Annabella willingly switched company, the traitor, smacking her lips with a greedy look in her eyes as a bowl of some sort was willingly handed over.With her weight gone, Ross breathed a sigh of relief.He’d have to come back for her later, but hopefully she was past her koala stage for now.
With a quick, dexterous stride through the partiers, Glenn rejoined him.He had something soft and bundled in his hands and a worried look on his face.“I saw Annabella spill wine on you.You’re already becoming chilled.Here, borrow this for now.”
Oh.It was a sweater.Obviously Glenn’s sweater, and it was most definitely not a sweatshirt, but instead a lovely cashmere in forest green that looked delicious to wear.Ross looked at it and immediately developed sweater envy.“But I’m still in clean-up, that’s sure to get—”
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Glenn soothed even as he started unbuttoning Ross’s shirt.“I’m more worried about you becoming chilled.It’s cold out here for a human and you shouldn’t be wearing a wet shirt in this weather.”
Ross took over undoing the buttons because…yeah.Only two ways to feel about this, having the man undress him with a crowd watching, and Ross wasn’t at all comfortable with the concept of being treated like a toddler, or being turned on in front of others.He slid out of the wine-soaked shirt and accepted the lovely cashmere sweater.The cold air drew shivers along his skin and he heard approving jeers from the watching crowd.Ross was not oblivious to his own attractiveness, and he did have a workout routine, but…he stamped down the urge to blush and quickly drew the sweater over his head.It slid across his skin like a caress and Ross had to firmly remind himself that he was borrowing it.And not permanently borrowing it, either.
Glenn appeared satisfied, it was obvious in his expression, but there was a light in his eyes that Ross carefully didn’t examine too closely.He wasn’t sure what he’d do with the knowledge that his boss liked the view of him bare-chested, and especially liked Ross in his clothes.
Damn.Too late, his brain had catalogued the reaction already.
With a jerk of his head, Ross forcefully moved his brain onto a different train of thought.“We’ve got broken glass all on this side.Where’s a broom?”
“I can handle that,” Glenn assured him.“Give me your shirt, I’ll throw it into the laundry room for now.”
“Sure, thanks.”Alright, Ross, breathe.Breathe, but not too deep, as filling your head with Glenn’s cologne is an astonishingly bad idea right now.
Broken glass.Think of broken glass and possibly drowning people.
Ross looked at the people in the pool.He had no idea if any supernat being could drown, but knowing his luck, the answer was yes.
As he weaved his way around semi-prone bodies, he saw one person listing for the pool with a very determined look.His blond hair was perfectly styled on one side, wildly standing up on the other, and he wore a tie but had obviously lost the shirt at some point.The Chippendale look was odd but showcased the muscles of his back as he staggered forward.
That was a drowning victim waiting for an invitation.Ross grabbed him by the arm and dug in his heels.Normally, a human would have no prayer of strong-arming a supernat, but this one was just drunk enough to have no sense of balance left.
His head turned and he glared down at Ross’s hand as if it required some higher form of mathematics to figure out what it was doing there.
“Come on, back we go,” Ross said patiently, turning him in stages to avoid a spectacular faceplant.
“Unhand me, you egg-sucking, clay-brained, jackweasel!Wanker!Idjit!I bite my thumb at thee, you ugly motherfucker, so beat feet, dude!”
Ross’s eye twitched.His ears might have been bleeding.The mix of time periods in that single onslaught was quite the jumble.
In that moment of distraction, the two who were shoving at each other missed their footing and both went over in a splash that sprayed both Ross and the vampire.Growling, he stared down at the two idiots now bobbing in the pool, looking quite bewildered on how they’d arrived at this destination.It would have been funny if the temperature wasn’t forty degrees with a cold wind stealing all warmth from the area.“Are you two able to get out of there?”
They looked to Ross, then each other, and there was no answer.Well, they were in the shallow end.They were both standing just fine.Even drunks couldn’t manage to drown themselves in the shallow end, right?Ross should be able to leave them for the two minutes it would take to settle the captured vampire still in hand.
He turned his attention back to the swaying man who was about two feet away from following the idiots into the pool.Ross went with the sure-fired technique to get the drunk to follow him.“How about more wine?”
The vampire (Ross was sure he’d met the man earlier tonight, he just couldn’t recall his name) did an about-face.“There’s more wine?”
“Yes, inside.”Ross was reasonably sure that if he could get the man to lay down somewhere quiet, he’d pass out in less than a minute.They were very late into the night now.The party had been in full swing for at least four hours, and people were slowly sliding into drunken naps.It was the noise and distraction out here keeping him awake.So, he cajoled and manhandled the man into the house, then found a couch to lay him down on.“You relax right there and I’ll get the wine.”
Happy as a clam, the blond settled.He was snoring before Ross even hit the doorway.
One down.Way too many to go.
As it turned out, you could indeed put bone in a dishwasher.Taxidermy guides online had answered the question quite readily.Ross loaded every plate and glass he could cram in, started the machine, and honestly debated whether to leave the rest to do a second load later.
Glenn’s kitchen was nice.Or at least, his first look at it had been.The high-finish antique white cabinets and muted russet and cream tiles gave it a sort of French provincial style.Nothing about the tiles looked remotely comfortable, and yet, the urge to curl up on them and take a nap for the next decade was there.
Ross had no idea what time it was.It was dark.It had been dark for a while.He thought it might actually be the next day, because it felt like the dawn hours were approaching.There was a hint of light in the sky, from what he could see through the kitchen window.Definitely time to quit for the day.He felt absolutely certain on that point.If there was any place to take a twenty-minute nap, he’d have already curled into it.As it was, all of the party-goers now took up every bed, chair, couch, and semi-comfortable rug.Ross had covered up the ones he could with throws and blankets, ignored the ones he couldn’t.They all slept peacefully.And with a judicious amount of snoring.
With a light tread, Glenn entered the kitchen.He’d somehow come through the night with only mussed hair and a single missing button on his shirt.He looked unfairly awake, his stride quick and confident.Ross felt like something the cat dragged in and then knocked about for several hours, so he might have hated Glenn in that moment.Just a little.
Glenn looked about with pursed lips.“I see you’ve made headway here.”
