Free Biting Serendipity: April Fools For Love (Biting Love Short Bites Book 4) by Mary Hughes Page B

Play a good prank, and you get instant city-wide exposure. What?” His voice muffled, like he was covering the phone. “My friend Jocko just came in.”
    “He’s on third shift?”
    “No, this is the start of his day. He’s a real early bird. He just opened a gag shop next door to mine—Jocko’s Jokes. He needs all the free advertising he can get. He’d love to get in on your prank.”
    I blinked, an idea forming in my sleep-hazed mind—which probably should’ve warned me. “Really? Where does he live?”
    More muffled talking. Then Bruno came back on the line. “He has a house on East Roosevelt, number 892. Why?”
    “Sera,” Thor cautioned. “What are you thinking?”
    I set my phone to mute.
    “We have a volunteer. We can do the ice bucket thing on him.”
    Thor shook his head. “He’ll be expecting it.”
    “No he won’t, not if we don’t tell him what or when.” I touched unmute. “Bruno, he’s in.”
    “Great!” He hung up.
    The Viking was still shaking his blond head. “I don’t know about this.”
    “Come on, it’s the best of both worlds.” Relief rode me in giddy excitement. “We get our prank played on a victim who is both unsuspecting and willing.”
    “Won’t he suspect something when he sees us coming with a bucket?”
    “Yeah.” Disappointment fogged my brain—until an idea gamboled from the fog like a drunk deer. “So, we’ll wait until after he’s asleep. Then he really won’t expect it. I’ll call Bruno back and ask him to tell Jocko to keep his normal schedule and not attend the awards ceremony, so we’re sure he’ll go to bed. Even if we wait until ten, that’s a full hour before preliminary judging. Lots of time.” I couldn’t believe how lucky this was—a volunteer right when we needed him. Maybe Serendipity wasn’t gone after all.
    I know, I should have just asked, What could possibly go wrong? and braced for impact.
    Reluctantly, he nodded. “That would do. I still don’t like it, though.”
    “But, you’ll agree to do it?”
    “Well—sure. Fine.” The way he said it sounded less like sure and more like no way.
    “Because I’m not winging it.”
    “I said fine.”
    “Because if I wing it, I’ll strip.”
    “Fine. I’ll buy the ice, you bring the bucket. We’ll meet here tomorrow night.”

Chapter Six
    It seemed as though my head barely hit the pillow before noise and light woke me. Rattling like two skeletons on a tin roof—using a porn star-size vibrator.
    Turned out it was just my phone, set on vibrate for the night. I think I was a bit disappointed.
    Slapping a hand around in the dark on the night stand, I finally located the thing. “’Lo?”
    “Sera? It’s me. Jenny.”
    “Jenny?” I was surprised she’d identified me, ’cause even to me I sounded like a frog. Somewhere in there the thought filtered through, Dummy, why would a frog answer your phone? “What time is it?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Oh, wait. I have an alarm clock.” I blinked blurrily at the red LEDs. Numbers resolved into the impossible shape of four effing thirty. I’d had an hour’s sleep.
    “I’m in jail.”
    “ What? ” That woke me up like chewing live wires. My brain, suddenly online, spurted the information today was the first, April Fools’ Day. “Is this a joke?”
    “I wish it was.” Her voice was dark, filled with unshed tears, and Jenny was not the sort who could fake it. Believe me, I’d seen her in the Meiers Corners Masquers’ production of Mame , and she couldn’t act her way out of an open door.
    “How did you end up in jail?”
    “Well…you know your mayonnaise-filled donut joke?”
    “How did you find out about that?”
    “A couple of the patrons you pranked told me. Well, I liked the gag a lot and…well…”
    I slapped the phone briefly to my forehead. I knew what was coming, but really didn’t want to be right. “Spit it out.”
    “See, I do third shift work at a nursing home, and I thought it’d be so funny to