Ric laughed, so glad now that he’d had sink problems. Blayne always had a way of getting his mind off . . . well, pretty much everything.
“So here’s my plan,” she said, pouring herself more orange juice. “July Fourth is coming up and I’m thinking about getting Bo to throw a party for all my friends. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“Why would you do that to us, Blayne?” Ric asked honestly. “You know we love you and you abuse that by trying to force us to spend time with that cretin.”
“He is not a cretin. He’s misunderstood!”
“I’m surprised his knuckles aren’t dragging on the ground and that he can create whole sentences with subject-verb agreement.”
She shook her finger in his face. “I will make you and Lock and Bo get along. Nothing will stop me from making you three the best of friends!”
“You mean besides my and Lock’s moral outrage on Novikov’s existence on this very planet? Allowed to breathe our precious air?”
Blayne’s lips twisted briefly before she asked, “Can’t you just say you find him annoying?”
“I find Lock’s insistence I don’t put enough honey in my honey glaze annoying. I find Novikov offensive and barbaric.”
Blayne let out a big sigh. “Yeah . . . so does everyone.”
“But everyone loves you,” he reminded her.
“Of course, they do. I’m Blayne.” She grinned. “They can’t fight my charm.”
At that point, they both started laughing and it took them forever to stop.
They had each other in a headlock when the front desk admin, Charlene, walked into the cafeteria. “Dee-Ann!”
“What?”
“Detective MacDermot’s here. And you know there’s no interspecies fighting allowed on Group territory.”
Dee and Malone immediately separated and Dee said, “We weren’t fightin’. Right, Malone?”
“Right. We were . . . training.”
Charlene folded her arms over her chest. “Training? Really?”
“I’m hearin’ tone,” Dee warned. She motioned to the door with a tilt of her head and headed out of the cafeteria. “Where’s MacDermot?”
“Waiting out front for you—and you did hear tone,” Charlene called after her.
Dee was passing one of the training rooms when Malone caught the sleeve of her denim jacket. “You’re gettin’ them kinda young, Smith.” Malone motioned to the young hybrids getting trained in hand-to-hand combat.
“Those are kids we’ve been finding around town.”
“Shouldn’t you take them to social services or something?”
“They’re hybrids.”
“All of them?”
“Yep.”
“Were they all used for fighting?”
“Just a couple. Like that girl sitting in the corner, glaring at us through the glass?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s Hannah.”
Malone glanced at Dee. “You brought her back? ’Cause she looks a little . . .”
“Dead inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Didn’t have much choice. Couldn’t handle the whining.”
“She whines?”
“Not her, but a teacup poodle.”
“Canines have teacup poodle shifters now?”
Dee was about to answer, then realized it was a stupid conversation, and instead just walked away. She went out the front doors and immediately smiled. “Who is that handsome cat?” she asked, reaching down to pick up the young cub who’d charged into her legs.
She tossed Marcus Llewellyn high in the air, loving the laughter she got from him.
“Not too high,” Desiree squeaked. “As we’ve found out a few times, too high and he’ll hook himself to overhangs.”
“Are you still bringing that up?” Mace Llewellyn demanded, coming around the couple’s car to give Dee-Ann a hug and kiss.
She still remembered the day the cat rolled into Smithtown, with Dee’s cousin Bobby Ray, acting like he owned the joint. Although he had the protection of Bobby Ray, Mace didn’t really need it. He’d grown on them all and was like family. Hell, Sissy Mae, Bobby Ray’s baby sister—and the single living reason Dee-Ann got into so much trouble when she was growing up in Smithtown—was godmother to Marcus.
“Mace, this is Marcella Malone.”
He shook Malone’s hand. “Bare Knuckles. I heard you’re with the Carnivores now with Novikov.” Mace gave a little laugh. “Didn’t you get into a fistfight with him after a game?”
Malone scowled. “That fucker pitched me into and through the glass in front of the penalty box during the game. So afterward I hit him in the nuts with my stick and spit in his face. And he threw his fox goalie at me! Skates first. Hit me right in the head. I was out for like twenty minutes and you can still see the scar from where the goalie’s skate split my head open.” She shrugged and added casually, “But we get along now.”
“Let’s go,” Dee said, exhausted just from hearing that stupid story.
She handed Marcus back to Mace. He took his son, but leaned down and whispered into her ear, “I don’t actually have to tell you that you’d better watch out for my wife, do I? Or how much I’ll hurt you if anything happens to her?”
“Mace Llewellyn, are you tryin’ to sweet-talk me? Right here with your wife staring at us?”
“Stop threatening people, Mace,” Desiree told him, well aware of the Smith female “code” when it came to their friends’ mates. Besides, Desiree knew her husband well.
“He’s just watching out for you, Desiree.” Dee patted Mace’s arm. “Bless his heart.”
Mace growled. “I know that’s not a compliment, Dee-Ann.”
Although he’d managed for an entire hour not to let one puck get by him, it was the one that did finally get past him that had Novikov screaming about what an idiot he was and how he would never amount to anything if he didn’t play like he had some “purpose.”
Ric, used to it by now, let the oversized hybrid rant like they were playing for the world playoffs rather than merely getting in some early ice time before the rest of the team came in. But when he saw Lock speeding across the ice, Ric scrambled to get between the two. He barely managed, Lock reaching over Ric’s head to shove Novikov and Novikov reaching over Ric’s head to shove the grizzly back.
“Can we not do this?” Ric demanded. “There are kids watching!”
“They have to learn sometime,” Novikov spat out. “Either they’re winners or they’re losers! There is no second place except for loser grizzlies!”
Lock roared, his grizzly hump growing under his practice uniform.
“Cut it out!” Ric ordered, expecting them to actually obey. Not only because as team owner he could fire them both—something he’d most likely never do—but because he was also team captain. That meant something!
“Novikov, run drills.” As it was something that the man did obsessively anyway, Ric knew it would be done without question. And, with a little snarl, the Marauder skated off to run his precious drills.
“Why do you put up with him?” Lock demanded once Novikov was at the other end of the ice.
“Because he’s one of the best players of all time, because we win, because—”
“Blayne would hysterically sob if you traded his ass?”
Ric couldn’t lie to his best friend of twenty years. “Yes.”
“Your weakness sickens me.”
“I know. But if Blayne Thorpe was miserable, she’d cry about it to Gwenie, who’d complain about it to you, and then you’d make me hire Novikov back anyway.”
Lock’s grizzly hump quickly deflated. “You’re right.”
“I know. But we can be weak together. Besides, even that Neanderthal can’t ignore the pitiful tears of a wolfdog.”