Page 162 of Beware of Dog

All of that was useless sideline opinion-throwing by people with cartoon avatars.

But then she got to the accounts of her fellow students at NYU. There were a few defenders, but mostly it was hate. Vicious, vitriolic, blame-laying hate.

She only read a handful of Tweets before she stacked the papers back up, tapped them together on the table, and set them aside. Dry-eyed, she turned to her dad, and said, “So.”

“So.” He nodded. “Your sister, of course, wants you to pull out of school.”

Her brows lifted. “‘Of course?’ Raven’s been more insistent than anyone that I get my degree.”

“That was before she thought half your graduating class wanted you dead,” Devin said, bluntly.

“Thanks,” she drawled.

“It’s your decision if you continue, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

To her left, Shep rested his elbows on the table and said, “People can audit classes, right? I could go with you.” And he absolutely meant it. It was all too easy to imagine him shadowing her, surly and scary and thoroughly out of place in all of her classes.

She grinned at the idea, but shook her head. “Yes, but no. You’re not going to terrorize my professors.” She glanced between the two of them, not allowing herself to be swayed by Shep’s kicked-puppy frown. “I’m going to finish my degree, and I’m going to do it in person. When we get back to New York, I’m going to make an appointment with the dean and explain in no uncertain terms that I willnottolerate any threats or harassment from other students or faculty, no matter how well-liked Sig was.”

Devin chuckled. “You sound like your sister.”

“Good. It’s far past time I do.”

Later, lying in the sprawling canopied bed in the seashell-themed master bedroom for the last time, Cass said, “I’ve been thinking about something.”

When Shep hummed in inquiry, the sound vibrated through his shoulder, and into her face, where her cheek rested against him; through her hand, where it lay on his chest, above the steady beat of his heart. He sounded as awake as she felt; the dream had come to an end, and neither of them was ready, though they both knew it was time to go home.

“I don’t think it’s going to be possible to go back to the way things were. People will know who I am, now, and they’ll have opinions about it.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Shep said, with feeling. “They don’t know you, they don’t get to have an opinion.”

She snorted, and scratched at his chest with her nails. “That’s very sweet, but you can’t stop opinions.”

He grumbled a sound that meant he wanted to try.

“I’ve been thinking about my connections,” she said, and she had been, these past two lazy, sun-drenched weeks. “If you hadn’t come to get me that night at the party, if I hadn’t been able to call you…Sig would have gotten me back inside, and he would have…”

His hand tightened on her waist, a spasm that conveyed a wealth of feeling and hypothetical fury at the idea.

“And,” she continued, “if I’d gone to the police, the Blackmons would have tried to scare me like they tried to scare Jamie. But without the Lean Dogs, I wouldn’t have been able to keep myself safe. I would have had to close my mouth, and drop the accusation, and he would have gotten away with it. My connections saved me. They saved Jamie.”

He took an unsteady breath. “They got you shot.”

“No. They would have tried to kill me anyway. But my husband was an Army medic, and he saved my life.” She pushed up on an elbow so she could peer down at his face in the dark, the wet shine of his eyes and the shadows under his cheekbones and jaw. “And then my husband and my brothers went and killed all those fuckers so they can never threaten anyone ever again.”

He blinked, and even in the dim, ocean-blue glow of night, she could see the way he stared fixedly at her, fascinated.

She said, “The club doesn’t endanger me. It makes me stronger. Just like my sister does. I’ve rejected her offers of a clothing line over and over again because I wanted to get where I wanted to be on my own merit. But if I can use my art skills, and be as creative as I want, why wouldn’t I use my connection to her to make my life easier?” She stroked his cheek with her thumb, skin catching along the nighttime stubble. “Why wouldn’t I makemy life, and my family, safer by using my art to earn a good living?”

The shadows that lay softly against his throat jumped when he swallowed. “I dunno. Why not?”

“Why not,” she echoed, and bent down to kiss him.

~*~

When faced with a public that not only knew your identity, but felt strongly about whether you deserved to live peacefully or answer for imaginary crimes, there were really only two ways to approach daily life: hide away, keep your head down, and wear a lot of hats and sunglasses; or hold your head high and strut proudly.

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