Page 247 of Entangled

Whatever the doc did to “fix” the water line should be used in engineering manuals—How to Be Totally Fucking Inept: A Step-by-Step Guide to Shitting on Jaykob’s Day. How the hell is he a doctor? If his brain was half the size of his ego, I might not have had to spend six damn hours refitting every inch of pipehedestroyed beyond repair. The thing was spraying water like a sprinkler, just hours away from bursting and taking out our water supply for good.

Eden wants him, and he can’t even solve a basic household problem.

Eden can’t live in a leaky house.

She doesn’t have a clue what’s good for her. I’ve lived with those assholes for years, and they’re selfish, ungrateful, whiney dicks. I know I’m no prince, but I ain’t blind—Miss Manners likes that. She likesme, and who the fuck am I to say she shouldn’t?

I want to keep her.

Wanting her has gone past need and right into obsession. I’m obsessed with her soft little mouth, and her plush tits, and the way she quivers under me like my perfect prey. I’m obsessed with how she talks, and fights, and how she listens with her whole attention—like what I’m saying matters, and she doesn’t care I don’t say it fancy. I’m obsessed with all the steel under her prim politeness. She clawed her way to surviving, just like me.

She just had prettier nails doing it.

My rough-ass hands have no business being near her, but she wants to hold them. She wants them on her,inher.

But she doesn’t want to be in my bed every night.

She doesn’t want to be by my side all the damn time.

She only wants me when she’s not wantingthem.

Those fuckheads are ruining everything for me again. I won’t share a house with them, let alone my woman.

I can’t do this sharing shit. I have to walk. Ishouldwalk.

But why should they get to keep her? They can’t even keep a pipe intact.

Kasey takes my tools, then jumps up to sit on the ledge, wiping them off with actual care this time instead of shoving them right back in the toolbox. She turned up with it two days ago—the only one of the civilians who didn’t turn up to cheer theheroesout like it was a middle grade pop concert.

The kid stayed with me, and we got some real work done.

The pipes creak and groan, spluttering on. I’m soaked to my knees and covered in mud from the trial-and-error, but it finally looks like it’s going to hold.

Kasey whoops, and I roll my eyes.

“I’m doing the next one. I’m calling it.” Her grin splits her freckled face, and she adjusts her makeshift toolbelt.

I let her keep a few basics. I’ll give her some more if she doesn’t trash what I gave her.

I pull myself out of the ditch. “There won’t be a next one. That was quality work—that’ll hold for years.”

“Inyears, then.” She gives me a bored look, then mutters, “Not like I’m going to be going anywhere else.”

“Where the hell else do you want to be?” I eye her. She’s annoying, sure, but I didn’t think she was stupid. Bristlebrook is the safest place for her.

Kasey shrugs awkwardly, turning back to the tools. “I don’t know. You’re cool for a dinosaur, but it’d be nice to hang out with someone my age. If there is anyone still alive.”

I stare at her short, shaggy hair. She cut it yesterday, saying something about how she was sick of it getting in her eyes when she worked—which just makes sense. She usually makes sense, even when she’s driving me up the wall. She just doesn’t usuallysaythings.

I ease from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “Friends are overrated.”

Kasey snorts, then looks up at me pityingly. “That’syour advice?”

“What the hell are you askingmeadvice for? You’re worried every pimple-nosed teenager is dead and they probably are.” I scowl, and she scowls back.

“You suck at this. I’m confiding in you, asshole. How am I ever going to get a boyfriend if everyone is like seventy?” She slams down the lid on the toolbox. “I’m going to die friendless and alone.”

I cross my arms over my chest, narrowing my eyes on her. She’s like five-foot-nothing and skinny as hell, but she still has all that baby plumpness in her face. When do they even shed that for their grown-up skin?

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