It Happens (Bear Bottom Guardians MC 6)

I pushed the last piece over to Turner, but just before she could reach for it, a big hand came out of nowhere and snatched it up.

“Can I have this?” Castiel asked, looking amused.

Turner snatched it out of his hand and took a vicious bite. “No.”

Castiel’s brows rose. “Sorry, sorry.”

I sighed.

“Castiel, this is my best friend, Turner Hooch.” I waved at Turner with one hand. “Turner, this is Castiel Hendrix.”

Turner offered him a glare. “Officer Hendrix.”

“See you hold a grudge,” Castiel muttered. “Have a good one, ladies.”

Castiel walked away.

“Why is he talking to you, anyway?” Turner muttered darkly, glaring a hole in Castiel’s back as he made his way to the drink fountain for a refill.

“I have no idea,” I admitted. “He usually says hi and bye. Sometimes I get the stray ‘how’s it goin’ but other than that, I don’t usually get much out of him. I’m not sure we’re at ‘chicken stealing level’ in our relationship status, either.”

“It looked like you were about to push it off the table,” Turner admitted. “I honestly feared for the chicken’s life. Therefore, I could see why he’d reach out like that and snatch it up before it fell. But, just sayin’, that’s only because I understand the importance of Mr. Cane’s chicken fingers.”

I felt a smirk tilting up the corner of my mouth.

“I wasn’t going to push it off the table,” I said.

She gave me a sardonic look. “I know that now.”Chapter 4Life is like a dick. Sometimes it’s up. Sometimes it’s down. Also, it won’t be hard forever.

-Text from Jubilee to Turner

Jubilee

My thoughts raced.

Out of everyone that I knew, there was only one person that I knew, absolutely, without a doubt knew would be awake at this hour that was less than a half mile away.

There was no other recourse.

If I wanted to smell good, I’d have to do it. Especially seeing as I had a freakin’ viewing in less than two hours.

I pulled up my phone, pressed his number into the keypad—and no, I would not admit that I knew said man’s number by heart—and dialed.

It rang for all of half a second before he answered. “What?”

I swallowed hard. “I’m at the track, and I need you to come rescue me.”

There was a long silence as he processed my words. “Why do you need rescuing?”

I looked at the family of skunks that had somehow surrounded me while I was stretching. At least I thought they were skunks. Really, they could be black cats with white stripes down their backs, but it was too dark to tell.

I was only using deductive reasoning at this point.

“I think that I’m surrounded by a family of skunks, and I don’t know how to get away from them.” I paused. “I also can’t get sprayed. I have the governor’s son’s viewing today. There’s no way that I can go to that smelling like skunk.”

He sighed and I could hear things rustling in the background. The jingle of keys. The shutting of a door.

“I’ll be there in five,” he muttered.

Then he hung up, leaving me in the middle of the track, on my ass, with skunks coming closer and closer from all sides of me.

How had I managed to do this? Why was it always me that found myself in these kinds of situations?

The rumble of a diesel engine started in the distance, and I knew that Zee would likely be here in about two minutes, not five.

I knew the distance it took to drive here from the fire station that he was currently stationed at. Two minutes and thirty seconds. I timed it once.

Running it took five minutes and three seconds.

The sound of Zee’s diesel motor came closer and closer, and soon I could hear his exhaust as well as see his headlights.

I idly wondered why he was in that and not on his motorcycle, but I couldn’t ask him. That would give away that I paid attention to his comings and goings, and I didn’t want him to think that I cared.

The headlights turned, and suddenly the track where I was sitting was illuminated, and I could definitely see that the alleged skunks were, indeed, skunks.

There were also five of them, not four.

I wasn’t sure if they were in spraying distance—was six feet within spraying distance?—but they were too close for comfort.

When the lights from Zee’s truck hit them, they scrambled backward.

One even brushed against my leg in his haste to get away, and I felt more than heard the whimper leave my throat.

A minute or so later, the lights to the stadium were flipped on, and not only could I see, but I could see well.

Zee came down the bleachers two at a time as he watched me.

Now that the lights were on, I had the courage to turn to see where the skunks were headed. I found them at least thirty yards away, all in the middle of the field, huddled up next to the fifty-yard line that had been spray-painted pink for breast cancer awareness.