Текст книги "Breaking Him"

Автор книги: R. K. Lilley

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CHAPTER

SEVEN

“Love isn’t something you find.  Love is something that finds you.”

~Loretta Young

PAST

I was waiting outside the vice principal’s office again.  For fighting.  Again.

I’d actually been doing pretty well lately, so this was now a rare occurrence.

There had been some major changes in my life.

After that day when I found out Dante was fighting for me, we were near inseparable.

We just fit together, he and I.  Not necessarily in a sweet or romantic way.  We were both thick skinned and sharp tongued.  A tad too jaded, a touch too sarcastic.  Hotheaded and stubborn to an extreme.

Dante was just as prickly as I, just as jaded, more sarcastic, more hotheaded, but thankfully, not as stubborn.

Which meant that when we clashed, as we invariably did, I won more.

I needed more wins.

We both knew it, and he was kind enough to let me have it.  It was one of many reasons why we fit so well together.  Despite all of his flaws, his sullen moods, his tempers and rages, he showed me an enduring compassion that no one else ever had.

We were in our early teens.  It was that age where the sexes had separated to a polarizing degree.  Boys hung out with boys.  Girls played with girls.  Those were the rules.  There was some general flirtatious banter, some note passing, and lots of brief, teasing interactions but other than that, there was a clear segregation of the sexes.

We didn’t care.  We ignored that rule completely.  We were each other’s only friends, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  We spent a good amount of time over at his gram’s house.  Her huge mansion of a place was a five-minute walk up the hill from my grandma’s trailer, a walk I hadn’t known I was welcome to take before, but now, like magic, I was.  She’d told me I could come over any time I wanted, and since my grandma was gone a lot, I took her up on the offer almost every day.  And Dante, who lived on a huge property between, almost always met me on the way and went over with me.

Now I didn’t have to be alone so much.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Things were so much better, in fact, that I wasn’t as angry anymore.  Wasn’t fighting every kid over every insult they sent my way, and, miracle of miracles, there even seemed to be less insults these days.

No one was much intimidated by a little skinny girl like me, even a vicious one, but plenty of the kids had learned to be wary of Dante.

He fought like a demon, and word had spread that he’d pound anyone that messed with me.

It was wonderful.

But it was not absolute.  Today was a case in point.

This time it’d been a boy I’d been fighting with.  I’d decked the asshole right in the chin, and when he’d decked me back, I’d kicked him so hard in the balls that he’d fallen to the ground and cried like a baby.

The rest of our class had watched the whole thing with varying degrees of disgust, exasperation, and horror, but of course none of them had tried to step in or help.

I was used to all of it.

I’d always been the indisputable outcast.  Other kids were very comfortable uniting against me.

Flu going around?  Trashcan girl.

Lice outbreak?  Trashcan girl.

Even though neither of those had been pinned on me for sure.

Lucy Hargrove, who had four brothers and two sisters and lived in a dump of a house no better than mine had started at least one of them.

Still, Lucy was sweet.  Lucy had friends.  Lucy didn’t make a good target because other kids liked her.

So Scarlett it was.

And today it was:  Does something smell bad?  Trashcan girl.

That one was maybe true in the past, but since Gram had taken me under her wing, I’d learned how important it was to bathe and how to do it properly.  I didn’t smell bad now, I was sure of it, but it didn’t matter.  I’d never live down the stink of the dumpster I’d been left in.

And even though the dynamic had changed and things had shifted a bit in my favor, I was still the butt of many jokes, and I still took strong exception to it.  It was just that usually now kids had the sense to make the jokes behind my back.

Not today, apparently.

I’d been minding my own business, which was actually what I usually tried to do, when Tommy Mann had started in on me.

The teacher was out of the room and we were supposed to be working on an assignment.

I was not a good student by any stretch of the imagination but I had been trying to stay on task.

And here came asshole Tommy with his, “Does something smell bad?” right into my ear.

I gritted my teeth and still tried to ignore him.  It hadn’t been a big enough insult to be worth dealing with my grandma if I made her angry again.

“Does anyone else in here smell something bad?” Tommy asked loudly.  “Something that reminds them of garbage?”

There were some loud snickers around the room, but no one outright answered him.

Like a coward I wished, for at least the thousandth time, that Dante and I had been placed in the same class.  We never were.  He was across the hallway, but at moments like these, it may as well have been a world away.

“Shut up,” I muttered at him darkly.

I didn’t even see it coming.  He was behind me, and though I heard some rustling, some movement, I had no idea what he was doing until the classroom’s full trashcan was being dumped over my head.

It didn’t have much other than paper in it, but it didn’t matter.  It was more than enough to bring my temper out to play.

I threw the trashcan off my head, shook away all of the papers, and went after him.

I only stopped when he was a crying ball on the floor.

And of course that was when the teacher walked back into the room.

And now there I was, waiting for the vice principal to call me in.

Tommy was still in class.  He hadn’t even been reprimanded.

I hated this part.  It wasn’t even that I cared what they punished me with.  Getting kicked out of school was a gleeful fantasy of mine on days like this.

I just didn’t want to deal with how my grandma would react.

Also, I hated verbal confrontations.  I fought exclusively with my fists for one very important reason.

My voice was a coward.

Ms. Colby made me wait a good hour before she called me in.  I’d known she would.

It wasn’t an exaggeration on my part to say she didn’t like me.  More so than any kid in this school, I did nothing but make her job harder, but it felt to me like it went beyond that.  She almost seemed to get a strange kick out of putting me in my place.

She was a thin, middle-aged woman with steel gray hair that she kept so short that a lot of the kids had taken to calling her Mr. Colby.  At least that’s why I thought they called her that.  I wasn’t friendly enough with most of the other kids to ask if that was the reason for it, so I just assumed.

“As usual, your grandmother couldn’t be reached,” she began with.  “And knowing her, it doesn’t matter.  She hasn’t shown her face here once, no matter what you’ve been up to.  So your punishment for this is, clearly, going to be at my discretion.  Before I begin, do you have anything to say for yourself?”

"I-I-I—, h-h-he—" was all I could get out.  I never got much farther, especially with Ms. Colby.  My stutter was particularly vicious with me when it came to her.  The injustice of it, the fact that I could never voice my side of things out loud, only seemed to make the problem worse.

“There’s nothing you can say that will excuse what you’ve done.  You can save your pathetic, stuttering breath today, Scarlett.”

My shoulders hunched up, eyes pointed at the ground.  The pathetic comment really got to me, but it was more or less in line with the things she usually said to me after I’d gotten into trouble.

I resigned to just stand there and take it.  It usually lasted awhile.  She’d basically find several interesting ways to tell me I was troublesome, worthless, and a nuisance to the school.

And with any luck, she’d kick me out.

But something happened.  Something pretty amazing.  Before she could get any further, a furious Dante came storming into the office.

He went off on her and it was a glorious thing.  He was foul-mouthed and surly when provoked, and he was plenty provoked just then.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Dante raged at her.  “A boy attacks her, she defends herself, and she’s the one that ends up in your office getting reamed out?  Are you even kidding me?”

He was the opposite of me.  I stuttered hopelessly, and he seemed to have a talent for saying what would make everyone around him shut up and wait in stunned silence until he was finished.

Ms. Colby seemed to be no exception.  She was just staring at him.  I didn’t think she could believe what she was hearing.  Kids did not talk to her this way.

“He threw a trashcan on her head!”  Dante screamed.  “He’s twice as big as her and he punched her in the face!  What the hell is wrong with this school that she’s the one in trouble for that?”

I watched him without blinking; my heart so full, I felt it would burst.

The entire terrible day had been worth it for this moment.

Without looking at me he grabbed my hand and started to tug me out of the room.  “You know what?” he snarled at a still mute Ms. Colby.  “We’re done here.  I’m fed up with this shit.  This school is out of control.  Whatever you’re going to try to pin on Scarlett, you can just go ahead and take it up with my gram.”

Something moved on Ms. Colby’s stunned face.  Something that I liked.  Dante had clearly struck a nerve.

Dante saw it too, and he smiled unpleasantly at her.  “Don’t like that, huh?  Well, like I said, you can take it up with my gram.  I just called her from the reception desk and let her know what happened.  She’ll be here in fifteen minutes.  Good luck.”

He gave her a mocking little wave and tugged me out of the room, then the building.

“Where are we going?” I asked him when we’d crossed off school grounds and had moved into the forest.  I was pretty sure I knew.  This was a familiar path.

“Home,” he replied.  He stopped suddenly, turning to me.

I was looking way, way up at him, thinking that he was the most beautiful boy in the world, and it was only as he touched my cheekbone that I remembered I’d been punched pretty hard earlier.

“Are you okay?  Does it hurt?” he asked.

“It’s fine.  I was so pissed off I barely felt it.  And I did punch him first.”

“Yes, I know, tiger, but he attacked you first.”

“Who told you about it?”

“Nate Becker.  He got a hall pass and got himself into trouble flagging me down in the middle of Mr. Jameson’s history lesson.”

I tried to keep my face impassive.  Nate seemed like a nice enough kid, but I was savagely territorial where Dante was concerned, and I hated the idea that he might be making a friend aside from me.

“And then you got yourself into trouble storming Ms. Colby’s office,” I said, smiling up at him, my heart in my eyes.

“Well, yeah, but that was after.”

I blinked a few times.  “After what?”

“After I stormed into your classroom and gave Tommy Mann the pounding he deserved.”

My jaw dropped.  “We’re both going to get expelled,” I breathed, but not like I was sad about it.

He shrugged.  “Either we will, or Gram will take care of it.  My money’s on Gram.”

I squinted at him.  “She’s the sweetest woman on earth.  Ms. Colby’s going to chew her up and spit her out.”

He threw his head back and laughed and laughed.  “Oh, you haven’t seen her when she’s mad, Scarlett.  And you know she has influence over the school board.  She donates a lot of money, money they won’t want to lose.  Just you watch.  There’s finally going to be some justice at this stupid school.”

He grew serious again, his eyes, then his fingers going to trace softly over my injured cheek.  “We need to get you home and put some ice on this.”

I made a face.  “It’s nothing.  Stop making a big deal of it.”

But he didn’t listen.  Instead he leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss on the tender flesh.

When he straightened, I took a deep breath.  I’d been struggling not to say anything sappy to him, but I just couldn’t hold it in.

I squeezed his hand really hard, looked down at my feet, and said, “I love you,” for the very first time in my life.

He squeezed my hand back.  “Love you, too.”  His voice was quiet, but he hadn’t hesitated.

I swear I didn’t stop smiling for three entire days.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

“Unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade will suck.”  

~A realist

PRESENT

We arrived at LAX before noon, with four days off looming ahead of us.  I was the only one on our crew that wasn’t happy about that.

The day was sunny and fresh to an unwholesome degree when combined with my mood.  I didn’t need a nice day.  I longed for a dark and dreary one.  I wanted to crawl into a hole and stay there.  A hole dark enough to wipe my mind clean of the night before.

Why had I done that to myself?

Why did I always do that to myself?

Because Dante.  The Bastard.

We got home early enough that it gave us only two choices.  Take a nap, or keep going.  Any activity that consisted of sitting would wipe you out after a full day of work finished at eleven in the morning.

The four of us shared a sprawling apartment in a somewhat affordable area of town (if you had enough roommates) that had just converted some old warehouses into decent living spaces.  We each had our own bedrooms, spaced far enough apart that none of us felt stifled, but shared a living area that was big enough for a hell of a party when the mood hit us, and it often did.

We’d been roomies for nearly a year, and surprisingly I had very little complaints on the arrangement.  I’d thought for sure at the beginning that it was a horrible idea.  It had all been Leona’s idea, and I’d gone along with it because it would save me money.  She’d met these two young sweet girls in her flight attendant class and they’d hit it off.

Like us, and what felt like most of the women in L.A.¸ they were aspiring model/actresses.

I saw it as points against them.  Stubborn woman that I am, I’d refused to even meet them at first.   Leona was one of my first truly close female friends, and to be honest, I felt possessive of her.  What if she found some new friend she liked more?  What if I didn’t like these women, and she chose them over me?

But it was around that time Leona had found this apartment, and we needed two more to make the rent, and so she’d talked me into giving them a shot.  The first time I met them, I disliked them on principle.  They were too young, too gorgeous, too bright-eyed and optimistic.  Too sweet and undamaged.

But, like Leona, they’d grown on me.

I’d been conflicted about it in the beginning.  They were literally my direct competition.  We’d be auditioning for some of the same roles.  It was inevitable.

In spite of myself though, over time I’d gotten over it.  For one simple reason.  I liked them.  They became my friends.

Even now, a year later, I tried to picture how I’d feel if one of them got a part I wanted.  Any of them.  Demi, Farrah, or even Leona.  I’d hate their guts, I told myself.  I’d feel betrayed, I reasoned.  I’d been working for this longer.  I wanted it more.  There were no friends in show business, I told myself sternly.

But if I were being honest with myself there was a good chance I’d be happy for them.  I might even be thrilled for them.  Because I’d come to care for them and wanted great things for them.  Because they were my friends.

What the hell had these damn girls done to me?  When had I gone soft?

I’d surrounded myself with nice people.  Apparently the condition was contagious.

Fuck me.  I’d always been taught that kindness was a close cousin to weakness, so it didn’t settle easy on me.  I doubted I’d ever let it.

I told myself they were the exception.  I was otherwise still hard as nails.

Leona went out with her new ‘boyfriend’ for the day.  I tried not to roll my eyes when she referred to him as such.  They’d been dating a very short time, and she didn’t know him well enough to give him that title, and also he was a pilot, and therefore untrustworthy, but I kept that to myself.  She seemed happy, and I did enough of my own bubble bursting.  I didn’t need to do the same to her.  Not everyone had to be as miserable as I was.  Maybe she’d found herself the one faithful pilot on the planet.  My cynical mind couldn’t fathom it, but I hoped for her sake that I was wrong and she was right.

Demi decided to crash for the day, and Farrah took off shopping with some friends.

Normally I was down to shop in a big way, but my mood was too dark even for retail therapy.  I was not fit company for anyone today, let alone someone I actually liked.  I might inflict this extra sharp version of myself on my worst enemy if I were forced to, but certainly not a friend.

I did the only thing post-therapy me could do when fuming with impotent rage.

There was no real way to vent it.  No way to make it actually go away.

The best I could do was try to push it somewhere to the back of my mind, or at least not at the forefront.

So I baked.  And drank.  A lot of both.

Baking cupcakes and drinking scotch.  Ardently courting comfort and oblivion.

Oblivion was particularly elusive when I was at this level of keyed up, so I settled for getting buzzed and keeping busy with mindless chores.

I don’t bake often, but I do it well, even out of practice.  Sweet carbs rarely find their way into the apartment of four actresses, but I knew no one could resist my cupcakes, even if they’d all be cursing me for it later.

I told myself, to appease the sharper half of my personality, that if I made my competition gain a few pounds it was an added bonus, but it rang hollow, more like a humorless joke than anything else.

Our hideous dog, Amos, kept me company, nudging my legs and licking my toes as I worked, the damned mutt.

He was the ugliest dog in the world.  His fur was half kinky curly, half sticking straight up in the air and the color was a mix of different shades of poo brown.  He had one light blue eye, one dark one, and his muzzle was long and homely, his teeth sticking out of his mouth at odd angles.  He was hideous.   Some kind of a mix that apparently nobody but me had wanted.

Well, I wouldn’t say I’d wanted him.

So why did I have a dog I’d never wanted?

Ten months ago I’d found him in a dumpster down the street.  Someone had thrown him away.

I sympathized with the poor guy.

I tolerated him.  He was a sweet thing.  Slobbery and ugly as hell.  And affectionate to a fault.

But I didn’t even like dogs.  I was a cat person.

I loved cats.  Everything about them.  I loved that they could be vicious and adorable in equal parts.  The way they loved you more if you ignored them.  How they did whatever the hell they wanted and with outright defiance.  They soothed me with their sleek bodies, soft fur, loud purrs, contrary ways and bad attitudes.

I loved cats, but I had a dog.

Story of my life.  I was a conflicted person.  Never at peace with myself.  Hard to please.  A malcontent.

I refused to be happy about any part of it, even something as simple as having a pet.

I collected eccentric and funny cat T-shirts.   I liked to wear them around the house, sigh at Amos, and occasionally lecture him about how how disappointing he was to me.

He’d always just wag his tail, gaze at me with absolute adoration, and wait for any affection I might have to give him.

Damn dogs, with their unconditional love and unfalteringly bad breath.  Who could deal with either of those things?

I knew I should have just gotten a cat, but it seemed wrong somehow, to get a frivolous thing like a second pet when we all traveled as much as we did.  Our neighbor took in Amos when we were out of town, but we could hardly ask him to take in still another pet part-time.

Also, some part of me had a really big problem with openly seeking out something that might bring me joy.  Like, with all the things I’d done that were actually sins, looking for a bit of happiness in my life was the real transgression.

CHAPTER

NINE

“Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.”

~Marilyn Monroe

For all intents and purposes, I had the apartment to myself for the majority of the day.

It was for the best.  I had a lot of baking and drinking to do before I was even close to fit for company.

I was frosting my fifth batch of cupcakes (these red velvet) when the doorbell rang.

My eyes narrowed, and my first instinct was to ignore it.  I just had a bad feeling.  Nothing I could put into words, just a need to avoid that could be for any number of reasons, not the least of which that I was working on getting stupid, sloppy drunk, and the condition was eluding me.

Nope, I decided.  Not answering.

The doorbell rang again, and this time a sleepy Demi came out of her room, gave me a good morning/afternoon wave, and went to open it herself before I could stop her.

I went back to frosting and didn’t look up again until she plopped a large red box on the kitchen counter scant inches from my growing horde of cupcakes.  I’d made three flavors—German chocolate, vanilla cream, and red velvet.

“Oh my God,” she said slowly, her big blue eyes wide.  “What are all these cupcakes for?”

I looked at her.  She was a gorgeous little thing with big, bright blue eyes, masses of dark hair, pale skin, and a rosebud mouth.  She was petite but curvy in all the right places.  She basically looked and was the Hollywood version of Snow White.  “You.  Help yourself.”

“You bitch!” she shot back, making me smile for the first time all day.  Her calling me a bitch to my face was 100% my influence on her, and I loved it.  “You know I have an audition in two days!  And red velvet is my absolute favorite!”

I had known that.  The whole point of my baking was never to make something for myself.  I despised cupcakes.  I had the opposite of a sweet tooth.  I had a bitter one.

I nodded at the red box.  “What’s that?”

“Something for you.  Some sort of special delivery from a guy in a suit.”

I froze, my insides coiling up tight.  “Not . . . Dante, right?”

“No, not him.  I’d have recognized him.  It was some guy I’ve never seen before, but he insisted I give the box directly to you and said it should be opened immediately.”

I felt no better.  This reeked of Dante, even it that hadn’t been him at the door, though I was still thanking God for that.

“That’s odd,” I noted, my tone deceptively casual.

“The whole thing was bizarre,” she agreed.

I finished frosting the cupcakes, taking my time, smiling when Demi gave in and started eating one, then moaned and raved about how divine it was, but all the while, my mind was on the damned package.

“Is there a return address on that thing?” I finally asked her, avoiding it myself, like that would somehow help.

“Nope.  There’s nothing.  I checked.  No postage.  That guy just brought it here.  You got a new stalker or something?”

My mouth twisted.  “Not a new one.”

“Are you going to open it or you want me to?”

I almost told her to do it, but that felt too cowardly, and realizing that I wanted to be a coward was what finally spurred me into action.  I had many, many bad qualities, but I’d be damned before I’d let cowardice become one of them.

With a curse, I reached for the box, tearing it open.

Inside were red shoes in exactly the same style as the ones I’d been wearing yesterday.

But these were Louboutins.

I read the note tucked in beside the shoes before I could think better of it, and immediately wished I hadn’t.

Scarlett,

I know you have a weakness for expensive shoe porn.

And you know I love to exploit your weaknesses.

Enjoy.

Thanks for everything,

D, aka the love of your life

P.S. We still need to talk.

I nearly threw the shoes out of the closest window.  I had them free of the box, had moved from the kitchen and across the living room, opened a window, but as I stared at them I just couldn’t do it.

They were so gorgeous.  How could I throw away something so perfect?

Shoe porn, indeed.

I hated that I loved it.  The note.  The shoes.  Everything about it tailored perfectly to appeal to my senses and tear out pieces of me in precisely equal measures.

We were over, had been for years, but it didn’t matter.  If he had his way, he’d keep me tied to him forever.  He was cruel like that.

The shoes, and particularly the note, was an attack disguised as a white flag, and it worked, did exactly what he intended—got to me.  Enraged and weakened me both.

He knew me that fucking well.

No one on earth should know a person that well.

Lovers should have secrets.

In fact, they need them.

Some part of you should stay a mystery in every relationship.  Enough mystery to keep some distance and a bit of perspective.

Dante and I had gotten together too young for any of that.  I’d given him everything, been too smitten and naive to hold back even one selfish part of myself.

Even one essential part of myself.

Never relinquish the keys to your soul to someone else.  It gives them too much power.

That kind of power in the hands of a ruthless man like Dante, well, needless to say, it’d taken its toll on me.

I was standing, hands clenched at my sides, glaring at the shoes when my phone started chiming a text at me from the kitchen.

I set the shoes down carefully on the coffee table and stalked to check it.

The text was from an unfamiliar number and read:

Wear them and think of me.  

Predictably, it set me off.

And even so, I couldn’t throw away the shoes.

I settled for spending a ridiculous amount of time making it look like I had.

Demi was still the only one home, but she was game to assist me in setting it up.  She was a sweet young thing.  It constantly surprised me how much she liked to help out with any random plot I was hatching on a daily basis just for the sake of sisterhood, just because her first inclination was to be nice, even after I’d made her cupcakes that I knew weren’t on her diet.

I’d never been sweet, but ironically some of my closest friends these days were.  I was finding that my particular flavor of bitter was sometimes best complemented with a bit of saccharine.  Go figure.

I recorded a short video on my phone that showed me tossing the shoes out of my bedroom window, one by one with two short flicks of my wrist.

Our place was on the first floor, so it was fairly simple.  Demi was outside, crouched low to the ground, out of the shot, a pillow in her arms.

“Are they okay?” I called out as soon as I stopped recording.

“Caught them both with the pillow!” she called back cheerily.  “Your ungodly expensive shoes are unharmed!”

I grinned and sent the video off to my new contact, which I’d named:  Bastard/Stalker/Liar/Cheater/Ex/TheDevil.

Me:  I thought of you while I was doing this.  Lose my number.

The smile died on my face at his near immediate response.

Bastard/Stalker/Liar/Cheater/Ex/TheDevil:  No worries.  I’m almost to your place.  I’ll rescue them for you.

I was so caught off guard, not sure if he was messing with me but rattled with even the possibility of having to face him again, that I wasn’t sure how to respond.

I focused on the most immediate concern—hiding the Louboutins.

I intercepted Demi right as she was bringing the shoes back to the front door.  I grabbed them from her, throwing out a, “Thank you,” as I hurried back to my bedroom.  I stuffed them in the corner of my closet, threw some clothes on top, and rushed into the bathroom.

I glared at my reflection.  Why today of all days had I made no effort at all?  I’d showered and scrubbed my face clean of makeup the second we’d gotten home from our trip.  I’d washed my hair, but then let it dry as is, which meant it was basically a slightly damp rat’s nest at this point.

And my outfit could only be described as quirky.  In reality, quirky was kind.  I was wearing yoga pants and an oversized cat T-shirt.

At least it was a somewhat combative cat shirt.  The cat was sweet looking enough, a big, fluffy white thing surrounded by pink and blue flowers but at the bottom it read in clear black print: I WILL END YOU. 

It was really kind of perfect if I thought about it, so I kept the shirt on, switched the pants out for some tiny shorts that showed off my legs, and focused on my hair, dragging a brush through it and doing a quick blow dry, just enough to make it look tousled instead of messy.

I’d just applied the bare minimum of makeup when the doorbell rang again.

I knew it was him.  I could feel it in my flesh, just like I could feel my temper bubbling up under my skin, ready for any excuse to ignite.

I was irate that he had the nerve to clash with me again so soon.  He’d lost the last round.  It had been a clear knockout win for me.

He should have the decency to stay down.

I waited in my room, wondering if he’d go away if I just didn’t answer.

But I wasn’t so lucky, and Demi had the blasted habit of answering the front door.

It was her tentative knock outside my bedroom that jarred me into action.  That and her kind voice calling through, “Um, Scarlett, I’m sorry, but, uh, Dante, I mean, The Bastard, is at the front door and refuses to leave.  Should I call the cops on him or something?”

“Sic Amos on him,” I called back.  It was a lovely thought, but unfortunately, our mutt was incapable of violence.  He thought every creature in the world was his friend.

Stupid dog.  He should have been a bitter ball of hate.  He had, after all, been thrown in a dumpster by some neglectful son of a bitch.  Didn’t he know that the world was out to get him?

“I doubt that will work,” she countered through the door.  “You know Amos isn’t likely to cooperate.  We could just ignore him until he leaves.”

I sighed.  It was tempting, but I was not in the habit of taking the coward’s way.  Also, Dante was a stubborn son of a bitch.  I doubted he’d just go away after coming all the way here.

I’d face him, if only to rub my win from last night in his lying, manipulative, evil, shoe-buying face.

I opened my bedroom door and met Demi’s worried eyes.  “I’ll handle him.  Don’t worry about it.  And eat as many cupcakes as you want.  All of the red velvet ones are for you.”

She cursed me for that (even her curses came across sweet, and dammit, even cute) and left me to it.