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“He is pretty much a drunken jerk,” Cort told her, “but overall, he’s harmless.”
The bird waddled up Cort’s arm and proceeded to bite his ear.
“Ouch, damn it! Okay, let me amend that,” Cort said, still wincing from the bite. “He’s mostly harmless to everyone else, but for some reason, he has a love/hate thing going on with me.”
“I can see that,” Josie Lynn said, though now her attention had gone from the bird to the stuff spilled all around her. What the hell was that?
“Here,” Wyatt said, hurrying over to her. “Let me clean that up. Don’t you even worry about it.”
He placed a hand on her back and arm to usher her away from the mess. She kept looking down. That wasn’t juice. It beaded down her bare legs, reminding her of times she’d cut herself shaving.
You are standing in blood, she thought. Even the way her footprints looked on the floor pooled and congealed like bloody imprints.
But it can’t be blood. Why would they have blood? In a pitcher? In their fridge?
“What happened?” Drake came rushing into the room, his jeans on, but unbuttoned, and his shirt in his hand. He looked down at the floor and at Josie Lynn, and she could have sworn he saw a flash of dread before he masked it behind a look of concern.
“Are you okay?”
Josie Lynn nodded, even though she felt more confused than okay.
“I’m going to clean this up,” Wyatt repeated. “Why don’t you take her to the bathroom so she can wash up?”
Drake nodded, placing an arm around her and leading her down the hall. Again she had the feeling they all just wanted to get her away from whatever was splattered everywhere.
“You didn’t get cut, did you?” Drake asked as he led her into the bathroom and turned on the faucet in the tub.
“I don’t think so.” But how would she know? Her legs and feet looked like Carrie at the prom.
He urged her over to the tub and had her sit down on the edge, then he tested the water.
“It feels warm enough. Go ahead and put your legs in.” He turned to grab her a washcloth from the rack by the sink.
She did as he said, as if in a daze.
He sat down beside her and began mopping the sticky redness from her pale skin.
“What is this stuff?” she asked, her voice quiet, not sure she really wanted to know.
Drake shook his head, giving her a bewildered look of his own. “Some gross protein shake that Cort drinks. I think it’s whey and pomegranate or acai berry or whatever is hip with health nuts at the moment. It’s disgusting. I think he bought it through Amway.”
Josie Lynn stared down at her legs as the redness rinsed away, turning the water pink, then swirled down the drain.
A protein drink. Pomegranate. That certainly made more sense than blood.
“You finish washing off, and I’ll grab you something to wear.”
She nodded, accepting the washcloth.
He stood and headed out of the room. Josie Lynn rewetted the washcloth and swiped it down her leg, most of the mess already gone. A glob of the stuff still clung to her inner thigh, and for a moment, she considered dabbing her finger in it and tasting it. But instead she wiped the spot away with the damp cloth.
She finished up and reached for a dry towel. After she patted all the water from her legs, she hung the towels over the shower rod and headed toward Drake’s room.
“Damn, that was close,” she heard Wyatt say from the kitchen.
“Yeah, that could have been bad,” Cort said.
“Jack and coke. Jack and coke.”
“Okay, I hear you, Winston. Man, this bird has a serious problem.”
What did they mean that was close? And it could have been bad? Then she decided she was clearly making far too much of nothing. Cort and Wyatt could be referring to anything. After all, they were also talking about what appeared to be an alcoholic bird.
“Hey,” Drake greeted her from his doorway. “I found a shirt for you. You’ll probably have to make it into a dress again. But you seem to have a knack for that.”
She smiled at him, deciding to let the past fifteen minutes go. What did she know about Amway protein drinks? They probably all looked like blood for all she knew.
She went into his room and quickly dressed using Zelda’s belt to cinch this shirt, a sort-of-retro paisley shirt in greens and blues.
“Wow,” Drake said, when she walked into the kitchen, which was now spotless. “I gotta say, I like this look even more than the pirate shirt.”
“I think the pirate shirt might be ruined,” she admitted. “I think pomegranate stains.”
“Thank God,” Drake said.
She laughed, knowing he truly hated that shirt, at least on himself. “I have to admit you look a lot better, too.” She admired the way his jeans clung to his narrow hips and his black shirt fit his broad shoulders.
“Are you saying plastic turquoise isn’t me?”
“You were actually sort of rocking them,” she said with a teasing smile.
He chuckled. She loved his husky, rich laugh.
“Ready to go find some Chers?”
She nodded and was pleased when he took her hand. Damn, this night had really gone far differently than she imagined it was going to.
“Where did Cort and Wyatt go?” she asked as they left the apartment.
“They went to meet up with Stella and Katie and to get that damn bird a drink before it pecked Cort’s eyes out.”
Of course, she thought wryly. What a night indeed.
“They are going to meet us at Queen Mary’s. I figured if we’re going to confront a gang of Chers, we better have the numbers going in.”
“Good call,” Josie Lynn agreed, and they shared a smile.
It was funny. She still needed to find out what happened to save her business reputation and to make sure that Zelda and Saxon didn’t somehow blame her for the bizarre outcome of their wedding, but she didn’t feel nearly so stressed about the whole thing. Maybe because she now knew Drake believed she wasn’t involved.
“Thank you,” she said to him as they walked down Toulouse toward Royal.
“For what?” He gave her a cutely puzzled look.
“For believing me.”
She didn’t need to explain any further. He squeezed her hand.
“And you can always trust me.”
And amazingly, she believed him.
* * *
“ARE YOU JUST going to pretend that nothing happened?” Dieter said.
Lizette carefully studied her magazine on the plane and didn’t look at her assistant, who had been studying her far too intently for the last several hours. “Yes.”
