Page 30 of Always Salty

They got to go outside in the yard for some fresh air and sunlight, didn’t they?

I could probably kill him there…

“…You are not stronger than a man, Dorie,” I heard my woman say.

My woman.

Jesus, I was fucked in the head if I saw her as my woman and we’d had no other communication other than possibly fifteen words in a back alley behind a sex club.

“I probably am!” she stated emphatically. “At least some men.”

Keely looked toward the woman who had her back to her and shook her head, as if she seriously couldn’t fathom how crazy in the head her friend actually was.

“No, but seriously. I really am,” the woman, also known as Doris Patterson, which was shortened to Dorie, maintained. “You are, too.”

I snorted.

Dorie and Keely had about six inches separating them in height, and from what I guessed, twenty-five pounds. Though it looked like Keely worked out—and her credit card statement showed that she paid for a gym membership—she was a little bit of a thing.

Short and grumpy at first sight, she reminded me of a squirrel that could go rabid and crazy in a blink of an eye.

Dorie, on the other hand, did look like she spent a lot of time in the gym. She looked like she was strong, but she wasn’t stronger than a man. Some men might think twice about trying anything with her, but they certainly would get her on the ground if they truly wanted to.

I wasn’t saying that strength and appearance didn’t deter some individuals, but there were a lot of crazy people out there, and sometimes their determination outweighed their common sense.

“Again, friend, we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one,” Keely said. “Do you have the sleep results for Richard Morgan?”

Dorie rolled her eyes and said, “I’ll prove it to you.”

“You’ll prove what to me?” Keely asked.

“That you’re strong,” she said.

Keely sighed. “Okay, then.”

I narrowed my eyes, not liking the look of determination in Dorie’s eyes.

But Dorie seemed to release whatever determination that she was feeling because she started talking about sleep results, this week’s work schedule, and anything else under the sun that she could babble about.

By the end of the night I knew Keely’s next two weeks’ schedule, her favorite Thai place, and where she wanted to go on vacation next year.

Which was, apparently, something that she did every year by herself.

My phone rang in my hand as I was about to look up places to hike in Hawaii.

My brother’s name flashed across the screen, and I sighed long and loud.

I answered a few rings later and said, “Hello?”

“Hey,” Shasha said. “I need a favor.”

“The babysitting kind?” I asked hopefully.

I loved Shasha’s kids.

“No.” He didn’t say anything more on the subject. “Meet me at my office in town.”

I looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s barely after one in the morning. It can’t wait?”

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