Page 246 of Come Back to Me

“Had a lot to achieve and didn’t want to do any of it on the back of my name.”

“I’m not sure how a douche canoe like Clyde made such good sons.”

“He had a lot of help from Mum and Mrs. Abelman.”

“And your Uncle Clay,” she tacks on softly.

“Yup, and Uncle Clay. He’s the reason I open doors for you.”

“I remember that’s his fault.” She laughs. “Not a bad problem to have to deal with.” Though I smirk at her, she tugs on my fingers. “Come on, let’s go back to the hotel. We can order room service and watch Netflix and you can ponder what the best move to make is for those ladies.”

“No, we’re shopping!”

“And your mind is elsewhere. I don’t need anything. I got my crystals. I saw you in the store, and you helped pick out a dildo for me?—”

“For us. Technically, that was all on you.”

“—that’s made my day. Now, I want Netflix and chill, but for it to be like the memes and less of me eating popcorn with Zee.”

I curl my arm around her waist and haul her into me. “I told you I was a lucky man.”

She smiles, shyly this time. “Guess we’re both lucky.”

Tee

A few days later

“Hello.”

Amy Nygard blinks twice as I slink into her hospital room, then squints and turns white.

Considering she almost died four times, that she can turn whiter is a miracle.

I twist around to glower at Cody who, against his original plan, is at my back. When she shifts her hands and covers her face from the pair of us, I grumble, “You were supposed to wait outside. You said we shouldn’t freak her out.”

“And did you wait outside the stables like I told you?”

“Four times.Four. I listened but it didn’t work.”

“You can’t expect to gentle a dog in four days.”

I flip him the bird, then grimace when my newly bitten finger stings at the gesture.

“W-What are you two talking about?”

We stop glowering at one another to turn and face her. She’s peering at us through her fingers, and if I didn’t know she was still a kid, that’d confirm it.

Being raised in an MC didn’t totally annihilate her innocence. Yay?

“I have a dog who hates me,” I inform her as I flounce in, the too-big, bright orange shirt Callan bought us all to commemorate the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation billowing around me. Plunking my bag beside her legs, I take a seat. “Cody gave me instructions, but he didn’t realize I’m not very good with them.”

“Neither’s Callan. Which makes no sense considering how smart you both are.”

“Maybe they think you’re not as smart as them,” she whispers.

I waggle my hand at her. “Callan might think that. I don’t. I like Cody’s brain. It’s very attractive. You just know his gray matter game is up there.”

Cody stares at me. “You think about my gray matter?”