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Shit.
Bella had knocked the cap off me last night about half a second after she attacked me at the door and wrapped herself around me like a spider monkey.
Wondering how she was going to play this off, I wandered closer to the opening of the hall as Bella evasively answered, “Is it?”
I peek into the front room just in time to see Gray send her an incredibly odd look.
“It has a Fox brand emblem on it,” he said, pointing. “Just like Fox always wears. Who else would it belong to?”
“Oh. Hmm.” Bella paused to clear her throat. “Well, I don’t know. He must’ve left it here the last time we all hung out.”
Gracen sent her another incredulous glance. “Weird,” he murmured. “I’ve never known Fox to go anywhere without his hat before. Can’t believe he’d forget it here for that
long.”
With a shrug, he bent the bill in half and stuffed it in his back pocket.
From the hall, I died a little inside and balled my hand into a fist. But, come on, man, I wanted to howl. Take it easy with my baby there. Did he seriously have to fold her like that? That hat was getting too old and brittle to handle with such brutality. And she was too faithful of a headpiece for me to give up on yet to buy a new one.
“I can give this back to him tonight,” Gracen was saying, completely oblivious to me expiring in the hallway. “The guys are going out for drinks later. I’m sure he’ll be there.”
Well, I definitely would be there now, just to get my hat back from that apparel-abusing maniac.
Glancing uneasily toward the hall and catching sight of me gripping my head in anguish and mouthing for her to save my damn hat, Bella whirled back to her brother and nodded. “That, uh, yeah. That sounds great. Thanks.”
What? No! That was not great. Not at all.
“Yep.” Gracen opened his arms and pulled her into a hug. “Take care. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“Sure.” She patted him on the back and sent me a warning glance over his shoulder to keep quiet.
I ignored it and jabbed my finger insistently toward Gray’s back pocket. But she didn’t oh-so-accidentally knock the hat loose as he pulled away. Nope. She just smiled up at him before he left, closing the door behind him.
With my hat still with him.
The latch had barely clicked shut after his departure before I shot into the living room.
Bella immediately turned to me, frowning. “Did he seem off to you—”
“He took my hat,” I charged needlessly. “Why the hell did you let him take my hat?”
She blinked. “What did you want me to do? Tackle him to the ground and wrestle the damn thing from his clutches?”
“Yes!” I cried. “I can’t go through an entire day without my hat. My head will feel naked.”
“Oh my God.” Pressing a hand to her brow, she shook her head and sighed before glancing up and lifting her eyebrows. “You’ll get it back tonight.”
“As if,” I snorted. “You know how forgetful Gray is. Who knows when he’ll remember to get it back to me? And I can’t directly ask for it, either. He’ll know I was here—with you—when he took it. And did you see the way he folded it? He freaking folded my hat. Then put it in his back pocket. My hat—that I wear on my head every damn day of the year—has now touched your brother’s ass. That is so not right.”
“Oh, you poor baby,” she cooed, coming in to clutch my face gently and kiss the side of my throat. “Do you want me to get you a new hat?”
“No,” I mumbled petulantly, only to tip my face to the side, letting her kiss more. “I want my hat back. It took me years to wear it in just right so it fit my head perfectly. It has my smell and it’s always there for me. A new hat would just be fucking wrong.”
With a groan, she pulled away. “Okay, fine. How about this?”
She picked up her phone from the coffee table and typed in a quick text. A second later, my own phone vibrated in my back pocket, where phones were meant to be kept. And wallets. But not fucking hats!
I pulled the phone free, only to realize Bella had group texted me, along with her brother.
