“Right. Sorry. Anyway, there’s a buying-and-selling forum where all the members are pre-vetted. Serious offers only, you know? And I had him offer a truly obscene amount of money for a sparkly peach first-gen Horn, but no dice.”
“Fucking amateurs,” Hux sneered. “Why the hell did you get Kev the Civilian involved, Riggsy? Jesus. Any true fan of the game knows you don’t just go around making offers for a man’s Horn all willy-nilly. These forums are for true connoisseurs—people who understand that owning a precious Horn isn’t about the money. It’s about love. It’s about—” He broke off with a cough when he realized the rest of us were staring at him. “Anyway, just sayin’, I’m not surprised it didn’t work.”
I shook my head impatiently. “So, fine. We do things the old-fashioned way. We find it and liberate it, and then we can give it back. Where does the man keep his collection?”
“Unclear. He owns a farm just outside the Thicket,” Hux informed me. “Along with a mansion outside Nashville, a corporate office, three car dealerships, and a manufacturing operation. That Horn could be a lot of different places. I’m not sure how we get close enough to him to figure out which one.”
I was pretty sure I knew one way I could get close to Tommy Drakes…
My phone buzzed with another text.
Quinn (Gorgeous, blue eyes, drinks Howling Turtles): Lose my number, Butter Bean. And don’t bother coming back for your dog. You don’t deserve him.
… but it was going to take some serious convincing and possibly some honey-glazed donuts to make it happen.
3
QUINN
“Shit! Watch out for the red truck!” warned the man in the passenger’s seat of my Volkswagen Beetle.
I glanced out the driver’s window, over the wide strip of grass dividing the highway, to where a rusted-out red pickup bounced sedately along in the opposite direction.
Then I looked right, at the enormous, sexy control freak dramatically clutching the oh-shit handle above the door like he thought I might go Fast and Furious on him and suddenly hit the noz.
“Champion, I know how to drive my car,” I said as patiently as possible—which was not very patiently since he’d been pulling this shit since the moment I pulled out of the parking lot behind my shop twenty minutes before. “You’re the one who wanted to tag along on this meeting so badly. No one’s forcing you to come. Zip it.”
He was silent for precisely one second.
“Should you even call this a car?” Champ muttered darkly. “I think ‘rattling, orange death wagon’ would be more accurate.”
I shot him a glare that he met head-on.
“I’m just saying! It’s your meeting, you wanna drive, fine. But I didn’t survive multiple tours in Afghanistan to die twisted up like a pretzel in this Disco Barbie Dream Bug, so please watch the road.”
He shifted his long legs in the cramped space, and his knee whacked the console hard enough to make the bobbling daisy figurine on the dashboard dance and my morning coffee wobble in its cup holder.
“First, I’ll have you know, this is a high-end custom paint shade called Opalescent Citrine. And the rattle is… soothing. Like a built-in massage at no extra charge.”
“Right. And I suppose the strobe light effect every time you brake is an advanced safety feature?” Champ demanded. “Is that even legal?”
“They’re called undercarriage lights, and of course they are.” At least, I was pretty sure. Chuck at Platinum Used Motors assured me they were a value-add, just like the custom paint and the dancing daisy… which I’d discovered the previous owner had superglued to the dashboard. “This vehicle is iconic. My brides think it’s quirky and adorable, which makes them think I am quirky and adorable, m’kay? It’s part of my marketing.”
“Watch out for the pedestrian!”
“Wait, what? Where?” I hit the brakes, making the green and yellow lights on the dashboard and the undercarriage flash, and swiveled my head, looking for some stranded human on the highway—
“Over there in Amos Nutter’s field.” Champ pointed to a spot in the distance. “Feeding the cows. Jesus, Quinn, you didn’t even see him.”
“Okay. That’s it.” I pulled over on the side of the highway and slammed the car into Park. “What is going on here?”
“What? Nothing’s going on. You’re driving—a little aggressively and with limited situational awareness, if you’re asking my opinion—because you insisted on being the one to drive. And I’m… sitting here encouraging you.”
I pursed my lips and nodded. “‘Encouraging’ is one word for it. But what I mean is, clearly this is not fun for you in any way. So why did you need to come today at all?”
“What do you mean why? I explained it when I came by the shop yesterday afternoon, remember? I’m here to play the part of your devoted sidekick because I felt bad about springing that whole ‘fiancé’ schtick on you on the spur of the moment yesterday and then running out due to my, um, work commitments.”