Can do.”
Shortly, my two roomies showed up with a box of a dozen creme-filled donuts.
“Delicious creamy-go
od donuts? What kind of prank is that?” I asked. “Ha-ha, delighted your taste buds.”
In answer, she scooped a fingerful of luscious cream and offered me a taste. I touched the tip of my tongue to the dollop—and recoiled. Mayonnaise.
A shiver of disgust wracked me. “Oh yeah, that’s good. Granny’s in back playing strip sheepshead and Jenny goes on break in a few minutes. We can give it a test drive then. Let’s set it up.”
“Here.” Abigail handed me a webcam on a clip. “With this, you won’t hover, waiting for a target to try one.”
I cleared a spot on the end of the bar and attached the camera just under the rail, hidden, but aimed up at where faces would be.
As soon as Jenny trotted her lunchbox and NA beer to the back room, I nodded to Abigail, and she set the donut box on the space.
Then we acted normal—or tried to. We had tons of funny reactions from tongues pushing out to nega-orgasm faces to spit-takes. I was sold on the prank. This would be great tomorrow. Using the webcam, I could play it anywhere, anytime. Especially attractive, I could leave the box of naughtiness out in the lobby of my department, and no one would know who to blame—so no one’s flat would get egged the next day. Yeah, all in good fun, but the supermarket did a brisk business in eggs and toilet paper on April second.
So, I was excited when, half an hour later, I filled a tray with a pitcher, two glasses, and a couple bowls of bar peanuts and started for the backroom. As I passed the bar’s corner, I leaned over and grabbed the webcam, but it wasn’t there.
It had fallen to the floor.
Huh. Must’ve gotten knocked off somewhere along the way. But there had to be some of those priceless reactions captured for posterity, right?
I passed Jenny coming off break. My roommates waited in back. Granny had joined them, a new Kelly green tam perched jauntily on her head, apparently from winning big at strip sheepshead.
She patted my cheek. “Its good to see you smiling again.”
“I’ll be smiling even bigger if we pulled this prank off.” I hadn’t told her about the dance lessons, wanting it to be a surprise.
I passed the webcam off to Abigail who plugged it into her tablet. We all grinned at each other as the playback app came up, prepared to laugh our heads off. Prepared to win. I glanced around at my roommates’ faces, to enjoy their enjoyment.
“Yikes.” Abigail’s eyeballs practically popped from their sockets. “How many octogenarians can get away with wearing leopard-print crotchless panties?
“What?”
She pointed.
The view was the aforementioned leopard print and a whole lot of silver. Either the webcam had never stuck right or I knocked it off early on because the whole video was upskirts.
I was horrified. My friends weren’t much better off. Without a word, they packed up the camera, donut box, and left the bar, taking Granny with them, the angle of her tam now less jaunty and more wilted.
Alone, I collapsed against the wall and palmed my hot forehead. I was useless at pranking.
And the contest was tomorrow. I was out of time.
Which, of course, was when jeans and well-worn boots appeared in the slice of floor that was my view. I looked up.
Thor stood there, arms folded over his chest—yum—and raised an eyebrow at me. “Ready to partner up?”
I sighed. “Do I have a choice?” Damn it. “All right. Let’s do it.”
Chapter Four
Do it.
If anything, my face got hotter. “Doing” it with Thor didn’t conjure up visions of pranks, unless they involved shower curtains on the floor and a whole lotta oil.
“Wait,” I said before I spontaneously combusted. “I thought you were against us as partners, too.”
With a grimace, he glanced away and shrugged. “It’s not like we have a choice.” His gaze came back to me, and his sexy mouth eased into a small smile. “Besides, sometimes two wrongs do make a right.”
“And two Wrights make an airplane.” What can I say? My granny told me all the groaner Dad jokes when I was little, and I absorbed them.
“What?”
“Nothing.” I couldn’t believe I’d just regaled Thorvald Thorsson, deadly vampire and hyperhot male, with a Dad joke. “Thinking out loud. We’ll need to plan.”
Camille sailed into the backroom at that moment. “Not on the job, you don’t. Get to work.”
I jerked like a guilty school kid before I realized she was scolding us for doing something she’d ordered. “But you told us to do this—”
“And now I’m telling you to get to work. You have a problem with that, employee?”
“Right away, boss.” I grabbed my tray, bussed my friends’ half-empty glasses and pitcher, and took off like a fighter jet.
“Sexy,” she called after me. “Fun!”
“And,” I muttered. “Don’t forget the And.”
I worked like a furious badger until closing. No, something more Sexy And Fun. A furious fox? Doesn’t matter. I was annoyed with Camille, the webcam, Jenny, Thor, and most of all, myself, but I took it out on my feet and tray, pounding both with work. I even told Jenny I’d do her cleanup alone. Added benefit, if I didn’t walk her home she wouldn’t somehow be influenced into bad behavior.
By the time I put on my coat to go home, my feet were aching, and I couldn’t wait to get into a hot bath. I stumbled toward the exit.
Thor stood by the door, leaning against the jamb with his boots and arms crossed, all casual male muscle, a pose that made him look like an ad for actually wanting a four hour erection.
My libido picked up, but I was still dog tired. “What?”
“You said we need to plan our gag.”
I groaned. I almost argued to wait for morning, but two things stopped me. First, midnight had passed, it was April first and my time was up. Second, well, vampire and morning sunrise was probably not the best combo.
He surprised me by saying, “We could meet for coffee after you got some sleep. But I thought you might want to get this over with. Buy you a beer?”
I took off my coat. “Fine. Sure.”
He pushed away from the jamb with a shrug of shoulder that made my belly clench, uh, and sauntered behind the bar. His muscular glutes, squeezing and releasing as he moved, drew my eyes like I was wearing suction cup contacts. Swallowing hard, my gaze stayed soldered to his backside until he turned to work the tapper and his behind turned with him. I jerked my eyes up, embarrassed that I’d let myself get distracted by a man’s backside, no matter how tongue-worthy—only to see him gazing at me, that blond brow arched in a clear Busted.
Cheeks heating, I dropped my coat on a table and slid onto a chair. The tables were the tall, plant-stand-size kind, with matching tall chair-stools. I idly spun around on the chair while I waited. What the hell. Jenny was gone. Nobody around for whom I needed to be adult.
Thor brought over two balloon goblets of beer. The glasses were hand-painted with scenes from various Corners tourist shops: Caffeine Café, Fudgy Delight, and Deli Delight. I stopped spinning, rested my feet on the top rung of the stool, grabbed the glass, and drank half down. The tart effervescence rasped my esophagus, in a good way, but I winced. “Ah.”
“Hurts so good?”
I cracked an eye. “Something like. My feet ache. I’m allowed.”
He tsked and set down his own half-empty beer. “Why didn’t you say something?” He slid smoothly from his stool and drew it around the table toward me. “Foot. Here.” He pointed at the seat.
“Why?”
“You’d argue with the Grim Reaper. Because I said so. It’s something nice. Don’t you trust me?”
“Well…” To my surprise, I did trust him. I put my foot on top of the stool.
Back to me, facing the stool, he pinned my ankle against the seat with one hand and shoehorned off my shoe with the other, releasing the aroma of eau de stress.
“What do you think you’re doing…?” My objections cut when he pressed fingers i
nto the ball of my foot and began to massage. I groaned.
“Good?” He shot a grin over his shoulder.
“Great,” I admitted.
“You work too hard.” He grunted and returned to his massage, shoulders hunched with the effort. Broad, muscular shoulders, weaving in and out like a living, breathing cobra.
Would those shoulders look like that, hunched over a woman…? My belly quivered.
“Two full time jobs, what are you, a fifty year old with two mortgages and child support?”
“Twenty-five with rent and a granny.”
“Twenty-five.” His blond head shook, tresses whispering against the leather vest. “You don’t act it. You’re in the prime of your life. Why not live a little?”
“Reasons.” Unsettled, I tried to tug my foot from his grasp, but the man had hands like furred handcuffs. Not that I knew what those felt like from experience. Okay, maybe I’d crashed an adult toy store at sixteen and fondled the merchandise, but only a little.
“Come on. You’re a kid. You should be out playing.” He knuckled along the sides of my foot.
“A quarter century is not a kid.”
His words were unsettling, but his fingers felt so good. My tone was less forceful than it should have been.
“It is compared to fifty.” The way he phrased it left it up in the air as to whether he meant fifty years or centuries. “Have some fun, Sera. While you still can.”
I’d had my fun, and it led to other people getting hurt. “Thanks, but I have a conscience.” I yanked my foot forcibly out of his grip and hopped off the stool.
My feet never touched ground.
Thor had whipped around and caught me two-handed by the waist, holding me in front of him. My gaze rose to his in amazement—and stuck. His irises were a heated violet, his expression pure danger.
“You’re strong,” I breathed out.
“You’re barefoot.” His nostrils were flared, as if he was having trouble getting air.
My heart thudded in my ears. “I am.”
“This is a public place. We don’t know what’s been on the floor. Germs, broken glass.”
