Page 12 of Blood and Bone

“His baculum.”

“Yeah, whatever. So, there was a picture of his dick in the sheriff’s file?”

Eoghan nodded. “When they arrested him, he was in human form obviously, but he was strip searched and I guess a couple of the sheriff idiots couldn’t believe what they saw, so they snapped some pics. The chief had an inkling they might have done something cringy. There’ve been rumors flying around about that sheriff’s station for a while. She warned the sheriff if he didn’t turn over any and all photos to the I.S.R., she’d make sure he and all his deputy idiots got pink slips.”

“Wow, that’s some Abu Ghraib level bullshit, right there,” Ari said with a frown.

Eoghan pursed his lips like he was sucking on a lemon. “You’re telling me.”

“Some people never grow up but everyone knows if there’s a weak leader at the top, fraternity crap like this goes on all the time.”

“That’s right.” Eoghan nodded.

“I get it. You just couldn’t help yourself and snooped by looking in the envelope,” Ari said, so offhandedly, it took a minute for his words to register on Eoghan’s face.

“I wasn’t snooping! I…ah…accidentally flipped open his file when I saw it in Priest’s office. I walked in to give her our report on the incident, and it was laying there…and I—” He had the good sense to at least blush bright red accompanied by the guilty as hell expression on his face. “Anyway, I peeked, okay? I wasn’t planning on it. It just happened.”

Ari smiled and nodded, knowingly. “Fine. You snooped. So, if he wasn’t in shifted form, you wouldn’t have seen his—” He tapped his chin, looking at the ceiling as if trying to remember.

“Baculum,” Eoghan supplied with a growl.

“Baculum,” Ari repeated, glancing back at him.

Eoghan looked side to side, lowering his voice as he glanced around the room. “Oh, hell, it’s long when he’s in human form as well.”

“Really?” Ari asked, curious now.

“I’d swear it’s eighteen inches long…and even flaccid, it hung past his knee,” Eoghan said.

Ari sat back, biting his fist as he stared back at his man in horror. “Ouch!”

“Right? And they say in walrus form, they’re over two and a half feet long.”

Ari shook his head, trying to imagine sitting on a walrus dick and then picturing needing a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.Nope. “That’s some next level love muffin shit.”

Eoghan laughed so hard he startled the people sitting next to them who turned and glared. Thankfully, their server walked up holding two personal pizzas at just that moment. After she set them down and walked away, he leaned towardhim. “Back to the Faraday cages. You were saying something about getting darts at the armory.”

“Oh…yeah…I ran into Sherri Brady. She was there with her partner…I can’t remember his name.”

“Ted Acres,” Eoghan supplied. “Nice guy if you like the scent of fish.”

Ari snorted, almost choking on his beer. “I was gonna ask about that. I thought it was just me. That guy really smells like fish, yeah? I got caught in an elevator with him and the whole thing stunk of fish. I thought it was because someone ordered some for lunch in the cafeteria and took it back to their desk.”

Eoghan chuckled. “No, the dude smells like fish.” He held up his hands. “I don’t want to know why. Anyway, you were saying something about running into Sherri.”

“Yeah, she and Ted were talking with Wordy about how he’d figured out that the alien tech they took off an alien can listen in on conversations even if it looks like it’s been turned off. Wordy confirmed that there’s human spyware that can do the same thing. So, if I was sitting on a bus bench with my phone on me and the owner of the spyware sat down next to me, he could infect my phone without me even knowing it. Cyber criminals have been using it for years to steal credit card information and other things, but this is sort of the reverse. Instead of stealing something from the phone of an unsuspecting person, they plant this spyware in order to listen in. Thus…the Faraday cage.” He pointed to their phones.

Eoghan nodded at the pizzas which sat there looking delicious. “Now, are you gonna let me eat before talking about this anymore? I’m starving.” He picked up a piece of pizza with mushrooms, jalapenos, and black olives and bit into it without waiting for him to reply.

“Sounds good,” Ari said, taking his own piece of cheeseburger pizza, smothered with ground beef, cheese,lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and pickles, and biting into it. “Oh. My. God. The guidebook was right about this place. This pizza’s amazing.”

Eoghan nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah…amazing,” he muttered around a massive bite of pizza.

“God, watching you eat pizza is better than porn,” Ari said as he smiled around his own bite. He’d been right. The thin crust pizza, cooked in the pub’s wood fired pizza ovens was delicious. They both tucked into their food, polishing off the pizzas and drinking the last of their beer before they sat back in the booth.

“So, talk to me about King John,” Ari said, wiping his lips. “Has the chief mentioned anything to you about how the Agency plans on resolving his escape, Eoghan?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. I would have told you about that. Honestly, I don’t think she knows anything and if she did, she’d tell us.”

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