The guy handed over the pen with exaggerated ceremony, and Fenella accepted it with equal gravitas. She closed her eyes, pressing the pen to her forehead like a fortune teller communing with the spirits.
The crowd went quiet, anticipation crackling in the air.
Fenella's eyes snapped open.
"This pen," she announced, her Scottish accent thickening for dramatic effect, "has a confession to make."
"What is it?" Rodney asked, playing along.
"It doesn't like the sappy poems you write with it." Fenella shook her head sadly. "It's tired of love sonnets and heartfelt odes. It wants to write spicy romances, with heaving bosoms and throbbing?—"
The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the crowd's explosion of laughter and catcalls. People were pounding tables, wiping tears from their eyes, and shouting suggestions that ranged from mildly inappropriate to downright obscene.
Rodney turned an impressive shade of red, but he was laughing too, accepting the teasing with good grace.
"Rodney writes poetry?" Tony asked Shira, bemused.
"Probably not. It's all one big show." She was laughing so hard she had to lean against him for support. "But this is just too good. The Guardians are never going to let him live this down."
"Write us a spicy poem!" someone demanded.
"Prove the pen right!" another voice added.
Rodney held up his hands in surrender. "All the best spicy poems have already been written," he declared. "But I can offer you the next best thing."
He launched into song, his voice surprisingly strong and clear. The melody was rollicking and crude, and the lyrics grew progressively more lewd with each verse. Tony didn't recognize the tune, but it was clearly some kind of traditional ballad—Scottish, judging by the accent Rodney let seep through and the way half the patrons joined in on the chorus.
The words were filthy. Gloriously, hilariously filthy.
Tony was laughing along with everyone else, swept up in the absurdity of it, and holding on to Shira with an arm around her bare waist.
When Atzil appeared with their drinks, Tony took a long pull of the cold beer, savoring the bitterness.
This was good. This was really, really good.
He couldn't remember feeling this light or this happy since, well, ever.
When the song finally wound to its raucous conclusion, the bar erupted in applause once more. Rodney took a bow, nearly knocking over two people in the process, and the general chaos resumed.
Fenella caught Tony's eye from across the room and waved, beckoning him and Shira closer.
"Uh oh," Shira murmured. "She's spotted fresh prey."
"Maybe if we pretend we didn't see her?—"
"Too late. Come on."
They pushed through the crowd until they reached the bar, where Fenella was waiting with a predatory gleam in her eye.
"Tony!" She spread her arms wide. "My favorite new guy. How are you enjoying the Hobbit?"
"I've never seen anything like it."
"That's because there's nothing like it anywhere else in the world. We're one of a kind." She leaned forward, her elbows on the bar. "Now, give me something."
"What?"
"Something of yours. An object for a reading." Her smile widened. "Don't worry, I'll go easy on you. First-timer discount."
