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Chapter Six

“So why didn’t you fill me in on that masterful plan of mine?” Nathan asked.

Around him the “We’re-Not-Gonna-Kill-Mal-But-We’re-Celebrating-Anyway” party was just getting to the amusing stage where anyone of a sober and conscientious nature had either succumbed to peer pressure or left to hide until it all blew over. About 30 Larkins were doggedly entertaining themselves around the yard. Fresh kegs had been tapped, musicians were playing as if their instruments were on fire (which was, in one case, entirely accurate), and the sporadic dancing had devolved into the rhythmic lurching and vertical foreplay of the determined drunkard. Nathan was sitting at a picnic table with Zoe, Wash, and Simon, who were in various stages of partiness themselves. There was also an unconscious Jake slumped over at the end of the table, nearly covered in paper streamers. Zoe paused with a brimming mug at her lips.

“You just asked me about you and the ex-Jimmy. Never said anything about losing the brain cells had your plan on ‘em,” she said. “Might have been a good thing to bring up about the time you were walking out into an ambush, though.”

“Understandable, really,” Simon said, a bit distracted. There was someone missing and he was trying very hard to appear nonchalant about it. “It’s not like there was a great deal of plan to forget. ‘I’ll walk in and explain and they’ll kill me.’ Must have taken you weeks to get it just right.”

Wash took the mug from Zoe. “You should checked around the bridge, you might have jotted it all down on a bottle cap somewhere.” Zoe laughed deep in her throat and leaned up against him as he drank deeply.

“Hey, I had contingencies. I had a buttload of contingencies, all mapped out and ready to spring at a moment’s notice,” Nathan objected. “What with one thing and another, there was never the proper time to spring anything, that’s all.”

A roar went up from the crowd around the ba