“I just called to say I love you,” he said.

“Uh-huh. Love you, too.”

The line was silent as Teri formulated her own reply.

“So we’ve been smote, right?”

“I’m fairly certain we have been,” he agreed.

“Damn. And to think I was feeling sorry for that little bastard.”

Phil winced. “Honey, I don’t think it’s a good idea to profane our new god right now.”

“Sorry. I knew this was a bad idea. Why didn’t you talk me out of it?”

“Why did you talk me into it?” he replied.

“We have to fix it. Maybe we could renounce him.”

Phil said, “I don’t know. That costs a lot of money. Lawyers in the Divine Court aren’t cheap. Plus it takes time. Sometimes months.”

He imagined having another day like this, one right after another. Even if it didn’t eventually kill him, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Teri had the same thought.

“So we appease him, right?” she asked. “That shouldn’t be too hard. He said we could just call him when we were ready to commit.”

“I left the number at the house.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said through clenched teeth. “It was just some bad luck.”

“I suppose you’re going to blame Lucky for that, too.”

“This is no big deal,” he said. “We can handle this. It’s just one bad day. Tonight, you’ll pick me up-”

“Yes, about that. Someone else will have to take you home tonight. I ran over a hubcap, and it broke my axle.”

“Damn it, do you know how much that’s going to cost us?”

“More than a jar of pennies,” she replied. “I don’t want to talk about it. I just want this fixed. Now.”

He heard a thud on the line.

“Ow, son of a bitch! My paperweight just dropped on my foot. Jeez, that hurts. Phil…”