“I don’t think he likes to be scrubbed,” I say. But because we’re on-duty law enforcement—or law enforcement-adjacent—personnel and Wayne is a literal child, I also slant a quick glance at Grayson and say, “I do hope he’ll be better behaved aroundciviliansfrom now on, though.”
The pig snorts. “As long as we maybe skip the scrubbing,” I add.
Wayne gets up gingerly, his hand running over his oversized belt buckle before he attempts to wipe some of the mud—or whatever else it might be—off the back of his Levi’s. “I guess he looks clean enough. I’ll show you how to paint a pig.”
He starts walking away. “Wait,” I say. “We paint the pigs?”
“Yep. And then we’ll bone the legs.”
Bone the…
I wait for my inner voice to tell me to focus, but it’s totally silent. The word “bone” has killed it. Dead. Gone.
And so there’s nothing in my head to drown out the thought of boning. Not boning the pig, of course, but boning Grayson himself. My cheeks flame, and I cover my face with hands, trying to bring my sanity to heel. I’m an agent of the MBI. I’m on the hunt for the country’s most dangerous witch. I have two days to salvage my career and save the lives of countless people.
And yet I can’t stop picturing Grayson on top of me in that lone hotel bed, those blue eyes sparkling down at me, those damn gray sweatpants tossed carelessly on the floor.
Something nudges my leg, and I look down to see Petunia looking up at me. And just as in my fantasies, those blue eyes are sparkling.
But not with smoldering desire. At the moment, they’re dancing with mirth.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said ‘bone.’ I heard it. Now let’s get going before I change my mind about that scrub brush.”
CHAPTER 12
Wayne isn’t happy.
And why would he be? Besides the fact that Petunia tried to bite him, it turns out I’m not very good at painting a pig—I got all kinds of black paint on the white sections—or boning the legs, which, to both my relief and my disappointment, is apparently just brushing and whitening the hair on his legs.
But that’s not what he’s currently displeased with. At the moment, he’s glowering at me from across the ring because I’m also not watching the judge (obviously Wayne for now) the right way. Apparently, the right way to watch the judge is to stare at him like he’s the last doughnut in the break room and I’ve been on a diet for a week.
Wayne demonstrates. It’s…unnerving.
“I feel like I’m staring,” I complain as we try it again.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do!”
“It feels weird.”
“Believe me,notstaring at the judge looks weird at a pig show.” He crosses his arms over his chest and shakes his head. “We really need to do something about his weight. Have you tried giving him beer?”
“We don’t really have that kind of relationship, Wayne,” I quip, tap-tap-tapping the switch lightly against Petunia’s side. You know what they say—a tap a day keeps thoughts of boning away.
That’s obviously a joke. It definitely doesn’t work. I’ve been thinking about boning for nearly an hour now.
“Beer can help. And they love beer. My dad uses it all the time.”
We do another lap around, and I do my best to keep my eyes on Wayne. But that just creates a new problem.
“Head up! Headup!” Wayne says, his voice reedy and shrill. “Don’t let him put his head down like that.”
“But how am I supposed to make sure his head is up if I’m busy watching you?” I grumble.
“Stubborn pig?” a female voice asks from outside the ring, and I make the cardinal sin of taking my eyes off Wayne to see Dani leaning against the railing.
“Sally!” Wayne bellows. “Eyes on me! And keep his head up!”
“The most stubborn,” I say. Because the thing is, my pig isn’t all pig. He’s mostly human. He knows he’s supposed to keep his head up. Unlike all these other pigs, he understands what we’re saying. He could easily just keep his head up so I wouldn’t have to keep tapping his chin with the switch.
