“Ahem.”Glenn crossed both arms over his chest and stared them down.Then he shot Ross a challenging smile that had a bit of tooth in it.That look sent a delicious shiver up Ross’s spine.“Disheveled, slightly bloody, bound, while smiling salaciously.”
Was it just Ross, or was it getting warm out here?But if they were really going to play this game, he wasn’t about to blush or bow out of it.And he saw that challenge in Glenn’s gaze, knew the man was waiting to see if he’d fold on this point.Ha.Not likely.Ross met his eyes squarely as he threw in his own two cents.“Tsk, tsk; disheveled, slightly bloody, bound, smiling salaciously, andkneeling.”
Glenn’s eyes dilated until only a thin ring of gold shone, and his nostrils flared, like a predator that had just caught scent of something delicious.Ross didn’t feel like prey, but he certainly felt like he’d just thrown a gauntlet down.Or perhaps he’d picked up the gauntlet Glenn had thrown.Something in him wanted to challenge Glenn here and now, to see who’d be the one kneeling.He had to look away, back toward the table, before he gave too much of his own reaction away.
Now was not the time to think about it.This…awareness of Glenn wasn’t a good idea anyway.Dating the boss never was.Ross firmly crumpled his own reaction into a ball and chucked it mentally into a far, dusty corner of his brain to think about never.
Palms slapped the table in aclapand it brought him back into the moment.Annabella nodded regally, as if she’d known he was the right person to ask all along.Ross nodded back and bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to keep from laughing.He was doing a lot of that this evening.
“Someone get the man a glass!”Dunham called toward the open bar.“’e’s won that round.”
Oh dear, there were rounds of this?
A glass of something blood red and sweet was pressed into his hand, which he drank in sips because he didn’t trust a supernat to know how much alcoholic content was safe for human consumption.As he drank, he unwound steadily.After a few more rounds of the interesting one-up game, he relaxed even further.Eventually, Glenn drew him away to introduce him to people, and his head soon swam with names and faces he had no prayer of keeping straight tomorrow.
He lost his tie.Then his suit coat.It was oddly warm out here even though the temperature was dropping.Ross chalked it up to all the warm bodies, the multiple fires, and quite likely the alcohol in his hand.He went for a second glass and some of the excellent roasted chicken and thoroughly enjoyed both.The party kicked it up a notch, more people arriving, and then he really lost track of names and faces.
And with the addition of people came that turning point in the party when people started to lose their sippy cup privileges.Ross found himself switching from party mode to put-out-the-fire mode without any conscious decision on his part.“Dunham!Stop chewing on your friend’s tail, you’ll be hocking up hairballs tomorrow.Come get a chicken leg.”
The shifted werewolf spat out the tail and thumped his own hopefully.“There be chicken?”
“Right here.Chicken legs.Come on, up you come.Really, if you’re hungry, just eat.Don’t chew on people.”
“Yeah, don’t nomm on people!”the chewed-upon werewolf whined again.(With the grey fur, he was pretty sure that was Chloe.) “I want chicken too!You owe me chicken.”
No one showed any signs of slowing down on the drinking and, at this point, they needed to.He sidled up next to his boss and murmured, “I think sippy cup privileges need to be revoked.”
Glenn took a long look around the patio, and especially the crazy people still in the pool, and his mouth went flat.“I have to agree.This is spiraling out of control.”
“I can start herding people if you can get rid of the alcohol.”
“Let’s do that.I’ll help you after I’m done.”
Ross really had chosen a good boss.Glenn took off with the booze while Ross distracted them, either offering food or re-arranging them so no one fell backward out of their chair and cracked their skulls open.
It was at that moment Ross realized he had, in fact, missed his timing on removing the alcohol.In the space of three seconds, someone threw up in one of the braziers and burned their eyebrows off, while a trio in the corner started obnoxiously singing a song he couldn’t even make out, it was so chaotic.To say it was off-key would be an insult to anyone with hearing.Before he could do anything about the person on the ground, bemoaning their singed eyebrows, Annabella threw both arms around his shoulders and hung on like a koala bear.
“Ross, I love you,” she sighed into his neck.“I—oops.”
Ross looked down at the wine now liberally covering the front of his shirt and sighed.Definitely should have removed the wine before it got to this point.At least his shirt was black.The wine couldn’t stain it.“Annabella, I need you to let go.”
“But I love you,” she whined, high pitched enough to make a dog howl for mercy.
“Yeah, fine, stay there then.”Ross would get rid of his acquired limpet when Glenn was back out here to help him.And then do something about his shirt.
He saw more than a few people playfully shoving at each other near the pool and made an automatic beeline that direction.That was trouble that had not yet happened.As he maneuvered—difficult to do with a vampire still clinging to his back—there was a small crash, then a cheer from where the Japanese yokai were gathered.
CRASH.
Did they just…Ross didn’t want to look, but he couldn’t help himself.Yes, the entire table had just thrown their glasses to the paving stones.Of course, some bright soul had decided to provide real glasses instead of plastic, which meant the cleanup became that much harder.
“Oops!”Annabella said with a sad noise.
“Yes, oops.Why don’t you sit so I can clean that up?Before there’s more oops?”
She made another sad noise, just like a dying vacuum cleaner.Then she sighed in capitulation.“Okay.”
He maneuvered his way over to the dwarves, as they were safe-ish, and Glenn hadn’t removed their alcohol yet.“Here, Annabella, keep them company.I’m sure they have a skull they can lend you.”
