Page 10 of Frostbite, Lovebite

Thankfully there was a decent driveway that went up along the right side of the house without going so far as to encroach on the backyard. They could probably even add on a carport or something if he really wanted, somewhere down the line.

"Let's get home, hmm? I'll get all this as fast-tracked as possible. Which, given the aforementioned guilt tripping, means everything will go with record setting speeds. Normally closing would take about thirty to forty days, but I'll get that down to at least twenty, mark my words.

"In the meantime, you can store all your stuff at our place, and that fuckhead Connell can wallow in the misery of losing a good tenant who never caused him any problems at all. Wait until your mother hears about all this, hmm?"

"Ugh," Match said as they headed out, walking through the snow back home. "I have specifically not told her about any of this. She's retired, none of this drama is her problem, sheshould be able to relax and enjoy life. Between Benny and Rick, sounds like the problem has been resolved."

When they got home, he called to rent a small moving van. His furniture he'd just leave for someone to take, none of it was worth keeping, not when he could buy better stuff now. He'd still be getting it from the thrift store, but he could get reasonably priced good stuff instead of whatever cheapest shit that mostly stood on its own he could find.

He'd be saving all his real spending for pretty plant pots that he'd never been able to get before. Large plants he couldn't afford or fit in his apartment. All the foods and herbs for his gardens. All the things he could buy his pixies now, though first he had to make their enclosure. How did one go about doing that?

He was so enthralled with making lists and roughing out budgets that he nearly jumped into the ceiling when his phone rang. "Fucking hell, me," he muttered before snatching the phone up. "Ronan?"

"Hey, sexy. We have the jack frosts roughly trapped in a general area, but we need your help to really cage them in so we can deal with this once and for all. Find us at Turtle Dove. After we deal with this, you'll be getting your job back."

"On my way." He yanked on his boots and jacket, slung his backpack on, and paused only to give a quick update to Phil as he stepped out of his office.

Turtle Dove was a local ice cream shop and their specialty was, you guessed it, a turtle sundae. If you really wanted to overdo it and sleep the rest of the day, you could get a turtle brownie sundae. He'd had two bites of one a single time and been done with ice cream and brownies for like a month.

Benny and Ronan, however, could knock back one and half of the bastards. He knew because he'd once watched them eat one and share a second. Insanity.

They were standing outside when he got there, and seeing them after hours of waiting and distracting himself so as not to worry despite telling himself he wouldn't, he could have cried. It was stupid, they hadn't been going anywhere, neither was he, but whatever else happened the humiliating treatment of his so-called friends around town, followed by being fired for no reason but greed, would linger for a long time.

So yeah, it was good to see the people who'd had his back and always would. "Where do you have them?"

"Because of your wards and us holding the line here, we've got them roughly—very roughly—trapped between here and Spruce Boulevard."

That was about six blocks. Not awful, not great. Spruce was a rough divider between the top third of the city and the rest of it. Maybe four blocks up, and several blocks running east to west. It was one of only three streets that ran unbroken through the entire town. "They can't go east or west?"

"Could break west if they really tried, which is why we backed off. If we leave them alone, they tend to not do much wandering. Last we saw them was in Apple Park. Hopefully we can pin them there."

"Okay. I should have everything I need to do that." He looked around. "Where is Luna?"

Ronan's lips pulled back in a contemptuous snarl. "When she was told she couldn't just have your wards, she threw a hissy fit and refused to 'do everything from scratch like some lame grunt worker, that wasn't what she signed up for'."

"But…she's a witch. She knows that's not how it works. What the hell?"

"Don't ask me, dude," Benny said, shrugging. "Refusing to do the job she was just literally hired to do though is a direct violation of her contract. I told her she needed to come and help us, or she'd be facing termination. She insisted she couldn'twork in an environment where she couldn't control the wards, and it was irresponsible of us not to transfer the wards to her, and hostile work conditions to expect her to do everything from scratch right that very second. So she's sulking and we're doing our fucking job. But we need us a witch."

Penelope looked up from the tablet she had been watching closely the whole time. "They're starting to get restless. We need to go."

"Let's move."

As the snow and ice were going from bad to worse at a rapid rate, they walked. No way was a vehicle getting through the mess, and Apple Park was only about four-ish blocks from Turtle Dove. "I am so fucking tired of snow."

"Spring needs to hurry up, seriously," Traci said. "I barely feel the cold most of the time but right now I don't know that I'll be keeping my toes."

Benny leered briefly at her. "I'll inspect you thoroughly later."

Traci giggled, and Ronan rolled his eyes as he caught Match's gaze. "I'm not making an inspection joke, sorry."

"You'll find something just as bad, I have every faith," Match retorted.

Ronan grinned.

"You two are really cute," Penelope said, somehow managing to look at them, look at her tablet, and look where she was going all at once. "I dunno if I ever said, but I'm really happy you finally got together. Now somebody find me an adorable sweetheart who's only desire in life is to cook for me."

Match laughed. "Penny, I'm pretty sure you just described Drew."

---