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You’re safe now.
She waved toward the small round kitchen table. “Let’s eat here. I don’t want to leave him alone.”
“Absolutely.” Jinx stared at the kitchen counters. “What’s to drink?”
Harper retrieved the bottles from her bedroom while Jinx grabbed soda from the fridge. Cleo got plates and napkins and pulled out a chair at the table.
With the bubbly and juice re-chilling, Harper finished off a slice of Napolitano pizza. Between bites, she glanced at the kitty to check his progress. But she couldn’t settle. “He needs a name.”
“You’re keeping him?” Jinx asked. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d do the same. I’m just checking you’ve had a chance to think this through.”
“I’ll take him to a vet first, get him scanned for a micro-chip, but yeah, if he has no owner.” Her next words tumbled out of her mouth. “I’d always wanted a pet. My parents wouldn’t allow it. Said an animal would shed too much hair in the house.” She’d been about to turn eight, standing before her father sharing her most-longed for birthday wish. ‘Do you want to make extra work for Greta?’ Her hopes of showering love on something precious crumbled under his scornful gaze. ‘How selfish of you, Harper.’
“Jesus, your parents are a couple of pills.” Jinx rolled her eyes as she reached for a second slice of pizza.
“A name, huh?” Cleo opened the second box and took a slice of mushroom, cheese, and sausage pizza. “He’s a little fighter to have lasted this long.”
“Plus, he has a way of charming the ladies.” Harper gazed back down at the kitty, now sitting on his tush and licking his paws.
A charmer. Brave. Tough. The face of her favorite TV crush popped into her head. Yes!
“Captain Malcolm Reynolds.” Firefly’s sexy anti-hero and a total hero to some women.
Cleo sighed. “The guy who’d lost so much. Dark, gorgeous and battle scarred.” The brunette’s mouth hardened. “I still haven’t forgiven a certain network. You know that, don’t you?”
“Honey, nobody has.” How could anyone pardon the cancelling of such a fabulous television show? It was a crime against all of TV viewer humanity. “But if we could move past that travesty and agree that this little guy is befitting the status of a brave, tough hero?”
“Works for me.” Jinx looked off into space. “Nathan Fillion, the thinking woman’s lust magnet.”
“True.” Cleo locked her crystal blue gaze on Harper. “But I hear your lust is now diverted toward a certain Aussie.”
She knew this was coming. Cleo had been away most of last week at a book fair in New York and had missed all the drama. “I’ve been…” Dating, having amazing sex, getting tied to the bed. “Seeing a guy.”
“Seth Justice,” Jinx supplied, ever helpful.
“Yeah, Seth. Tall, smart, and possessing deadly charm is how Jinx described him,” Cleo said.
And a great kisser. Let’s not forget that. Harper glanced down to catch Malcolm looking around, as if scouting opportunities for mischief. She scooped him up and cuddled him to her chest and smiled as his raspy tongue licked the tips of her pizza-flavored fingers. “That would be an accurate description.”
Cleo nodded at Jinx. “Blondie here caught me up on all the intrigue with those phony posts. I’m hooked and need more.”
“Not to intrude on your privacy and all”—Jinx scooted her chair closer and rested her arms on the table—“but tell us everything.”
Harper’s chuckle dried up as her friends kept staring. These were women on a mission. “Okay, let’s change into our comfy clothes and set up our Angel-world’s-sexiest-vampire marathon. Then I’ll share some info.”
“She’s holding out on us.” Cleo twisted her lips as she collected their plates.
“Don’t worry, we have all night,” Jinx assured the other woman. “We’re sleeping over, remember?”
Oh, God.
Twenty minutes later, Harper sat at one end of her sofa with Malcolm curled on her lap. The kitty was fast asleep, snuggled into the soft material of Harper’s old MTV Daria T-shirt and grey track pants.
Open bags of Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups and plain M&Ms covered the coffee table, along with a bowl of cake batter cookie dough. Between treats, cocktails, and Netflix, they were set for the evening.
Jinx nudged the turquoise and brown patterned cushions behind her back as she settled deeper into the other end of the sofa. “I can feel my hips expanding as I eat these Reece’s cups, but I don’t care.” She licked her finger and dabbed at the stray flecks of chocolate on her Jessica Rabbit T-shirt and red pj bottoms.
Harper dropped the spoon back into her bowl of cookie dough. “Cleo, I’m about to have a foodgasm over this cake batter yumminess. And it’s got sprinkles, too. I need this recipe.”
