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He looked down.

“Ribbit.”

Zee screamed.

CHAPTER 2

Zee screamed with his whole body, and anyone close to him had no choice but to get involved when he did.

His wings popped out. Two huge, jagged, leathery expanses that jutted from his back. The right wing smacked full force into Victor, knocking him into me. I grabbed for the bartop, missed, toppled off my stool, and hit the floor with an oomph, Victor on top of me.

He quickly pushed up onto his hands. “Adam?”

“I’m fine.” I winced, rubbing the back of my head.

Zee glowed purple and rained sparks from his new position, stuck to the ceiling, claws fixed there. He hissed, tail lashing. His entire maid’s costume glowed purple too.

“Ribbit,” the little frog said.

“Tom Collins!” Victor snapped, helping me to my feet.

Tom Collins, still calmly polishing glasses a step away from the chaos, looked up.

“Will you deal with that?” Victor asked.

Tom Collins tilted his head. “I wondered where he’d gotten to.” He set the glass down, then scooped up the frog, stowed the frog somewhere behind the bar, picked up the glass again, and resumed polishing.

Wait . . . Tom had frogs back there? The green color from the drink? Did those foamy screams belong to frogs? No, nope, I definitely did not want to know.

“It’s best you don’t ask,” Victor mumbled.

“Yeah. Already there.”

We looked up.

Zee crackled. His tail swished back and forth, raining a curtain of sparks.

“Zee, you can come down now. It’s gone.”

He growled through sharp teeth. With a glittery poof, he vanished from the ceiling and reappeared in a sparkly cloud at the bar, his wings hidden again. “Frogs are vicious, you all know that, right?” He planted his hands on his hips. “Don’t be looking at me like I’m the crazy one. Y’all are crazy for making eye contact with it.” He shivered, raining more sparks. “Ugh. I need mac and cheese, then sex.” His smile tucked into his cheek, and his gaze slide sideways and hooked into Victor.

Victor stilled, next to me. “Adam?”

I shrugged. I was up for some between-the-sheets shenanigans. It had been a day, and my favorite thing to do to relax was the both of them. Together.

“Go make eyes at each other somewhere else. You’re scaring my patrons,” Tom Collins said.

All two patrons. I’d forgotten we hadn’t been alone. The pair of guests sitting at their table looked a little rattled, now they’d seen Zee go full demon-mode. They’d probably had a front-row seat for everything that skirt and thong combo wasn’t hiding.

We followed Zee out of the bar. I waved goodnight to Madame Matase at the front desk, then the three of us stepped into the elevator. The doors squeaked and rattled closed, and Little Jimmy the pixie fluttered near the buttons. He wore a tiny burgundy cap and uniform that matched Tom Collins’s clothes. Madame Matase had made it for him.

“Hey Jimmy,” Zee said. “Do your thing, little bro.”

Jimmy narrowed his eyes at Zee and showed him his middle finger.

“What? You little asshole⁠—”

Jimmy produced the world’s smallest butterfly knife and spun it in his tiny hands, then dropped his gaze to Zee’s skirt, the threat clear.