Page 10 of Confessions of a Canine Drama Queen

He smirked. “I’m not sure calling a woman Puss in Boots is much of a tip. Something tells me that might specifically be ayouthing.”

“Maybe it is,” she replied loftily.

“Although, what did you say? He can call you whatever he likes so long as he takes you to Pleasuretown?” Amusement crinkled the edges of his eyes in the sexiest and yet most irritating way. “But no bailing in the morning.”

“What’s wrong with that?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Can’t a woman express her desire for sexual satisfactionandcommitment in this day and age?”

“Hey, fly your freak flag free, Puss in Boots.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked, deciding to ignore the gibes. That was Keaton’s MO. Whenever he was around her for more than a second, he took great pleasure in winding her up like she was one of those Christmas nutcracker soldiers.

“Leah said she was having issues with her internet and she wanted me to take a look at it.”

August forced herself not to smile. For all the bad things she could say about Keaton, it was impossible to deny how much he loved his sister. Enough to make the trek over the bridge whenever she asked, no matter the size of the request, even when he could easily afford to send someone over to do whatever was needed.

He always came himself.

“Have you ever noticed how Leah randomly invites me over whenever you’re here?” he asked suddenly, narrowing his eyes like it had only just dawned on him.

“Ihavenoticed that, actually.” August pulled on the hem of her top. She was pretty sure she had a mixture of animal fur dusted all over her from work, and she knew for a fact that her red hair had left curly behind three hours ago and straight up entered Frizzville. “Why do you think that might be?”

He lifted one shoulder into a sexy shrug. “Maybe she’s trying to set us up.”

That confirmed her suspicions. The last three times that August had visited, Keaton happened to show up. Leah always made some flippant comment about getting her days mixed up or her mind being a little scrambled, but then she would find an excuse to disappear and leave August and Keaton alone.

Which was hilarious. Because the thought of August and Keaton being together was like...

Well, it was so preposterous that she couldn’t think of an example ridiculous enough to represent it. Orange juice and toothpaste? Peanut butter and anthrax?

At one point we might have worked...but not now.

She could practically feel the chill on her skin, the way the snowflakes had drifted down and caught in their hair, and smell the champagne on his breath and cologne on his skin. The flip of her stomach as his green eyes blackened and turned hungry. The feeling of his lips coming down to hers...before she chickened out.

Before he fell head over heels for someone else. Before August wondered if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.

“I can’t imagine that being the case,” August replied primly, doing her best to shake the old-but-annoyingly-not-forgotten memory from her head. “And even if it was, Leah is barking up the wrong tree.”

“I’m not your type, huh?” He walked over and leaned a hand on the kitchen counter, crowding August against the cabinets.

She tipped her face up to his and looked him right in the eye. “Not if you were the last man on earth, Keaton Sax.”

“Oof, right in the ego.” Keaton pressed a hand to his chest, but it was all for show.

He knew without a doubt that August’s answer was one hundred percent bullshit. If not that, then at the very least, it was ninety-nine percent bullshit and one percent blissful ignorance. Because he still remembered August mooning over him as a teenager.

“Good thing you have plenty of ego to go around,” she replied with a saccharine smile.

“Oh come on,” he said, pulling his lips up into a smirk that he knew would drive her bananas. “I once remember a young ginger-haired girl staring at me through the kitchen window as I mowed the lawn with my shirt off. You didn’t seem to mind me then.”

Her cheeks grew pink and it seemed to make her hair look even more red. “That was a long time ago.”

“And yet you remember it like it was yesterday.”

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do...” She snapped her mouth shut, realizing that she was falling right into his trap. “How is it that I revert to being thirteen years old around you?”

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