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She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with the hand that hadn’t just shaken my own. “I had a super long night. Turns out, if you’re highly allergic to a dog, and you kick them out, they can try to sue you.”
My mouth fell open. “That was you?” I blurted.
She blinked. “What?”
I gestured toward Mattie. “We had a mishap at her clinic last night. Her brothers tried to burn it down. When we got there, the sheriff said he’d just come from a call, a domestic dispute, of a man that tried to break into a girl’s house. He explained a little about what was going on. That was you?”
“That was me,” she grumbled. “This has been going on for months now. And I’ve had to deal with it all by myself and try not to lose my grandfather’s house while I’m at it.”
“Sounds like you could use a drink.” I dropped my hand on her shoulder. “Come on over. I’ll buy you a few rounds.”
She looked toward my table but started to shake her head the moment that she got a whiff of who was at it.
“I can’t,” she disagreed. “He doesn’t like me.”
I looked over to find Cassius glaring at us.
Not us.
Me.
And my hand that was on Alice’s shoulder.
I dropped it, and his scowl loosened infinitesimally.
“Cassius is a big boy. And you’re a big girl. Y’all are going to have to get used to this if y’all are going to be working in the same environment with me. He helps out from time to time if he has a free moment to spare. And you, being my newest assistant, will have plenty of interaction with him seeing as he’s a boat pilot,” I pointed out.
She scrunched up her nose in defeat, and I knew I had her.
“Plus, you can sit on the side with the girls,” Matilda offered. “Cassius is all the way at the other end.”
“Fine.” She walked with us to the table, and I introduced her as my newest hire.
“Nice to meet you, Alice.” KD gave her a grin.
Cassius kicked him under the table, causing KD to squawk.
“Hey!” he cried out.
“Hey, Wake,” I heard Dutch call. “Will you braid my hair?”
We turned to find Wake shaking his head. “I don’t have a hair tie.”
“I do!” Alice cried, pulling at least eighteen small ones out of her pocket. “I do my friends’ daughter’s hair. I did it today.”
He held his hand out, but she brought it back to her. “You can only have these if you promise to do my hair, too.”
Wake sighed.
“Me, three!” Diana cried.
They all looked to Matilda next.
She was already shaking her hair. “No offense, guys, but I have curly as fuck hair. There’s no way in hell that he’ll be able to do it.”
Wake grinned.
I saw the challenge in his eyes.
“If you can handle me pulling your hair, I can do it,” he countered.
So that was how Wake ended up braiding four girls’ hair in the bar while we all looked on.
“I feel like maybe I need to learn this skill,” Bain said to me. “Like it’s something that I should know, and don’t.”
“Tell me about it,” I grumbled.
CHAPTER 15
Hating people takes too much energy. Pretending they’re dead is more my style.
-Matilda to Etienne
MATILDA
Etienne: you still mad at me?
Me: yes
Why was I mad at Etienne?
Because he’d told me, point blank, that I was a pain in his ass.
Why did he call me a pain in his ass?
Because I was being one.
Why was I being one?
Because I couldn’t fucking help it.
I didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t allowed to take me with him on this run that they’d gone on. Even though Dutch had gone with Wake. And a girl that I didn’t know had gone with KD.
Even worse, he hadn’t called me in what I thought was an appropriate amount of time, making me wonder whether or not he noticed that I wasn’t talking to him.
Why hadn’t he taken me? Because he’d said that I needed to work.
I did, in fact, need to work.
In fact, I was slammed pack busy.
That didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be invited. I would’ve turned him down, but I certainly would’ve liked to be asked to go before I gently reminded him that I was a professional now.
That, and he was slightly worried about me not being here in case something happened with the clinic.
It being almost finished meant that someone needed to be here to pay attention—and that would be me. Or so he said.
Really, I just thought maybe he and his friends were going to do something dangerous, and didn’t want me around in case it went south.
Plus, protecting two girls was completely different than protecting four.
Double plus, I was a bit of a handful. I wouldn’t have gone without first knowing what I was getting myself into.
