Page 60 of You're so Bad

“You told me you were relieved that I wasn’t with Colter.”

“I am, but it doesn’t make her any less of a homewrecker,” she says primly. “We invited her to our home God knows how many times, and this is how she chose to repay us?”

“How much time do you and Leonard spend together, anyway?”

She ignores that question and asks, “Did the pompom trick work?”

“Sort of,” I say, scrunching up my face.

“Good. By the way, I didn’t just encourage him because I thought it might upset Bianca,” she says loftily. “Although Idolove the thought. That boy’s been through a lot. I figured it would be good for him, especially…”

“Let me guess,” I grumble. “Especially after what happened to Gidget.”

“Well, yes.”

“He told you what happened?” I ask, sounding a little more confrontational than I meant to. It’s just, shit, I got the sense that Gidget’s fate was an upper-level confidence—it’s certainly one he hasn’t shared with me. If I’d known they were this close, I would have thought twice before letting him go down on me.

Actually, no, because I can still feel the way he absolutely buried his face between my legs, licking and sucking like he liked what he was doing. Like helovedit. Colter went down on me when we were together, but it always felt like it was out of duty—if you do me, I’ll do you. This…this was something else. I shift a little in my seat, because it’s not a good look to be turned on in front of your grandmother.

“Not as such,” she says, and I feel a twinge of relief, because this is her roundabout way of saying she doesn’t know jack. “But I know it still hurts him.”

She’s right about that.

“So what are we going to do to stop him?” I ask. “He wanted me to swing by this morning to bring him to the animal shelter.”

“Car trouble seems to be going around,” she says archly, pausing for a sip of her coffee.

“What if he calls one of his friends for a ride?”

She taps her pen over top of the crossword puzzle, prompting Bertie to look up. I reach my leg over and pet him with my foot. “It would be an easy thing to persuade them to have some car trouble too,” she says. “Or…” She looks up at me. “I have another idea, but it involves some dishonesty.”

What doesn’t lately?

“Nana, can you tell me something truthfully?” Maybe it’s foolish to ask, given what she just said.

“Maybe,” she answers, so at least she’s being honest about the possibility that she might be dishonest.

“Are you trying to set me up with Leonard?”

She tuts her tongue and glances down at the puzzle, filling in a square. “Whatever gave you that idea? I love the boy like he was mine, but he’s hardly suitable.”

It’s a mark of my own absurdity that I’m disappointed.

* * *

“I’m still so fucking pissed,”Leonard says, rubbing his jaw. It’s hours later, after our trip to the animal shelter, and we’re on our way to Camp Smileshine for the adult sleepover. “Can you believe it? Who would hurt a kitten? I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous thing.”

Icanbelieve it, actually.

My grandmother made a call, because she is a freaking consigliere. When we showed up at the animal shelter earlier with Bean, Leonard was quiet and withdrawn, his mouth a flat slash in his face and his eyes flinty. The closed-off look is also sexy as hell on him, although maybe that’s just the flutter between my legs talking. Being around him is a constant reminder of what he did to me last night. A promise of what he might do to me tonight.

The attendant at the desk told him they only had room for so many cats, and a hoarder had turned in her stash of animals last night. If he left the kitten there, she said, Bean would almost certainly be euthanized within the day.

A flat-out lie.

But for someone schooled in lies, Leonard didn’t pick up on that. I think it’s because he wants to keep her, because for all his bitching to me—andatthe attendant, who took it stoically—he hasn’t once complained about the need to keep Bean. Nor has he suggested bringing her to another shelter or putting up an ad. In fact, he took her out of her crate and cuddled her to his chest after we left the shelter, as if he was worried she might have heard us discussing her impending doom.

She’s staying with my grandmother tonight. You’d think Bertie would be the boss in this particular game, but he took one sniff at Bean, she swiped at him with her tiny paw, and now he runs to the nearest soft surface whenever she looks at him.

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