Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 139147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 696(@200wpm)___ 557(@250wpm)___ 464(@300wpm)
“Here, take her, I’m making coffee,” Luna mumbled to me, depositing Feather in my arms.
I cuddled her closer because she was cute and cuddly and smelled like a baby, so it was a moral imperative to cuddle her closer, even if her mom was acting like a bitch.
“Oh no, he’s not yours, is he?” Dream asked me.
“I’m hers,” Cap stated (yep, more tingling and rippling).
“He’s not mine, you can’t own people,” I said after he spoke. “He’s just…we’re just…” Gah! “Dating.”
“This place feels really fucking familiar,” Liam muttered to Cap, making Cap smile again.
“Yeah,” he replied, sounding oddly content about whatever they were referring to.
“No offense,” Dream said belatedly to Cap.
“None taken,” Cap said back.
“Well, I take offense,” I said into this exchange. “You formed the sign of the cross and insulted him right to his face. You have no idea if he’s toxic. You don’t even know his name.”
Though, on the face of it, semi-kinda-kidnapping me instead of taking me to my car, then breaking into my house seemed to reside in the red-level zone of toxic.
But then he also bought me Lenny’s.
Contradiction.
Though, Dream knew none of this.
Dream assumed a solemn expression and added a heartfelt hand to her chest to drive it home before she turned back to Cap. “She’s right. I jumped to judgement. That was wrong of me.” She put her other hand palm-to-palm with the one at her chest and did a little bow. “You have my sincere apologies.”
“Do you listen to Marconi Union?” Cap asked.
“Of course,” she answered. “They’re wildly talented.”
At that, Cap aimed a smirk at me, right before he winked.
The tingles and ripples hit overdrive.
So, obviously, I held Feather safe, well to my side, bent forward and thunked my head against Surf Club’s highly-polished bar and left it there.
I felt a hand cup the back of my head, and that hand had only touched me twice, but I knew whose it was.
“We gotta go, babe,” Cap said quietly.
Yep, that’s whose hand it was.
I lifted up and saw he and Liam had their coffees.
I had no choice in the current circumstances but to say, “Great, thanks for coming by and sharing our change of plans face-to-face.”
“See you tomorrow night,” Cap replied.
“Yeah, yeah, see you.”
Cap shot me another smile.
I steeled myself against hurdling the bar and throwing myself at him.
Thankfully, I succeeded in this as Liam said, “Nice to meet you, Rachel.”
“You too,” I replied.
Cap fished out a twenty, put it on the bar, and they sauntered away, all loose-hipped, hot guy.
I watched.
Luna watched.
Every woman and gay or bi man in the joint watched.
Even Dream watched.
“He’ll make beautiful babies,” Dream said rather dreamily.
There it was again.
I was totally screwed.
FIVE
DON’T CALL ME BOSLEY
What was that saying about repeating things that didn’t work being the definition of insanity?
Well, that night, that was what I was doing, and Cleo lay behind me in Tweety while I was doing it.
I’d scored a dog-walking gig with Cleo, who was half Labrador, half chow, and I understood her struggle, because she was always at war with the two parts of what made her, never knowing if she should be overexcited and unconditionally loving (Lab) or a diva ice queen (chow).
I had more personalities than that, so we vibed.
I’d walked Cleo before, so her owners knew me, and they were all the way down with how I went about taking care of her when they were away, this time, for a long weekend.
The way I took care of her was, I just took her and she stayed with me. No reason for me to head to their house three times a day for a walk and not enough playtime, if her parents were groovy with that. She slept with me. She went to work with me. And she alternately ignored and loved obsessively on me and anyone in her vicinity.
Her parents were thrilled I’d signed on to take the gig last minute after they requested me, because they knew they got the added benefits for their girl when they got me, and only had to pay dog-walking (not sitting) fees.
I was thrilled because I dug Cleo.
Also because they always left me a twenty-five percent tip.
This would score me over two hundred bucks, which wouldn’t cover the dress and shoes and Havaianas I didn’t need that I bought at the Rack that day while lugging around Feather and Dusk with Luna, but it would help.
Now, with a free evening, I was doing what I often did during free evenings.
I was sitting in my car in the parking lot of The Slide, a strip joint on Van Buren on the east side of downtown, which was where the first woman worked who went missing.
I was waiting for him and watching him, because, since the first time I laid eyes on him, I had a bad feeling.