“I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

“Make it quick, okay?” she said. “I have an important meeting at two and I know if I end up setting the boardroom on fire it’ll probably earn me a write-up.”

He hung up and tried to save his work. Sickly green filled his monitor and smoke rose from his computer. Phil quickly unplugged it.

Elliot popped up. “Do I smell something burning?”

Phil waved away the smoke. “I need to borrow your car.”

Elliot narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why don’t you have yours?”

“Flat tire.”

“This isn’t wrath-related, is it?”

Phil considered lying, but he wasn’t very good at it. “Maybe.”

“Forget it.”

“Remember that time I caught you and Ginger in the broom closet during the vernal equinox party?” said Phil. “And your wife was about to discover you, too, if I hadn’t stalled her, if I remember right.”

“That’s no fair. I was drunk. It was just a little making out anyway. Nothing serious.”

“I’m sure Amy would’ve been fine with seeing you and Ginger dry-humping next to the mops.”

Elliot threw his keys at Phil.

“We’re even now. But please be careful with that car. I just bought it, and my insurance doesn’t cover acts of gods.”

4

Bonnie would later think about how random it all was, and how an entire life could change because of a stolen motorcycle. They never found the thief. She sometimes liked to believe that it was destiny, that an emissary of fate had snatched her prized Harley as part of a larger plot. Perhaps right now the cycle was being used to tow the sun across the heavens, too. She could live with that.

She knew better. If there was one thing her dealings with the divine would teach her, it was that there was no larger plan. Mortals might not like that. Gods might do their best to deny it. But Whim was the true ruler of the universe. Bonnie had bought her Harley on a whim. Someone had stolen it on another whim. It was a whim of public transportation that there was a bus stop just a block from her apartment, and a whim of nature that the morning was so beautiful she left early to sit on the bench and enjoy the crisp weather.