Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74501 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 298(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“You’re wearin’ that to get info from this guy? And you walk out to me wearin’ that dress and I know you’re wearin’ it and up to that? Are you serious with this shit?” he demanded to know.
“No, dummy,” she retorted. “I’m wearing it for you. I mean, who am I going home to at the end of the night?”
Well then.
“He’s still gonna see you in it,” he pointed out a lot less heatedly.
“Who cares? He’s the means to an end and that’s all. And seriously, Dutch, you gotta trust me, that’s all.”
“I know that’s all, but the way you describe this guy, I don’t got a good feeling about him.”
“He’s a lech, but he’s also a good source, and I can handle myself, and you have to trust that too.”
Shit.
He did.
And right then, that blew.
“Don’t call me a dummy,” he said.
“I will when you’re being ridiculously bossy and a dummy. I mean, gross. I’d never wear something sexy for Jackson. Or anyone for purposes such as that. I want justice for Carlyle, but there are certain lines a girl doesn’t cross. At least this girl doesn’t.”
“Good to know,” he muttered.
“And anyway, this is just a cute dress. It’s not sexy. You just like me.”
“Babe, when you grow a dick, you can say shit like that. Trust me, it’s sexy.”
“Really?” she asked, looking down at herself.
Fucking hell.
What was he going to do with this woman?
He knew.
“Get over here. I wanna kiss you stupid so you don’t forget who you’re comin’ home to at the end of the night.”
She shook her head and added rolling her eyes. “Like I’d forget, Dutch. You’re the hottest guy I’ve ever dated, and I’m saying that peremptorily, because we haven’t actually been on a date. And I’m not counting lunch with two cops as a date, no matter how good my burrito was.”
“Okay, now you gotta get over here so I can kiss you stupid because what you said was so sweet and you’re bein’ your usual hilarious.”
“You just want to kiss me because I’m in this dress.”
“I wanna kiss you all the time, but I need to kiss you now because you’re in that dress.”
“There you go, Dutch, the reason I’m in this dress.”
He was seeing he needed to have his head examined because he was a total dummy getting hooked up with a woman who was absolutely not.
In the end, he went to her to kiss her stupid.
He then crated her cat, grabbed her laptop case, she went off on her date-not-date and he came home with Murtagh.
The cat had something to say about his new environs, and he said that something continuously.
Until his food was down.
Then Murtagh couldn’t give that first shit where he was.
And now, the only thing that had happened that night was he’d avoided two calls from Jag, one from his mom, and got a text that read, Call your mother from Hound.
To which he’d replied Is everything okay?
And got the response, Don’t know, you tell us.
He wasn’t going to go there, and he wasn’t feeling great that they were wondering, but he’d thought he’d ended it (for now) with, Later. We’ll do a family dinner or something.
When Hound didn’t text back, he was left with counting down the hours until Georgie came to him, of which he was giving her two, and he was barely at the end of the first one.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” he told Murtagh.
Murtagh’s responding “murr” was interrupted by a banging on his front door.
The cat sunk his claws in, and Dutch had to hand it to the little bugger, he was Sundancing this shit, not leaving Dutch and looking at the door with an angry “Mwryow!”
“Open up!” Hound shouted.
Murtagh stood up, somehow gaining twenty pounds—in each foot—and shouted, “Mwrrryow!” back.
“Right, Sundance, Butch is gonna go open the door,” Dutch said, picking up the cat, getting an angry noise, putting the cat down on the couch after he angled off it, and hearing the thud of him jumping to the floor and following Dutch to the front door.
He opened it.
And he had no choice but to step aside when his entire family stormed in.
“Mwryow, mrr mrr, myow, myow, mrr,” Murtagh demanded to know why they’d interrupted his quiet night.
“What the fuck?” Jagger asked, staring down at the cat.
“Oh my God, that cat is the cutest thing I ever saw,” his mom declared.
“MWYOW!” Murtagh shrieked.
“What’s the matter with it?” Hound asked.
Dutch bent down, picked up the cat, and because big brother shit never died, he fell in love with it even more when he stretched out a paw, claws extended, scratching toward Jagger like he wanted to eviscerate him.
Dutch started laughing at the same time encouraging, “Atta boy.”
“What’d I do?” Jagger asked.
“Give him to me,” his ma said, and didn’t let Dutch move. She came to him, entirely unafraid of Murtagh’s murderous intent toward her middle son, and she took the cat. “Look at you,” she cooed, cuddling Murtagh close. “My first grandbaby.”