Page 120 of Tell Me Something True

And that she could fix him.

Ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

God. For someone so well-adjusted, she sure could be an idiot.

She cleared her throat and Reed glanced over his shoulder, and in that moment, she saw everything she didn’t want to see. The way his eyes widened with surprise as he shot to his feet. How he took a quick, appreciative scan of her from head to toe before he tore his gaze away. How he swallowed thickly and wiped the palms of his hands down the front of his coveralls.

How he muttered something under his breath that looked a whole lot like the word fuck.

Same, pretty boy. Same.

“We’re ready for Titus,” she told him.

When Titus heard her voice, he got to his feet and moved to Reed’s side, his tail thumping against Reed’s legs with a happy, thwack, thwack, thwack.

And she saw the quills sticking out of Titus’s face.

The many, many quills.

“Oh, poor baby,” she crooned, rushing over and crouching in front of Titus.

The majority of quills covered the lower half of his face, like a prickly, painful beard, with several in his nose and a couple close to his right eye, so she was able to gently stroke the top of his head.

“You got yourself into a mess, didn’t you?” she asked Titus.

Beside her Reed shifted. “It wasn’t his fault.”

And it was patently ridiculous that just the sound of his voice, so low and husky, did the things to her that it did.

Like make her want to ask him to keep talking. About his dog or the weather or what he ate today. To beg him to share all his thoughts with her. All the things he kept hidden from everyone else. What he liked. What he disliked.

Besides her, of course.

What he hoped for. What he was afraid of.

Again, besides her.

“You can fill Dr. McNabb in on the details,” she told him.

“I left him tied up out back, behind our garage, when I went to work this morning,” Reed said, because he was nothing if not contrary, and instead of taking the hint, instead of remembering their agreement, he was talking to her. Purposely. When usually, she had to yank each and every precious word from his mouth.

Bad boy rebels. They loved to keep a girl on her toes.

“When I came home,” he continued as he crouched next to her, his low voice ragged and full of guilt, “he was like this.”

While she refused to soften toward him, she couldn’t just crouch there and let him suffer. She wasn’t a monster.

“As long as it was less than twenty-four hours,” she said, “he should be fine. These things happen.”

Her tone was soft, but definitely maintained a hint of chilliness.

Hey, she might not be a monster, but she also wasn’t a masochist. And each of the previous times she’d softened toward this boy, she’d ended up hurt.

“It was my fault,” he said so quietly, she found herself leaning toward him, only to jerk herself upright again. He set his hand on Titus’s nape, his long fingers tanned and stained with oil, the knuckles scraped. “I never should have tied him up back there, but my old man was…” He stopped. Shook his head, then blew out a breath and held her gaze. “I thought I was keeping him safe, but Titus hates being tied up.”

He faced her and she realized how close they were, his knee touching her thigh. So close she could make out the strands of darker gold in his patchy whiskers. The dark, navy rim around the bright blue irises of his eyes. “He couldn’t get away.”

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