Hey, hey, it's Sweet Sunday--and that means Excerpts!

A little unedited nibble from my WIP, Jayne's Day Off. There will be more next week.
*waggles eyebrows*

Jayne’s Day Off

He really should have known better. Short little man with pointy ears showed up on the cusp of a new year, and offered to make his troubles a thing of the past.

Well.

It sounded like the opening line for one seriously bad joke. The kind you only laugh at when you’re already half drunk. One that starts something like: two guys walk into a bar...

Jayne Parlette was not having a good day. In fact, this was the 358^th bad day he’d had in a row. Nearly a year’s worth of hell and decidedly non-auspicious happen-stance  followed that somewhat drunken decision to help the little fellow. He’d appeared to be in dire need of assistance.

Emphasis on appeared. Noted? Right then, moving on.

 It sounded like a good idea at the time. Unfortunately everything sounded good to Jayne after a drink and a half.

What?

Heh. So sue a guy for being gorgeous and a cheap date.

All Jayne remembered about that night was being told he had a year to get everything sorted. No fuss, no muss, and most especially, no freaking rush. It seemed like a god-send. So much time to fix the train wreck his life had become.

Who knew a year could fly by so quickly?

 Now, with seven more days to go before his grace period expired, Jayne still didn’t have any more idea of how to fix things than he did a year ago. Steven—his ex--was stalking me, Ruthie—his sister’s daughter—was still at risk, and he still couldn’t get the damned locals to acknowledge him as a male. Every one of the fuckers insisted on calling him ma’am. Jayne’s dentist would be set for life if it kept up much longer. He could retire off the money he extorted from Jayne to patch up all the damage grinding his teeth all day/everyday was doing.

 On top of all that, he had a weird little guy who was probably an actual leprechaun waiting in the wings to collect his payment. Waiting for Jayne to default on their deal. A deal Jayne was too blitzed to get in writing, and consequently was not so clear on the details of. He snorted as he picked up his coffee cup and swallowed the last mouthful of liquid love. Setting it in the sink, Jayne glanced at the clock on the wall. Shit. He was late already. He hurried out of the kitchen.

*Note to self: don’t sign anything after the second drink involving Bailey’s and crème de menthe Jayne my love, never, ever, ever!*

Jayne cast an apprehensive glance in the hallway mirror. At five foot six inches there would always be some height challenges to overcome, but it was nothing a good pair of platforms couldn’t fix. It was hell finding heels in an eleven wide however. The hair was good at least. Just past shoulder length, a wild mass of curls in black, reddish brown and dirty blond it framed Jayne’s oval face perfectly. It didn’t make sense to complain about shoe size when you had hair as good as this. The look of apprehension slid away to be replaced with a confident smirk. Today was the day. Jayne could just feel it. He finally had an interview with the local chieftain or whatever he was called. If the man would just acknowledge that Jayne was both a legal resident of the township and a person in need of police protection as well as a man, he could finally get Ruthie back in school. The home school routine might work for some families, but it was playing hell with Jayne and Ruthie’s relationship. A year ago they had a slightly strained uncle/niece thing going. Now, due to Steven’s stalking, Ruthie spent her days in a friendless, moping goth-girl funk, and Jayne hadn’t had sex with anyone but the hands twins, Righty and Lefty for longer than he cared to admit.    

*So two men walk into a bar; the first man has a gorgeous ass and a mass of wildly curly, to-die-for hair, the second man has a frowning face and a very small cock. They take a seat at the bar, and the first man says…*

The ringing of the phone startled Jayne into dropping the house-keys right as he stepped onto the front porch. That meant they fell through the two inch gap between the house and the porch. Steven had been too much of a penny pincher to get it fixed, mostly because it rarely affected him. He was far too large as well as far too self-important to crawl under the porch for any reason. Anytime he’d dropped his keys into that crack, Jayne had been the one to fetch them out. Whether he did it with one eye swollen shut was dependant on Steven’s mood, how fast Jayne ducked, and if anyone else was around to witness the altercation. Jayne snatched the old fashioned phone off its pedestal stand.

“Misty? Can I call you right back sweets? Yes, I dropped the keys under the porch again. Stop laughing. No. Stop-it!! I’m hanging up now…yes; I’ll call you from the car okay?”

A warm, rich baritone rumbled out behind Jayne.

 “Well, Seamus, I see what you meant about the arse on this one. It truly is a work of art!”

The back of Jayne’s head hit the underside of the porch with a resounding thunk. Seamus was the little fink who’d started all this mess nearly a year ago. Well, to be accurate, Steven the asshat had started it. Seamus the fink had finished it. Jayne the hot assed, as usual, got caught in the crossfire.  

Jayne scrambled out from under the porch, rubbing briskly at the newly formed lump on the back of his head. Sheesh! He’d thought such things part of his past when he took Seamus’s advice and kicked Steven the jerk to the curb. Evidently lumps and bumps were not so discriminating. The warm baritone poured over his still ringing ears again.

“Ach, it’s a fine thing the wee mon has such a lovely arse. He doesn’t seem to ha’ a lot of sense to go wi’ it.”

“Now yer Highness, I n’er said he was smart…just lovely. With the way yer Mam’s carrying on fer you ta pick a consort I thought ye might call our debt even if I showed ye this one…ah, what de ya say?”

Jayne grasped his keys and heaved frantically backward. He had to see who came with that gorgeous voice. And he had a thing or three to settle with the little pointy eared fellow who had thought it such a good idea to punish him for Steven’s bad behavior.

“You!”

Jayne and Seamus both turned startled eyes upon the third man. Jayne’s mouth dropped open and stayed that way until Seamus reached up and pushed on the underside of his jaw. The little man quirked a gingery brow at the prince and began to speak.

“Do ye be knowin’ the man yer Highness?”

A bright tide of red splashed across the prince’s cheeks. He nodded decisively. Jayne couldn’t help but be saddened that such an attractive man was completely cracked. He had never seen the tall, blond, and beautiful man before in his life. No matter how much he wished he had.

“Aye Seamus. He be my leannán cinniúint.”

The little man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He snatched his hand away from Jayne. Then, shaking from tip to toe, he bowed to Jayne.