The Flame Game (Magical Romantic Comedies #12) - R.J. Blain Page 0,51
damage.”
“Not much damage because Queeny the best husband and fireproof house.”
He rewarded me with a stroke of my nose. “A wise man adapts to his wife’s special needs, and my wife’s favorite treat is napalm. Did you enjoy your snack?”
“Very tast-ee. Not as good as nay-palm, but good. Peppery. Die-sel plus some-thing else.” I considered the taste. “Blue gel stuff for hot plate things.”
“Methanol blue,” my husband replied. “Easy to get, a good enough gel, and would help keep the fire concentrated enough to light the house up—if I hadn’t fireproofed it.”
“Par-rents very stupid.”
“Yes, they are. Did you really have to total their car, though?”
“Cops would have put bullets in car and may have shot idiot par-rents. May-be earn, but my way bet-ter. No par-rents shot, only car damaged. No tell nice father or mother about this? They be upset. Very upset. Might smite.”
“Smote, my beautiful.”
“Might smite,” I replied in my most solemn tone.
“You’re incredible.”
I nuzzled his chest before using his shoulder as a headrest. “Think they get bail?”
My husband wrapped his arms around my neck and held me. “I don’t know. Are you all right?”
“Fine! Got tast-ee treat, smoosh their car with my not-fat ass. Gave cops coffee. Their Ther-mos now. I make more cof-fee in new Ther-mos!”
“The pair was across the street?”
“Yes. Can walk across street by self. I talk with them, give cof-fee. Then par-rents come. I stop them. Did not want to lose to car. Lost to trans-port once. That hurt, no do that again. Fell off car when stop, but no hurt me. Did not burn car.”
“You did great, Bailey. Not quite to regulation, but we’re allowed to use force to stop a vehicle in situations like this, and you did so with no damage to anything other than their vehicle. I don’t even think you damaged the road.”
“Leave some holes in asphalt. I blow fire for fixer people and help ree-pair in spring. It cold. Open door, puh-lease? Keys inside. I ride sunbeam through window to say hello to cops. No sunbeams in house. I go change. Talk hard.”
Quinn kissed my nose before letting me into the house and giving my rump a slap. “Go enjoy your fire and catch a snooze. I’ll be a while sorting this mess out. Since you went through the trouble of lighting it, go enjoy it.”
I had the best husband. “I love Queeny.”
He smiled at me.
Naps by the fireplace were the best, especially when my sneaky husband lit a proper fire and cranked the temperature in the house so I wouldn’t get cold. By the time the cops finished with him, the sun had set. I woke to Quinn running the brush over my coat while talking to someone on the phone.
“He asked her to call you, but she’s sleeping in front of the fireplace. Cold weather isn’t great for cindercorns, and we had some excitement earlier. No, no. Everybody is fine, so please don’t worry. Ra wanted her to tell you that he wanted to see you in the morning while the moon was still up. As soon as Bailey gets up, we’re going to resume our vacation. All right, I’ll let her know, and I’ll try to have her call you tomorrow night.”
My mother. Ra had put her number into our phones, but I’d figured out early on the phones only worked when they were active. I hadn’t quite figured out the specifics. Magic worked in mysterious ways, and I’d learned not to think too hard about some of the odder impossibilities—like why I couldn’t call my father when the sun shone brightly on the other side of the world.
Before I could notify Quinn I was awake, he hung up, and then he smacked my rump with the brush. “Up, my beautiful. I need coffee, and your machine refuses to give me good coffee. It laughs at me.”
I whinnied a laugh, rolled, and scrambled to my hooves. “Mother okay?”
“Ah, caught part of that conversation, did you?”
“Some.”
“She’s fine. I opted against notifying either of your parents about the incident with the assholes. The last thing our house needs is an angry divine coming over and raining hell on a pair of assholes.”
No kidding. “Go change, make coffee,” I promised.
“While you were sleeping, I printed out all of the old banking information I had on Audrey’s accounts.”
“You have her bank info?”
“She had me go over her accounting work because she’s hopeless with money, so she dumped all of her transactions into a spreadsheet for me. I never deleted