“I…ah…”
Kizzy seemed less confused than he would’ve expected. She smiled. “Yeah. I can see you need to go. I’ll wait for Noah.”
Dante let out a deep sigh of relief. And then he noticed the security guards coming toward them.
* * *
Mallory had no choice but to make her escape and meet Dante at his car. She wanted her skirt, but where had it fallen off? She tried to scramble out of his arms and go back for it, but he held on tight.
“Now, settle down, everybody,” Dante said.
“What kind of dumbass brings a monkey to a basketball game?” one security guard asked the other.
“Damned if I know. What do you have to say, dumbass?” He was squinting at Dante. “Maybe you can answer my friend here.”
“Sorry. I’ll get her right out of here if you’ll just step aside.”
The guards regarded each other. “Step aside? So we’re supposed to just trust you to take this menace back to the jungle?”
Dante shrugged. Mallory wriggled harder, but he clamped down tightly on her shoulder and held her fast.
“I think it’s illegal to own a monkey, isn’t it?” one of the guards said to the other.
“Is it? I have no idea.”
“Hmmm. Maybe we should call the captain and find out.”
As they were hemming and hawing about what to do, Dante calmly said, “Excuse me, gentlemen.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” the larger of the two guards asked.
He fixed that one with an angry glare. “I’m taking her to where she lives. Unless you want to invite us toyourhouse, so your family can adopt her.”
“Are you saying you don’t own this chimp?”
“She’s not a chimp. She’s a spider monkey, and no, I don’t own her. I can make sure she gets home safely though.”
“Spider? Shouldn’t she have eight arms and legs or something?” one guard asked the other.
Dante just sighed and tried to dodge their body blockade.
“Youdoknow where it belongs? Is that what you’re telling us?”
Dante let out a deep breath in a frustrated whoosh. “I’m not telling you anything except ‘please excuse me’ while I take care of this problem for you.” He outmaneuvered the stunned guards and ran off in the direction of the parking lot.
* * *
At least Dante wasn’t in trouble because of her. Mallory would have to forget about her skirt. Right now, she was lucky Dante was there for her. Lord knows what the guards would have done otherwise. Shot her? Called animal control? She shuddered.I have to get control over this shifting thing!If only she knew why it was happening.
When Dante arrived at his car, he opened the passenger-side door, and Mallory hopped in, then crawled over the center console into the backseat. He slammed the door shut and jogged around to the other side.
He had to be furious. She would explain how extreme anxiety affected her, and maybe he’d understand that this didn’t happen on purpose. But would he want to hang around until it happened again? She wouldn’t blame him if he dumped her in her driveway and never came back.
She took a couple of deep breaths and relaxed until her body grew, and she found herself sitting bare-assed on the back seat.
Dante opened the door, jumped in, slammed it shut, and glanced in the rearview mirror. “You’re back.”
“Um, yeah.” Her voice sounded like an embarrassed little girl’s.
