Page 7 of Getting the Grinder
“Do we need some more drinks?” Suki asks. “Why don’t I get us a round of Cosmopolitans?”
“Nothing but water passes these lips until I lose ten pounds,” Dex says.
“Lies.” I glare at him. “You’re a cum-guzzling whore and we all know it.”
A hearty laugh bubbles out of him. “You’re goddamn right I am. But cum doesn’t have calories.”
“It has carbs, though,” Lainey says.
Dex’s head whips toward her. “What?”
She bursts out laughing. “I’m fucking with you.”
The rest of us start laughing, too, and Dex winks at me. I blow him a kiss because I know I was being bitchy. But nothing sets me off like Leo Abbott. He’s an arrogant, glib, overgrown frat boy.
If he ever gets a speeding ticket in Cuyahoga County, I’ll pursue the death penalty.
Okay, not really. But at some point, I’ll find a way to get even with him for walking in on me that day.
Chapter Three
Leo
* * *
“This is what I get for trusting you, isn’t it?”
I’m talking to a pig, so it’s not like I expect an answer, but I’m immediately suspicious when I don’t find Darling in the living room with me, where I’m sweeping up the dirt from a houseplant he knocked over.
It’s my second day alone with Darling, Carter’s new family puppy, and my new dog. I brought the mama dog home with me and named her Birdie because I love golf. The girls named their new puppy Noodle.
Between taking the dogs out and cleaning up after them and a four-hundred-eleven-pound pig, I’m always busy. How does Suki ever leave the house?
“Darling, get in here,” I call over my shoulder. “I know you’re lazy as fuck, but you’re acting like a toddler who just slammed a Red Bull.”
He likes being talked to, so when he doesn’t come waddling into the room with his massive ass wagging with excitement, I put down the broom and dustpan to go look for him.
When I walk into the kitchen, the refrigerator door is wide open. Darling is on the other side of the kitchen island, only his curly tail visible. Groaning, I move closer to see what he’s into now.
He looks up at me, a block of cheese in his mouth. I shake my head and glance at the refrigerator.
It’s ransacked. The pitcher of green tea I brewed and put in the fridge to cool is knocked over. It’s dripping off the shelves of the fridge, a pool of tea on the floor. Several containers of yogurt have tooth marks, some of them completely smashed. A trail of tiny white footprints stretches across the kitchen, ending where Noodle is licking a container of yogurt.
I pinch my brows together and glare at the pig, who gives zero fucks about the messes he made. “So you can open the fridge. That would’ve been good to know.”
His attention is back on the cheese. It’s a big hunk of cheddar, and it’s too dense for him to get a bite off of it. He sets the cheese down and cocks his head at me.
I bark a laugh at him. “You want my help with it? Yeah, I’ll get right on that, bro.”
He lies down and rolls to his side, unbothered, and I throw away the ruined food, wipe down the fridge and mop the tea from the floor.
“Okay, let’s finish the plant cleanup. Then maybe you can stop being a dick for five minutes. I’m always sneaking you food, so be cool.”
Suki showed me how to put him in his enclosure, which has thick metal bars and is filled with soft blankets and pillows. They had it built in their sunroom for when the whole family has to be gone.
I tried to get him to go into the enclosure before I left for my workout this morning, but he acted like he couldn’t hear me. Wouldn’t even budge. And while I’m strong, I’m not risking my back by trying to carry four hundred pounds of ambivalent swine.
Birdie is my shadow. Wherever I go, she follows. If I’m in the bathroom, she’s waiting outside the door. If I leave, she waits by the door I went out of. I took her to Carter and Suki’s veterinarian, who said she’s probably around four years old, but she’s an old soul.
