Page 27 of Beware of Dog

Lost in her own spiral, she didn’t notice at first that Shep was studying the page with great concentration, squinting a little in a way that pressed lines at the outer corners of her eyes. He needed to start using reading glasses, she thought.

“This is really good,” he said, after a beat. Straightened the board with a careful touch at the very corner. “Like…reallygood.”

“Thanks,” she said, feeling awkward.

“It looks realistic, you know? Not like that normal comic book shit.”

“Aaaand, you ruined it.” She sighed, and returned to the edge of the bed. “Why are you here, Shep? I’m not supposed to have boys in my dorm.”

“You don’t,” he said, easily, and dragged out the desk chair to sit facing her, closer than he would have been if he’d sat on Jamie’s bed. He kicked out his leg and thumped the toe of his boot into hers. Grinned. “You have amanin your dorm.”

She gave him her least impressed look, and he shrugged and got serious.

“Your friend got raped, right? That’s why you went to Dixon?”

Sometimes, she didn’t realize how much effort she expended out in the real, civilized world; how much work it was to talk politely of polite things and pretend to be scandalized by the notion of violent men doing violent things under cover of night. Also, truthfully, she had no idea how to be the kind of soft Jamie needed from her right now.

She scooted back against the wall so her legs stuck straight off the bed, and then was sad that he could no longer tap-tap-tap his boot to hers. “Yeah, she was raped. When she told me, I took her to Sex Crimes and Melissa took her statement. Then Melissa drove us over to the hospital so they could do a rape kit. The investigation is ongoing.”

He made a quick, almost-sympathetic face. “Tough break. Where’d it happen?”

“At the guy’s house.”

“So she knows who raped her?”

When she hesitated, he hitched up straighter in the chair; the wood creaked beneath his weight.

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I don’t like you giving me the run-around is what I don’t like. Spit it out.”

“It was…” His eyes were an interesting shade of brown, coppery now in the glow of the sunlight, green at the outer edges, fixed on her face and intent as a panther’s. “It was Sig.”

“Iknew it.” He jumped up and paced the length of the room; spun back around, shoulders rolling and arms lifting out at his sides, ready for a fight. “I knew that little fucker was trouble.” He aimed a finger at her. “I told you!”

“Well, he’s not here now, so put your dukes down.”

He skated her a scathing look and continued to pace, cracking his knuckles. “I shoulda put that little shit in the hospital. I shoulda broken both his hands. Shoulda broken hisdick.”

Cass marveled a moment, because she wasn’t used to seeing Shep worked up like this. For almost three years he’d dogged her steps, guarding her at the club’s behest, but he was nothing if not laconic and unfazed about his duties. Now, though, anger radiated off him like steam.

To be fair, things had been very stable and safe for a while. Perhaps he was out of practice dealing with an active threat, like a man losing his alcohol tolerance after a stint of sobriety.

“No,” she reasoned, “then you’d be in prison.” When he shot her another of thosedon’t be an idiotlooks, as ifshewas the one acting irrationally in this situation, she said, “Would you like to hear the details? Or shall you continue going off the rails?”

“Stop being so fucking British,” he muttered, but returned to the chair and sat heavily. Hooked an arm over the back of it and gave her his unswerving, too-intense attention.

Cass gave him a succinct recounting of Jamie’s story, from their argument, their week of frosty (on Jamie’s end) silence, to the coffeeshop, to Sig’s bedroom at his parents’ townhouse.

Shep’s gaze remained pinned to her throughout, though the attentiveness was comforting, rather than discomfiting. Aside from the occasional blink he didn’t move, and when she was finished, he shook his head, gaze finally shifting lower, somewhere down around her feet. “At least he left you alone.”

“Shep.”

“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry about your friend, yeah,” he said, not at all sincerely, “but I told that shitstain to back off of you, and he did. So…” He shrugged.

“Well, he did back off of me, straight onto Jamie.”

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