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Cory nodded. “That’s a long, messy, and honestly boring story, because it was all red tape and bureaucracy and…” He waved his hand. Then he smirked. “Though, I’m pretty sure you get off on that kind of stuff?”
I rolled my eyes and elbowed him. “Shut up.”
He snickered. “Okay. Anyway. So we finally got it all resolved and he got this trickster on a leash. Which—when the king shows up, most people fall into line, you know? So it was mostly a matter of fixing everything for my clients. Once that was done, we all ended up at a bar.”
“I can buy that,” I said. “I’ve gone out drinking with clients after a tough case.” I paused. “Though I don’t usually invite the judge along.”
“Eh.” Cory half-shrugged. “When the Trickster King says he’s buying, and he promisesin writingthat there’s no trickery and no strings attached? It’d be rude not to, you know?”
“Fair. So, you’re all out drinking…” I raised my eyebrows.
“Right. And… I mean, we were all pretty lit. One of my clients could barely speak by this point, and I was slurring a little, but I could still speak coherently. So then the other client is all, ‘Bet you can’t say this when you’re drunk.’ And he has me read off some really complex city name in… I think it was Nepal? I don’t remember.”
I laughed. “And since you were all drunk, it escalated into trying to outdo each other?”
“More or less.”
I could imagine that, especially since Cory was almost infuriatingly articulate when he was drunk. I’d forget how to pronounce my own single-syllable name, but he could sing karaoke drunk. Like,hardkaraoke. Flawless-Gilbert-and-Sullivan-patter-song hard karaoke.
He shifted a little beside me, grinning. “So, the client was all flustered because I was making him look like an ass, and he looked up—you know that one village in Wales with the really long name?”
I grimaced. “God, I’d probably pull something trying to say that sober.”
Cory chuckled. “Right, so he says he’ll give me a hundred bucks if I can say it drunk. But then Galen, who is, like, fourteen sheets to the wind by this point, says that if I can do one more tequila shot and then pronounce it, he’ll owe me a favor, to be cashed in at any time for anything.”
I whistled. “Holy shit. And you must’ve nailed it, since you got the favor.”
He beamed. “I’ve never been so happy to see a client so pissed off. Galen thought it was hilarious.”
Shaking my head, I said, “So that’s all it took? Saying that while you were hammered?”
“Hey, when the Trickster King gets drunk…” He offered up an innocent shrug.
I just laughed. “All right. So since you’re sober, how do you say it?”
Cory grinned. “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.”
I blinked. “Holy shit.”
He looked about as smug as Raziel had. “What? You can’t say it?”
“I… Christ, I couldn’t even spell it.”
Cory snorted. “Oh, don’t ask me to spell it. But I can say it.”
“So I gather. Llanfair…” I furrowed my brow, then shook myself. “Say it again? Slower?”
He grinned. Then, slower, he said, “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.”
I considered it, but just chuckled. “Okay, that’s gonna be your party trick, not mine. Because… yeah, no.”
No one in the world could be so simultaneously smug and endearing as Cory was in that moment, and I was pretty sure I fell for him all over again. As he slid closer to me, he said, “You don’t have to say it. You just get to enjoy the benefits of me having such a limber tongue.”
“Ooh, now you’re speaking my language,” I purred. “Does this mean you’re good at tongue twisters, too?”
He laughed, and just before our lips met, he murmured, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I would, yes. But it could wait.
Because right then, I was far more interested in his other oral talents.
He didn’t seem to min
