The knock startled the book out of Marcus's hand. His finely tuned knightly senses kept hold of the ice cream, though. Priorities! He turned and glared back over his shoulder in the general vicinity of the door.

Now what?

He set the ice cream carefully down and shuffled, less than heroically, to the door and unlocked it. When he pulled it open and spied who was on the other side, he was tempted to close it again. Not because he didn't want to see Jay, but seeing Jay with a mysterious bag in hand sent his remember-the-squirrels sense tingling.

Fortunately, the bag did not appear to be squirming in any squirrel-like way.

"Is it too much to hope that that is ice cream?"