Page 82 of Beware of Dog

“I was for sure the only guy in that whole shop who’d gotten laid in a year,” Shep said. “Buncha nerds.” Then his tone veered toward self-conscious. “The guy at the counter said this is where all the best Punisher stories are.”

She nodded.

“You know: since your main kink is guys named Frank or some shit.”

She elbowed him, lightly, then tipped her head back for a readily given kiss. “Thank you for braving the comic book store for me.”

He sighed, and feigned trauma. “You’re welcome,” he said, solemnly, and then cracked up when she grinned.

Next was a thick, insulated leather riding jacket with a hood, banded cuffs, and a button throatlatch. She knew it hadn’t been cheap.

“That night I picked you up, you might as well have been wearing a paper jacket for all the good it did.”

She owned warm coats, puffers, and parkas, and all manner of belted numbers Raven had pressed upon her. But this was a jacket for riding, for sitting behind him on the bike on cold nights, and she hugged it to her chest and breathed the clean, new smell of leather off the collar.

The last was the least expected, and the one that made her eyes sting. She pulled the lid off a small, flat white box that rattled strangely, and found Shep’s dog tags. The dented, tarnished tags he’d worn as an Army Ranger.

“Oh,” she murmured, and smoothed her thumb over the letters.

SHEPHERD,

FRANCIS T.

1194732291

A POS

CATHOLIC

“I’m not any good at picking out jewelry,” he said. “Otherwise I would have…but you asked about these, a while back, and—”

He stopped talking when she slipped the chain over her head and turned to kiss him.

Twenty-Two

It was two more weeks before shit hit the fan.

~*~

“I gotta go meet Kat,” Shep announced while they were rinsing the breakfast dishes.

“Kat Rydell?”

“Yeah. He said it was ‘important.’” He did air quotes and rolled his eyes, but they both knew Prince’s crew didn’t reach out unless it reallywasimportant.

“Jamie’s coming into the city this morning,” she said. “She wouldn’t text me back at all for the longest time, but she wants to have coffee before I go to class.” She was choosing to take it as a hopeful sign.

Shep, though, frowned as he slotted plates into the dishwasher. “Want me to come with?”

“Because she reacted so well the last time she saw you? No, but thank you,” she added, when his nose wrinkled up, and tickled his stomach through his shirt in the way he liked when she sidled past him at the sink.

They finished up in the kitchen, donned their jackets, and Cass gathered her bag. He kissed her on the sidewalk and put her in a cab with instructions to text him when she got to the coffeeshop and then when she got to class. It was all very domestic and left her warm and humming. A happiness high that lasted up until she walked into Starbucks and caught sight of Jamie jammed in a corner table in the back of the shop.

She looked like hell. Pale, with sleepless circles as dark as bruises under her eyes, hair scraped back in a greasy bun. Shewore thick, shapeless clothes, and sat hunched forward over the table, both hands wrapped around a to-go cup.

Cass’s smile froze, and then slipped. She hustled across the shop, dismayed at the way Jamie startled when she approached.

“Hi.” She slid into the chair across from Jamie, relieved to see Jamie’s shoulders drop when she recognized Cass. She didn’trelax, though.

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