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“Sky! Sky!” Moon called as he slid through the crowd to come up on his right. “Do you need help? Are you leaving?”
“No, I’m good. I’m going to take Nolan home. You and the others stay, have a good time. Drink my drink! Don’t let that alcohol go to waste!”
His tiny inner party girl gave a whimper. More than half of his yummy beverage was still untouched. That sucked.
But he didn’t feel too bad. Helping Nolan safely escape Phoenix and getting him home was far more important. It might also give him an excuse to check up on Nolan tomorrow when he was sober and in need of some recovery TLC.
Sky had gotten stuck parking his powder-blue electric sedan over two blocks away in a lot, and Ryder surprised him by walking them all the way to Sky’s car and helping to settle Nolan in the front seat. He’d thought Ryder would be content with just getting them out of the club, so Nolan couldn’t stir up more trouble.
“Sky? You’re okay with him?” Ryder asked as Sky closed the passenger door.
Sky squeezed his key ring in his fist and grinned up at Ryder’s worried expression. “Oh, yeah. He lives across the street from me. I mean, we’re not close, but we’ve talked some. He’s normally a nice, quiet guy. I don’t know what happened tonight.”
“When he’s sober, tell him not to return to Phoenix.”
A chill ran through Sky that had nothing to do with the early spring air. This didn’t sound like a “he’s banned” talk, but more of a “for his own safety” warning. Sky swallowed hard. “Do I want to know who was sitting in that booth?”
“No.” Ryder turned on his heel and marched to Phoenix without a glance back.
Sky didn’t know whether to feel annoyed or afraid or relieved that he’d gotten out of there. Phoenix was a safe place, but there was a hidden edge to it that was a siren song. Who didn’t want to have a tiny taste of danger with their wild night out?
The problem was when danger caught you looking and smiled.
Silence dominated the entire forty-minute drive to their small, forgotten town outside of Hartford. Nolan appeared to have passed out with his head resting on the window the moment Sky started the engine. His breath fogging the glass was proof that he was still alive. Sky turned some K-pop on low and hummed along to the music while his brain turned over the strange event.
It didn’t make sense.
First off, Nolan didn’t seem like the clubbing type. And even if the man decided to go out for a drink, Phoenix didn’t strike Sky as his type of place. Besides, where were his besties? His ride or die? Nolan should never have been in Phoenix alone.
Second, what had happened with those vampires to piss Nolan off? He hadn’t caught anything Nolan said to them over the music, but it was clear that he’d been willing to climb over the table to get at one or both of them.
No, Nolan was the keep-to-himself type. Sky had invited him over to a barbecue with friends last summer, but Nolan had turned him down. He’d flat-out admitted he was an introvert and not comfortable with strangers. Phoenix should have been one of the lower levels of Hell for him.
Unless he’d been lying in the first place and just didn’t like Sky.
He snorted at that notion. Not likely. They’d barely spoken. And well, Nolan was stuck with him now. At least until he was sure the guy was properly on the mend and safe on his own.
Nolan stirred when the tires bumped the curb as Sky turned into his driveway. Sky had bought the cute two-story house with the detached garage about five years ago at a freaking steal because it had been haunted…and maybe a little dilapidated. It had taken him about two weeks to clean out all the troublesome ghosts and another three months to get the place in livable shape, but he loved his sunshine-yellow house with the white trim. All the spring flowers were poking above the ground now and were blooming, adding bursts of color to his tiny front yard.
So, yes, he could do flowers.
With some help from Red and Maddox checking over things and making sure his own natural magic wasn’t leaking into the ground. There were a couple of exceptions, though.
The backyard was another story, but that was because he had a few enormous shade trees and a tall privacy fence to keep his garden hidden within his property bounds.
“Where? How?” Nolan mumbled as he sat up and looked around.
Sky smiled as he turned off the engine and unhooked his seat belt. “Home again. Well, almost home.”
“What? No.” Nolan fumbled with his seat belt and almost fell out of the door when he opened it. “I need to go back.”
