Page 8 of Did It Have To Be Gnomes?! (Carry A Faerie #1)

Chapter Six

Miles

T aking a deep breath, I calmed myself before I rolled the window down to press the intercom button near the gate. Winter chuckled a few times beside me, but he calmed down too.

“How can I help you?” a voice asked.

“This is Miles Curbelo from Carry A Faerie. I have a coworker with me. Ms. Cohen should be expecting us. I met with her earlier this week about the gnome problem.”

“Come on up, Mr. Curbelo. Thank you.”

The gate buzzed and began opening, so I rolled my window back up and pulled up the long driveway until I got to the curve near the front door.

I wasn’t sure if Martha Cohen would want me to park here or somewhere else on the property, but when no one came out to tell me otherwise, I turned the car off and hopped out.

“Pheeew-y. This place is huge.” Winter gave me giant eyes as I walked around the car to join him. “No wonder you wanted some help. It would’ve taken you the entire three-day weekend by yourself. Actually, you wouldn’t have been able to finish before Tuesday. Jesus, this place is ginormous.”

I snorted. “Yeah, and you haven’t even seen how bad the infestation is. I’ve never seen one so… active.” That was an understatement, but Winter would see that for himself soon enough.

“Really?” His eyes got impossibly larger.

“The gnomes weren’t even trying to hide from us. They completely ignored us when the owner showed me around. It was kinda wild.”

He grunted. “Well, I guess you’re gonna have to show me this wildness.”

With a snort, I led the way up the stairs to the front door. The same butler as before answered and ushered us in, saying, “Ms. Cohen is busy at the moment, but she informed me to have you head straight back and get started, if you’re amenable?”

I nodded. “Sounds good. Is there a better place to park? I have a lot of supplies I need to bring in, so if there’s a back door I can use, that might be better.”

“Of course.” He gave me directions, so Winter and I went back out to the truck, drove around the very large house to a side parking lot—who the hell needs an actual parking lot at their home?—where the staff apparently parked.

The butler opened the side door and waved us over, so I stopped my truck as close to the door as I could get, then we got back out and started unloading the gnome traps.

Since we needed to plan, I only had Winter grab two traps, and I did the same, so I could show him around before we really got down to business.

It took me a moment to orient myself after coming in through a different door, and I opened the wrong room twice before I found the first room Martha Cohen had shown me the other day.

Sure enough, the gnomes were still running around, playing, and having the time of their lives, completely ignoring us as we watched from the doorway.

If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought we’d just walked into the miniature version of a frat party.

They were literally screaming and meeping and jumping and swinging all over the damn place.

“ Ho-ly shit .” Winter let out a soft whistle.

“Right? I’ve never seen anything like it.

“Me either, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing this longer than you.”

I eyed him as he watched the gnomes. He was pretty, that was for sure, and I cleared my throat to rid myself of those thoughts while we were on a job. “How long have you been doing this?”

“About ten years. I think it’s closer to eleven now, actually.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

He nodded. “Yep. What about you?”

“I started Carry A Faerie five years ago.”

He met my gaze. “You didn’t work in extermination before that?”

I shook my head. “Nope.” I wasn’t planning on telling him what I did before this either. At least not right after what he’d confessed in the car. I didn’t want to freak him out.

His head canted to the side. “What made you start a supernatural pest control business?”

That made me smile. “I saw a catch and release company a few cities over, and when I had a pixie problem in my house, I realized there wasn’t one anywhere around here. I… wanted to save the faeries. I know that sounds stupid and ridiculous, but I just—”

“Hey.” He put his hand on my gloved one. “It’s not stupid or ridiculous.”

I bit my lip, not pulling away from his touch. Luckily, my glove kept me from feeling his emotions, so I was able to enjoy the small comfort. Before I could stop myself, I muttered, “I didn’t want to deal with death any longer.”

His eyes went shocked, then curious, but before he could respond, one of the gnomes screamed bloody murder, making both of us jump.

We turned as one to take in the scene, and I cringed, holding back a shudder.

The last thing I wanted to do was let Winter know I was terrified of gnomes, so I did my best to school my expression and not retreat far, far away from the little terrors like I truly wanted to.

The screaming one was chasing another one with what looked like a toothpick. It was trying to stab the other one, and when the rest of the gnomes noticed, some started cheering, others screamed in terror, and a few tried to intercede.

It was absolute mayhem.

And I was supposed to walk in there and set up a trap for them.

A shudder came despite myself.

I so did not want to go in that room. That was my literal nightmare come to life.

Fuck . How the hell was I going to do this?

“Hey,” Winter said, grabbing my attention. “You okay?”

I sent him a smile, hiding my embarrassment at being caught. He shouldn’t have been so observant, seeing things I wanted to keep hidden. “I’m fine. You ready to check the rest of the house?”

He nodded. “We’re going to need a lot of traps. That room alone needs three or four.”

I nodded in agreement. “I have a ton in the truck.”

He patted his pocket. “I brought the steel wool with me so we can fill any holes as we walk through.”

That made me grin, and I patted one of my large pockets on my jumpsuit. “I have some too.”

“Great minds and all that.” He winked at me. “Now show me the rest of this monstrosity.”

With a snort, I took him on a tour.

W inter and I worked surprisingly well together, and I was happy to see him curious about my catch-and-release policy.

I’d expected him to complain and tell me it’d be quicker and easier to set out some poison—it would be, and cheaper too, but there was no way I’d do it—but he hadn’t said anything like that at all.

He did ask a lot of questions about my traps, though, since his company used kill traps, and he wasn’t used to mine.

Despite all that, he really knew his stuff and was smart about how to conquer this entire house. He helped make a plan, and I couldn’t help but smile at how easily we worked together on such a huge project.

We started off in the same room while I made sure he knew how to set the traps effectively with gnome bait.

Luckily, I had little commercial-made bait wafers rather than having to smother a cracker in jelly and put it in the trap.

That would’ve taken even longer, and this job was way too big for all of that.

After the one room together, we separated to cover more ground. We were going to meet in the middle of the second floor to check in and make sure everything was still going alright. Then we’d break for lunch and decide where to go from there in order to take care of the third floor.

Luckily, we’d already conquered the super-infested room together downstairs, and I was grateful I’d had Winter with me.

I wasn’t sure I would’ve been able to go inside by myself.

Not that Winter had needed to protect me or anything—gnomes weren’t violent creatures and were typically scared of humans—it was just nice not being alone for once.

If this was what it was like to work with someone else, I really did need to get on with hiring an employee. I… liked having Winter here. Even when he was in another room, it was nice knowing I could go talk to another human being if I wanted.

That wasn’t something I’d had since I’d quit my job five years ago and opened Carry A Faerie.

I was alone all day now and only had Odin to talk to at home. A cat wasn’t exactly a good conversationalist. I’d probably spoken to Winter more today than I’d talked to literally anyone else this entire year.

Even though separating like this made sense, I was contemplating asking if he wanted to simply do all the rooms together on that floor. It’d been so long since I worked with someone else, and Winter was so easy to talk to. I kind of… wanted to be around him as much as possible while I could.

Who knew when the next time I’d actually get to talk to him was?

Shaking off those thoughts, I sighed and baited the trap in my hands. I made sure it was set, then put it in the most gnome-infested corner of the room. Hopefully the scent of the bait would entice the little beasties out and into the trap.

With that done, I did another sweep of the room to make sure I hadn’t missed any more holes. I didn’t see any, so I called this room good and walked into the hallway.

Winter was coming out of another room down the hall, and he smiled at me when he saw me. “How’s it going for you?”

I nodded. “Fine. There’re signs everywhere I’ve been. The homeowner was convinced they were only in the back of the house, but I think they’re everywhere.”

He grimaced. “Same. I don’t think there’s going to be a single room in this entire place that they haven’t been in.”

“Agreed.”

Winter let out a small sigh and said, “Which means we’re going to have to do the front of the house after we finish the back.”

“Yeah, I think so too.” I sighed and refrained from rubbing my face with my hands—my gloves were filthy from work, and there was no way in hell I wanted that bait gunk on my skin. “I think we only have three more rooms on this floor.”

He glanced around, clearly counting, then nodded. “Yep. Let’s each do one, then conquer the third together?”

I shot him a smile. “Sounds good.”