Page 33 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

What he meant was, he’d talk to Jules and Jules would talk to Shirleen.

Slowly, as time went by, it was shifting (case in point, the curfew and text). But Shirleen deferred a lot to Jules. She looked to her for guidance with the boys.

It was smart. She was a childless woman who took on two runaway teenagers. And Jules had a lot of experience with runaway teenagers.

But she was finding her way, and Jules would eventually guide her into taking over.

Though now, someone had to teach them how to drive.

That was going to be him, but it was Jules who would talk to Shirleen about it.

Their relief filled the cab.

“I’m waiting!” Shirleen called from the open doorway to her house where she was standing.

“She’s gonna go over homework Monty already went over,” Roam muttered. “Even knowin’ Monty went over it.”

“Let her,” Vance advised. “She gets something important out of it. It’s no hassle for you to give it to her, so give it to her.”

Roam nodded.

“You da man,” Sniff said.

Vance sighed.

Sniff punched him in the shoulder and swung out. Roam held up a closed fist, Vance bumped it, then he swung out.

Vance waited until the door closed on that new family, then he reversed out of Shirleen’s drive.

When he got home, Boo was waiting at the back door for him, filled with news of his day.

Vance ended the conversation by picking him up and curling him like a baby to his chest.

He then went right to Boo’s treats.

Boo was snarfing them down, fingers to fangs, when Jules strolled in.

Vannce’s heartrate, never quite right when he was away from her, settled.

Her gaze went from him to her cat, back to him.

“The vet said he was chonky,” she reminded him.

Vance quit feeding him treats because Boo turned his pointy face her way and glowered at her.

“Cats are supposed to be chonky,” he returned, which meant he got Boo’s attention again, so he gave him another treat.

Jules came fully into the kitchen and rested a hip to the counter. “They’re not. If they were, the vet wouldn’t have pointed out he was chonky.”

Vance answered that by giving Boo another treat.

“We talked about this, Crowe,” Jules snapped. “We’re supposed to cut down on his treats, not give him more.”

He’d never told her Boo had barely eaten while she was in the hospital. And if she didn’t notice her cat had lost weight, he wasn’t going to point it out. She’d had her recovery to concentrate on. She didn’t need to worry about her pet.

Therefore, as far as Vance was concerned, he and Boo were working on getting him back to his fighting weight.

He fed him another treat.

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