“It was. There’s a twenty-dollar charge if you miss your appointments. Do you need me to take you down there personally?”
“That’s not necessary.” I imagined Amber riding her bike all the way down here to get me. “I won’t need to leave Earth to battle liches and retrieve my sword from dwarven thieves again anytime soon. I hope.”
“I don’t think that excuse is going to save you from the no-show fee.”
“No? Should I say I was sick?”
“You should have called. Before leaving the planet. I can’t believe I have to tell you these things.”
“I was sucked through an interstellar portal with no time to make phone calls before I left. Will that get me out of the no-show fee?”
“Ugh, Val. I’ll pay the twenty dollars if you don’t say any of that stuff to the bridal people.”
“Deal.” I set my hand on the back of a chair at Willard’s table and casually asked, “How are things going at school?”
“Fine.”
“Any decoy-boyfriend news?”
“I gotta go.” Amber hung up.
Willard raised her eyebrows as I lowered the phone.
“Amber is opening up to me more these days.”
“It sounded like she was lecturing you.”
“That’s how she opens up.”
“Being a parent must be interesting,” Willard said.
“So my mother tells me.” I slid into the seat to give an oral report—hopefully, that would suffice—to Willard.
While I spoke, Gondo and several of his goblin buddies came in. They joined Dimitri and Zav, with Gondo jumping up and down and pointing at Dimitri’s notepad as he spewed what might be ideas for the bachelor party.
“I think my second wedding is going to be a lot different from my first,” I observed.
“You’re just now realizing that?” Willard asked.
“I realize it anew every day.”
“I was hoping to make it proper and respectable for you. Now, after speaking with Zav several times, I’m just hoping we can avoid goblins, ogres, and dragons burning down the city.”
“That seems like a good goal to have.”
“Hopefully, not a naively ambitious one.”
“We’ll find out.”
THE END
Find out what happens in the final novel: Secrets of the Sword III (Death Before Dragons, Book 9).
Secrets of the Sword 2 (Death Before Dragons Book 8) Page 28