Page 68 of Moody as a Minotaur

Paws lifted his nose and shook out his fur. “Of course I did. But just to confirm, I’ve asked Parker for the details to satisfy the primary bet as well as the sub-bet.”

“There was a sub-bet?” someone muttered.

“Is this what Van was talking about yesterday?” Parker asked me.

I nodded.

Parker shook his head, but he was grinning. Heglanced around the room at the people who were eagerly awaiting his answer. “Yesterday. That all happened yesterday.”

“Exactly.” Paws nodded. “Dillon, get your ass over to the board and check the entries.”

Dillon was sitting with his mate, Ash, on his lap. He glanced over at the sound of his name. “What?”

“Check the bet. I would ask Ash, but last time his puny ass almost broke something trying to get the board off the wall.

“Hey!” Ash shouted. “Be nice or I won’t keep the tuna juice from the café every day.”

“Tuna juice?” Parker frowned at Ash, the chief cook at his business.

Ash froze.

“Shit, right. Forgot he was in the know now,” Ash said to his table. He’d spoken softly, but I could still hear him. He waved his hand at Parker. “Hey, Parks. So, yeah when we make the tuna sandwiches, I keep the juice from the can and give it to Paws. I’d like to say it makes him less of an ass, but really all it does is make his breath stink like fish.”

Parker squished up his face like he was trying to figure out if that could be a health code issue. I knew Parker liked thinking things through. He liked having plans. He was probably wondering if Ash was keeping it refrigerated after he poured it into a container. Was the container sanitized daily? Could the cat sue him if something went wrong?

Paws narrowed his eyes at Parker. “Don’t even think about cutting off my tuna juice supply.”

Parker raised my hands, like he was surrendering. “Fine, fine.”

“Dillon,” Paws shouted at the hellhound. “Why are you still sitting over there?”

Dillon sighed and lifted his mate off his lap before crossing the room to do Paws’ bidding. He retrieved the calendar where everyone’s bets were recorded and spread it on a table. As he trailed his finger over the entries, he scowled. “Paws. For both.”

A chorus of disgruntled murmurs rose up around the room.

“He’s got to be cheating,” someone said.

“Hey, I bet—get it? Ibet?—Anyway, I bet that’s it,” Isaac said. “Paws, are you looking at Jake’s paintings?”

Paws’ tail froze mid-flick. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Isaac slapped his hand on his leg and whooped. “That’s it. You’re looking at the oracle’s paintings and somehow figuring out when they’ll happen.”

Behind the bar, Jake’s forehead crinkled as he thought about that. Then he gaped and pointed at the glittering orange Halloween banner over the pool table. “The decorations. Holy Michelangelo! There were Halloween decorations in…” He snapped his mouth shut.

I gaped. “You drew a picture of Parker and me? Like one of those messages from the Eternal Magic?”

“Oops.” Jake’s cheeks darkened. “I probably shouldn’t have said that. We’d decided not to tell people when that happened anymore. Not since Nelson saw the one about him and Morgan…” He shrugged. “So, yeah. Now that it’s happened, would you like to have it? It’s super cute of the two of you.”

I sucked in a raspy breath. Having the oracle paint us seemed significant.

Parker’s gaze ping-ponged from Jake, to Paws, to me. “I think I need more information.”

“Jake’s an oracle,” I explained. “He paints things before they happen.”

“And he painted us together?” Parker smiled and stepped closer to me.

I offered him a shaky smile. “I don’t know what it means, but, yeah, it sounds like it…”