Page 101 of Pucker Factor

“I don’t think that’s how it works.”

“Never fear, Fox is here.” He took my hand and dragged me into the mess hall. “Yo!” When no one answered, he walked over to where the line would normally start and banged on the metal tray slide. “Hey, you’ve got customers!”

“It’s really okay,” I said, trying to stop this. I didn’t need any food, and he was only going to get us into trouble.

He turned to me, a serious look on his face. “Did you or did you not just survive days in the ocean?”

“Well—”

“And are you hungry?”

“I’m—”

“Enough said.”

He turned away from me, even though I hadn’t answered any of his questions. I wasn’t even sure what the point of me being here was. Fox just took over and basically decided everything. I guessed I was going to have to be okay with that. It wasn’t like I had a choice. Although, now I was wishing I had just stayed in bed with Eli, no matter how annoying his snoring was. Come to think of it, Eli was exactly like Fox. Did all these men take over and just decide how things were going to go?

“Ah! There you are,” Fox said to the man that came out of the back. “We need some food.”

“We’re closed.”

“No, you’re not,” Fox grinned.

“The sign—” The man frowned as he stared at the front. “It should say closed.”

“I know. I turned it around.”

“You can’t just turn the sign around.”

“Uh…I think I did,” Fox laughed.

“That doesn’t mean we’re open.”

“And just because you turn the sign doesn’t mean that people won’t be hungry. Now, we need to order some food.”

“I just told you—”

Fox jumped up on the tray slide and grabbed the man by the shirt before he had a chance to react. I squealed in surprise, but tried to keep my reactions under control.

“I just said that the lady is hungry. Would you like her to starve?”

“I won’t starve,” I tried to cut in, but he wasn’t listening.

“Now, we’re going to order, and you’re going to serve us. Am I making myself clear?”

The man nodded quickly, obviously terrified by whatever he saw. Then Fox grinned at him and hopped down, wiping off his hands.

“Now, what would you like?”

“Um…”

“Come on, you can say. Don’t be shy. Our friend is willing to do anything.”

I swallowed hard, feeling like I was under some sort of test. “I…I could go for some tacos.”

“Tacos,” Fox grinned as he turned to the man.

“We don’t have—”

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