Page 3 of Bears Behaving Badly
“Good for you,” she said, snarfing the last of her runny omelet. “And stop with the matchmaking-roommate trope.”
“I’m the original, dammit! Tropes come fromme, not the other way around. Take. That. Back.”
“Nuh-uh. And good luck on your interview. Knock ’em…uh…”Argh.Because once upon a time, she and Pathadknocked ’em dead. It was why he wore his straight blond hair shoulder-length, when his preference for years had been a buzz cut. “Knock ’em good luck.”
“Gosh, it’s such a treat to see your razor-like mind in action.”
“You wait. ‘Knock ’em good luck’ will be in the national lexicon within the month,” she said, and stifled an eggy, hammy burp.
Chapter 2
Annette waved and smiled at the second person to cut her off (always fun to see them confused by a cheerful countenance instead of a jabbing middle finger), drove straight past the Ramsey County government building, turned left into the parking-garage ramp at the end of the block, flashed her ID, drove down three stories, flashed her ID again, and drove down one more story into the Interspecies Placement Agency, which had much in common with the State of Minnesota’s standard foster-care system, except that IPA had a bigger budget and a sundae bar on Fridays.
She grabbed her purse, her case, the bakery box, and her drink, and managed to get her big butt into the elevator with minutes to spare. Minutes! Who knew, perhaps she could while away that spare time looking for David while simultaneously pretending she was not looking for David.That’s not pathetic, right? Right.
The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and her fine mood fell away as she stepped off into chaos. The melee reminded her of the scene fromResident Evilwhen the good guys finally got the doors open, only to walk straight into a horde of slavering zombies.
Honestly, zombies couldn’t be much worse.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?”
“Did you see the memo about Secret Santas? It’s barely fall!”
“Hiya! Whatcha got for me today?”
“Devoss has instigated yet another debacle, and you’ve got a new lamb—”
“Like there isn’t enough pressure with the holidays? I’ve gotta worry about Secret friggin’ Santas—”
“Pleasebecupcakespleasebecupcakesplease—”
“—who will certainly keep you on your toes—”
“—before Halloween?”
“And the bloody server’s down, so we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way, which I know you despise.”
“Well, that’s it. I know I say this every year, but I’m out.”
“—becupcakespleasebecupcakes.”
“And you owe a tenner for Helen’s get-well meat tray.”
“Good God,” Annette muttered into her hot chocolate. She literally fought her way past the figurative horde (there were only three of them, but still), spotted the edge of her desk—justthe edge, because she was behind on her paperwork—and dropped her purse in the middle of the maelstrom. “How can three people be a horde? Let me get my coat off.”
“Hey! I’m having a Secret Santa crisis! There’s no time to let you disrobe, dammit! I can’t believe they didn’t check with me before just…justannouncingit.”
“So get rid of the program,” Annette pointed out. “End of problem.”
“Beginning of migraine. Everybody loves the Secret Santa thing.”
“They don’t, though.”
“They look forward to it all year!”
“They absolutely don’t, Bob. Cross my heart and hope to, et cetera. Besides, you’re the one in charge, nominally speaking. You can blitz this problem in three seconds.”
“I won’t squash their dreams,” the agency supervisor declared, then ran away.
