Jean chuckled. “Oh, my gods. So cute.” She held up her phone and snapped away, then typedsomething.
“It can’t stay there,” I said, trying to feel grumpy about the situation and failing. The cute was powerful with thisone.
“Looks like it can.” She pressed one last button. I had a feeling that pig was going to show up on all of her social media. “See how happy itis?”
Yes, I could admit it made a adorable picture. I was just trying to get my head around the fact that I had an actual dragon curled up in myvehicle.
“This is my Jeep. I need it for work. I can’t drive around with a dragon sleeping in the backseat.”
“I don’t think it’s listening to you. And unless you want to do battle with adragon….”
She paused, a little too much hope in herexpression.
I scoffed ather.
“Spoilsport. Fine. Then I’d suggest you stop worrying so much and let the dragon situation work itself outnaturally.”
“Naturally?”
“Naturally. Like how natureintended.”
“Nature didn’t plant a dragon-pig in my backseat, Jean. The dragon-pig did. And thisis…”
“…ourjob?”
I sighed to cover a groan. She was right. This was ourjob.
“Fine.” I got in the Jeep and glanced at the dragon in the rearview mirror. “You let me know if you want off anywhere, okay? One grunt for yes, two grunts forno.”
It gruntedonce.
Jean chuckled. “Progress! Actual dragon-pig, human communication. See how great things work out when you stop worrying and just go with theflow?”
The hazy warp still surrounded the piggy, but it wasn’t as noticeable. The dragon was getting better at controlling how it was perceived. If someone saw it in the back seat, they’d probably think it was a normalpig.
At least it knew how to hide in plain sight. That was a good trait for surviving in Ordinary. Maybe it wouldn’t be anytrouble.
I put the Jeep ingear.
“Hold on.” Jean pulled off the Santa hat she’d been wearing under her hood and dropped it gently on the pig’shead.
It sat up and oinked. It turned its head side to side as it tried to bite the edge of thehat.
Jean snapped more pictures. “Adorbs to the millionth power! Hey, dragon, can you make itsnow?”
“Jean.”
The pig oinkedtwice.
I laughed. “That’s a “no”sister.”
She shrugged. “It was worth a shot. You know what else is worth a shot? Calling Ryder and telling him to comehome.”
“He’sbusy.”
“He’s lonely and so are you.” She shifted in her seat and stared at my profile as Idrove.
“What?”
