Page 57 of Beware of Dog

Sixteen

Cass was prepared for a variety of responses. A sharp bark of laughter, because he thought she was joking. A hard, swiftno, are you insane? You’re a kid, and I only fuck grown-ass women. Or, worse, a sneer, and a head toss, and a description of the last woman he’d been with, and all the ways Cass couldn’t hope to measure up. This possibility left her stomach cramping, head filling with images of blonde bombshells and smoky poolhalls. Or he might blow up, all his anger finally unleashed in a shouting, cursing tirade.

What she didn’t expect, however, was exactly what she got: silence. Humming, dread-laced, expressionless silence.

She let it drag out for five seconds. Ten. Fifteen.Twenty. Shep didn’t blink.

She didn’t think thatshewould laugh until a high, half-crazed giggle bubbled out of her. She covered, and then just as quickly uncovered her mouth. “Are you frozen? Did I freeze you?”

Still, he didn’t blink.

She took a deep breath, and sighed it back out. “Francis.”

He finally spoke, his voice like gravel under tires. “Stop saying my name.”

“Do you not like it?” He blinked some more, and Cass could feel her bravery shrinking up like cotton candy in the rain. But because she was, at heart, as he always said, a little brat, she kept going. “Do you not like my birthday request?” Fear crawled through her insides, cold and sharp. Outright rejection would be crushing.

But he didn’t reject her.

His throat jerked in a painful-looking way when he swallowed. Cass could hear the bone-dry click of it across the table. His eyes went very big, and very dark, and Cass realized, with a thrill, that this was the opposite of a dismissal. “Cassie,” he rasped. “Don’t—don’t ask me for that.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “Why not?”

He looked pained for a split-second, and then wiped at his jaw, schooled his features. “Don’t ask methateither, college girl. You know all the reasons why not.”

She could guess them, at least, and none of them felt like insurmountable inevitabilities, not like they were when she’d had crushes on Lean Dogs before. This wasn’t acrush. She’d cried like the child she still was when she learned Reese wanted to kiss her brother instead of her, but even then she’d known she’d simply been infatuated, that she hadn’t had any sort of connection with Reese. Same with Toly, and she hadn’t even shed a tear then. It had been more of a sigh, an “always a bridesmaid, never a bride” sense of being too young and too discounted by the adult outlaws around her.

In no way had Shep ever made her feel too young or too discounted, not even when he called himself her “babysitter.”

She said, “Are you afraid of my family?” just to be a shit.

His head kicked back, familiar frown lines tugging at his forehead. “I’ll punch your whole goddamn family in the face.” Then his frown shifted to a more thoughtful one. “I mean…probably not the baby. But I’dpayto hit Tenny.”

Cass bit down hard on a smile.

“Shep,” she said, when she had her grin under control. “Did you know you’re my best friend?”

The stricken look on his face was funny, and a little bit heartbreaking.

“You’re my favorite person,” she continued. “Out of everyone. I would always rather watch crap telly with you thanspend time with anyone from school. And I like to argue with you, and steal sips out of your glass, and I like—”

He held up a hand—she stopped—and then he put his hands on the table and bowed his head. “Cassie,” he pleaded.

God, but she loved when he called her that. It made her want to hug him, and breathe his cologne off the collar of his shirt.

More quietly, losing steam, she said, “If you think I’d rather have some boy my own age, or that I’ll change my mind, I won’t.”

He shook his head, still bent.

Then the door opened.

Cass wanted to shout with dismay.

Shep jerked upright and whipped toward the soft click of the lock.

Melissa entered, looking peeved, swiping back loose tendrils from her ponytail. “Okay, so, Bryce is a little piece of shit.”

“Whaaaat?” Shep said with an exaggerated brow lift. “Who’dathunkthat?”

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