Joel raised his eyebrows. “Classic choice, except for the banana peppers and the dipping sauce.”
“So, what do you think it means, oh, wise pizza wizard?” I honestly wanted to know.
Joel giggled. His giggles turned into laughter, and he nearly fell off the crate. Then I got going. We probably looked like two restaurant employee lunatics, but this was why I hung out with Joel. He could be Zen and wacko, laughing at nothing in the same two-minute span.
When we recovered, he was as serious as he had been before the bout of laughter. “The classic pep, sausage, and onion mean he’s a pretty traditional guy. Or he would be, but the banana peppers mean he’s not scared of the tangy curveball life might throw at him. It might take him a while to decide to go for it, though.”
Joel got all that from just four pizza toppings? Amazing.
“What does the dipping sauce signify?”
“That he eats the crust.”
That made me laugh. Maybe I was still a little high.
The laughter was contagious again.
Joel sobered first. “I should get a new name tag that says Pizza Wizard.”
The comment came out of nowhere, but I didn’t mind it much.
“Totally.” I sucked in a breath. “What if we left little cards with your wizardy words on them with every order?”
“Like a psychic reading.” Joel waved his arms around for reasons I didn’t know. I think he might have been pretending to wave a wand, but he didn’t quite pull it off. “I could be psychic.”
“Not like a psychic. Like the zodiac horoscope stuff.”
“Pizza zodiac.” Joel’s dark eyes widened with wonder, as if we’d just solved the world’s biggest problem.
“Yeah.” Some of our best ideas came to us while we sat on the crates.
My phone chimed.What time do you get off work?
I answered Grym immediately.An hour ago. Right after I called you.
Joel snatched my phone from me. I didn’t know he could move so fast. Maybe he really was a wizard. Smoking always slowed my body and brain, but he was a fast motherfucker.
“Hey.” I tried to get it back, but I got a little pissed when he started typing. “You better not ruin it for me, man.”
Whatever he typed, he sent it and then handed me the phone back.
I huffed to make sure he knew how upset I was.
I read the message.Hanging with my bestie behind the restaurant. Come smoke with us.
I’ll be there in ten minutes. Stay safe.
So maybe Joel was a wizard after all. Because of him, I would get to see Mr. Death Angel twice in one day.
Chapter Ten
Grym
We were in the storm’s eye. It was only a matter of time before the Bureau came for us. The problem was that Elliot didn’t know he was in danger at all.
That my beloved was behind a restaurant, smoking weed in the dark, proved he was clueless. No wonder. I hadn’t told him anything about it yet. I would have teleported to him if I could. It would have been a lot faster, but the Bureau would have detected it. I didn’t want to draw any attention to Elliot. We had to fly under the radar.
The restaurant was across town—urgency built in my chest with each mile. By the time I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot, my heart was racing, and I’d worked myself into a near panic, imagining all the ways the Bureau could harm Elliot. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t discovered his presence in the living world yet. It wouldn’t take long for them to figure out I hadn’t filled the contract.
