The Fangover (The Fangover 1)

Wyatt was staring at her with his eyebrows raised, clearly wondering what the hell was going on. That was two of them.

“Slap the fat. Ride the wave.”

It just sounded so wrong. Did this nasty parrot have a fetish? This was getting her nowhere fast and creeping her out. “Put Cort on the phone. Please.” She had no idea why she even bothered. Parrots could talk, but they couldn’t follow directions. She didn’t think.

There was a crash, more rustling, and voices murmuring in the background, but clearly the parrot had decided she wasn’t worth his time and had wandered away. “Are you kidding me?” Stella ended the call and handed Wyatt his phone. “That was the parrot. He wasn’t much help.”

“The parrot answered Cort’s phone? Oh my God.”

Stella suddenly had the urge to laugh. It was all just too ridiculous. “Polly want a cell phone?”

Wyatt snorted. “Girl, you’re losing it.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I’ll try Drake instead.” Wyatt touched his phone screen then put it to his ear. “Hey, it’s Wyatt. Where are you?”

Stella took the two wineglasses into Wyatt’s kitchen and washed them while Wyatt nodded and said, “Uh-huh. Yeah. See you in twenty.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. Though maybe she didn’t really want to know.

“Drake hasn’t exactly been on the hunt for information. He tracked down an emergency dentist and just had a fang implant put in. I’m not sure why that had to happen right this freaking minute, but apparently it did.”

A fake fang? Not surprising. Drake was a vain vampire.

“Where is Saxon?” Not that she thought Saxon would be of any help, but because she was worried about him wandering around solo. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and the last thing they needed was him falling off a balcony.

“Saxon said he was coming here to meet us, but since there’s no sign of him, we’ll just meet up with Drake instead. He’s done at the dentist and we’re meeting him at Fahy’s in twenty minutes.”

“Somehow I don’t think any of us need a drink. Why are we going to a bar?” The thought of alcohol kind of made Stella want to hurl just a little.

“It’s as good a place as any to meet Drake and start asking around about what happened last night. We go there a lot after work so maybe we did last night.”

He had a point. Stella felt anxious again and she wasn’t sure why. There wasn’t any real indication that something super terrible had happened the night before, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were about to open a big old can of worms.

Stepping outside, Stella almost fell over Saxon sitting on the front stoop. “Ack!” She lost her footing and tumbled down the crumbling brick steps past the keyboardist, who didn’t reach out to help stabilize her. He didn’t react much at all actually.

Wyatt’s arm shot past Saxon and tried to grab her, but by then Stella was down on the sidewalk and had managed to keep herself upright. She turned and glared at Saxon. “What are you doing?”

He glanced up at her, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. His hair was in his eyes and he looked forlorn. “I think I’m starting to have feelings for my dom.”

Wyatt let out a startled laugh.

Stella just wanted to slit her wrists. Except she wouldn’t die and be prevented from hearing whatever Saxon was about to say, so what would be the point? “You have a dom? Like as in, a dominatrix?” She didn’t think there was any other definition of a dom, but she wanted to make sure. She shouldn’t even ask, but it was her nature to be compassionate. It was a curse.

“Yeah. It’s the woman who owns the crystal shop. She’s got it going on and I think that maybe I’m in love with her.”

“Well, what’s wrong with having feelings for . . . her?” She couldn’t bring herself to say “dom” again because she did not want to picture Saxon crawling across the floor with a ball gag in his mouth. Damn. Too late.

His head snapped up and he looked astonished. “I don’t know. I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, really. Stella-roo, you’re brilliant.”

That was the end of that? “I’m glad I could help.”

Wyatt shook his head. “Well, now that that’s solved, can we start walking?”

“Sure.” Stella started down Burgundy, moving around a pothole in the sidewalk. It was a beautiful night, sixty degrees with lower humidity than normal, and the sounds of the Quarter were ramping up for the night. Her neighborhood uptown was much quieter, but she could see why Wyatt liked the convenience and energy of this location.

Walking next to Wyatt eased her anxiety. He strode with confidence, and he put his hand on the small of her back to guide her around some bags of garbage. She wasn’t used to that. She was always the caregiver, not the one being taken care of, and she had no clue how to react.

Fahy’s was a bar off Bourbon that had lots of dark wood and several pool tables. The bartender who worked the night shift was a vampire, and he knew them all by name.

“Hey, Nigel, what’s up?” Wyatt said as each of them pulled up a stool and sat.

The bartender was scrawny, a former pickpocket in Industrial Revolution London, who still had traces of his British accent. “I’m surprised to see you tonight. Feel like bollocks, do you? You were seriously pissed last night.”

“I’ve felt better,” Stella admitted. But she knew he couldn’t have seen her, unless she had somehow managed to morph in and out of bat form. “So . . . you saw us last night?”

Nigel gave a crack of laughter. “Oh, yeah, there was no missing these two. They came in with Drake, drunk out of their minds, and dumped a bunch of money in the jukebox on Barry White songs. I mean, Barry White? I was like, what the f**k.”

Stella laughed. Saxon didn’t look concerned but Wyatt looked puzzled and more than a little embarrassed.

“Barry’s a cool dude,” Saxon said with a shrug.

“I’m not drinking with you anymore,” Wyatt said. “I can’t believe I would agree to that.”

“Was anyone else with them?” Stella asked.

“Just the priest. He was right handy with his smartphone. Didn’t know men of the cloth took video of their nights out partying.” Nigel vigorously shook the martini shaker in his hands and poured it off into three drinks. “I suspect he wasn’t really a priest.”