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)
“What an asshole,” she pointed out the obvious as I pulled out of the parking lot under his heaver glower. “He could have said please.”
“His momma didn’t raise him right, that’s for sure.”
We were on Roosevelt when Luna gave out a little scream this time, doing it as one of the burners dinged with a text.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. I’m scared of it.”
“Read it!” I demanded.
She grabbed the phone off the console, flipped it open and read it.
Then she started laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“It’s from Jinx. It says, ‘Stupid bitches also park in the fucking lot.’ And then there’s about twelve rolling on the floor laughing emojis, the same of rolling eye emojis, but about twenty side eye emojis.”
That was when I started laughing.
“I think I like her,” Luna decreed.
“Me too,” I said. “Gotta dig a woman who can pull off a good side eye, even in emoji form.”
“Totes,” she replied. “We done for tonight?”
It was nearing nine. Cap said he’d probably be in around ten, but we had to drop off the car, get ours back, and then get home.
“I am.”
“You got a hot guy staying over, so I’ll email this intel to Clarice.”
“Gotcha.” And thinking on it, I advised, “Ask her if she can look into this Betsy and Bambi. If Betsy’s been asking around, maybe she knows something, and we should talk to her.”
“Roger that.”
We drove in silence for a while.
Luna broke it.
“We’d be safer at The Slide and look more like a girl party if we took Jessie and Harlow with us,” she noted.
We would.
“Let’s sleep on it,” I suggested.
“Word,” she agreed.
More driving in silence.
Luna broke it again.
This time, she was talking quietly.
“I get why you do this now. It’s kind of the shit.”
“There’s normally more action,” I pointed out.
“That’d be more the shit.”
She wasn’t wrong.
We drove on.
I woke when Patches’ twelve pounds turned into fifty with that wicked cat magic they called up when they jumped off you.
Which meant I woke with a start and a grunt to see Cap, one hand on the sofa back, one hand in the seat beside me, leaning over me.
“Hey,” I greeted sleepily.
“Hey,” he replied.
God, he was gorgeous.
Abruptly I was up in his arms, he sat down, I was in his lap, then I was flat on my back on the couch with him on top of me.
Smooth.
And…
Nice.
And good to know my couch did fit us both. Or at least it did when one of us was on top of the other.
I filed that away for future use.
“How was your dinner?” I asked.
“Good.”
“Does your mom think I’m a lunatic?”
His lips tipped up. “I’m not sure you were listening close enough when I told you some of the stories about the Rock Chicks.”
“They weren’t dating her son,” I pointed out.
“She thought it was cute you were nervous. She thought it was sweet you wanted to plan a dinner. And she’s down to hold off with getting to know you better until after we meet up with your dad.”
I rubbed my lips together before I asked, “Did you tell her about…all of that?”
“I told her you had a rough history and were estranged from your father because of it. I told her he didn’t give you a lot of warning before coming into town, so you’re on your back foot with that. And she knows your part in the Elsie Fay thing because Mace noted it in the file when he wrote the final report.”
“And she thinks about that…?” I prompted.
He grinned. “Babe, you really need to read the Rock Chick books. And my mom is a Rock Chick.”
“There’s more than one book?”
“They all have them.”
Whoa.
I should have probably done that when I got home rather than claiming Patches for cuddle time then passing out.
As if he read my mind, Cap remarked, “Take it that’s Patches.”
Patches was white with black and brown splotches on his back, his full tail was the two latter colors, and he had one black ear with that color framing his eye, one brown ear, an otherwise white face, pink nose and tawny eyes about the color of Cap’s mom’s.
“That’s Patches,” I confirmed.
“He’s cute,” he muttered, his gaze aimed to the floor.
I twisted my neck to see Patches sitting close to the couch, tail sweeping my rug, staring at us with curious eyes, maybe because he hadn’t met Cap yet and he was trying to get a bead, maybe because cats were just curious.
I stopped looking at Patches.
He was cute and all, but Cap was cuter.
“So Shirleen didn’t want a just-you-and-her dinner to warn you you’d be disowned if you kept dating me?”
His attention cut back to me, and when I got it, I saw he appeared amused.
His tone held the same when he asked, “Why the fuck would she do that?”
“I nearly passed out in your offices today due to hot guy overload mixed with unexpectedly meeting people who are important to you.”