Page 21 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

Despite her busy schedule, or perhaps because of it, Raven insisted on a proper, sit-down family dinner around the dining table at least once a week. No phones, no TV, no distractions. Cass had teased her about it, called her a Boomer, to which Raven had said, “I beg your pardon?”

Toly had smoothly hidden a laugh inside his napkin.

After her last class of the day, Cass loaded up her laundry sack and took a cab to Raven and Toly’s flat in the Ghostbusters building.

The door opened while she was sorting through her keys, and she was surprised to find Shep on the other side.

He was wearing a soft-looking black hoodie with the Lean Dogs’ running black dog silk-screened across the front in gray, subtle club branding, and he’d taken his boots off; there was something achingly vulnerable about his white-and-gray socks.

She had a physical reaction to the sight of him.

A silent, small-scale detonation under her ribs that sent fizzing excitement through her veins.

A Christmas-morning sort of feeling that meant she was letting her what-ifs, her little fantasies, get the best of her.

She searched for a cord to pull it back with, a handbrake to slow it down, but came up empty.

But rather than the truth, which was I’m glad to see you , she said, “What are you doing here?”

He looked like her question was absurd. “It’s Wednesday.”

“So?”

“Family dinner.” He added a duh expression.

That warm, fizzy feeling in her torso intensified. “Aw, Sheppy. You want to be family?”

“Shut up, you wish I was family,” he muttered, and stepped back to hold the door open for her.

When she stepped inside, she caught a whiff of garlic, which meant that Toly was cooking as opposed to Raven ordering DoorDash.

Shep closed and locked the door, and then took the strap of her laundry sack and drew it off her shoulder so she could unzip her boots.

He handed it back to her once she’d hung up her jacket, and though operating in such silent, seamless cooperation was nothing new, it struck her as special tonight.

Their initial, forced proximity from three years ago had morphed into the kind of unspoken cooperation she’d only ever glimpsed in married couples.

She wasn’t even sure when it had started: she couldn’t recall having awkward moments with him; had never been at a loss for words, or unsure how close she should stand to him.

She’d never hesitated to steal a sip of his drink or a bite of a PowerBar, and he didn’t hover awkwardly as though afraid to touch her.

She took it for granted. Or, rather, she had, until right now, Melissa’s assertions of being “his woman” still echoing in her mind.

“Are those clothes or rocks?” he asked as he followed her deeper into the apartment. “You’re gonna be in traction lugging that shit around.”

“Raven would say true fashion requires a sacrifice of comfort.”

“I don’t feel like she’d say that about boy band t-shirts and skinny jeans.”

Cass shot an appalled look over her shoulder, and it was only partly for show. She didn’t wear boy band t-shirts…anymore. But some of them still lived in the very back of her closet. “Are you saying I don’t dress well?”

He rolled his eyes, but his cheeks turned noticeably pink. “I’m saying let’s not call it ‘fashion.’ Not the way Raven means, anyway.”

“Hmph.” She made a show of tossing her hair as she turned back around.

That, at least, she had in common with Raven: thick dark waves with natural sun streaks in summer.

Raven wore hers sleek and shoulder-length these days, smoothed every morning with a straightener.

Cass had grown hers out down past the middle of her back, and let it air-dry for extra curl.

Sometimes, when they sat on the couch watching a movie, Shep would play with it.

Just a little, but enough to warm her blood.

Toly was in the kitchen when she entered the flat’s great room, peering through the oven’s glass door at whatever was cooking inside.

He lifted a two-fingered wave in response to Cass’s “hey.” Shep broke off to grab a beer out of the fridge, and Cass went down the hall to start a load of clothes in the washer.

Then she followed the sounds of a fussing baby to Raven and Toly’s room.

The door was open, and Cass stood in the door a moment, unnoticed, floored all over again, as she occasionally was, by the sight of her sister as someone’s mum.

Their brothers—asshole ones, anyway—had expressed overdramatic shock that she, as Tenny charmingly put it, knew which end to put the diaper on.

(Walsh had materialized in the background of that Zoom call to smack him deservedly upside the back of the head.) But Cass wasn’t surprised that Raven was very good at taking care of a child; she’d mothered Cass more than her actual mother.

All of her best childhood memories of being safe, and loved, all of her best days from her earlier years, were Raven-shaped; it was Raven’s manicured hand she’d held while she exclaimed over fireworks, and theme parks, and tea parties just the two of them.

Raven’s dark lipstick prints on her cheeks and forehead.

Raven’s wisdom she’d wrapped around herself as a blanket and shield on tough days.

The surprising part to Cass was that Raven had allowed herself to have this. That she’d softened enough first to fall in love, then to get married, and then willingly started a family.

In that sense, it was a miracle any of Devin’s children had become parents.

Raven wore a burgundy hoodie and sweats, designer of course, but loose and comfortable.

She walked barefoot circles around the rug at the foot of the bed, bouncing Natalia in her arms. The baby wasn’t screaming, as she often was, but fussing: quiet little snuffles and hitches.

Raven was singing, her voice low and soothing.

“Hello, darling,” Raven greeted, gaze still trained on Nat’s face. “Good day at school?” Even with her head bent, the deep shadows beneath her eyes were visible, fatigue exerting itself in the shape of her mouth, and the flag of her lashes.

After Shep’s insistence, Cass had been toying with the idea of telling Raven about Sig and Jamie and all that was developing, but as Nat quieted, and Raven smiled down at her, Cass couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“It was fine.”

~*~

Dinner proved to be roasted chicken topped with tomatoes pan-seared in olive oil and rosemary, fingerling potatoes, and a salad.

Shep ribbed Toly about broadening his culinary horizons, but didn’t hesitate to heap his plate with protein and veg, and only a few potatoes.

He had a physique to maintain, after all, and Cass found herself wondering just who he was trying to impress with it.

A Lean Bitch in Albany? Someone here in the city?

She spent enough time with him that she didn’t think he was seeing anyone…

but that didn’t mean he didn’t go home with women he met at bars here and there, a thought that turned her food to ash in her mouth.

Raven took her first bite of chicken, paused, then leaned over and squeezed Toly’s wrist in silent praise. Toly nodded, expression impassive save a bloom of color in his cheeks.

“Cass,” she said, in that crisp voice Cass’s mother had never used on her, but which meant Raven was about to ask a series of very maternal questions.

“Ian said you came to see him.” Her mildly judgmental expression said she wondered why Cass hadn’t come to her office instead.

“Something about a problem with your roommate.”

“Oh. Um.” She made a point of not looking toward Shep, which didn’t matter, because he kicked her foot under the table. She kicked him back—in the shin.

“ Shit ,” he hissed.

Raven and Toly both turned to him wearing near-identical frowns.

Shep shrugged and said, “Chicken’s good.”

Raven shook her head, her standard gesture where Shep was concerned, and returned her attention to Cass.

“Jamie and I were having a stupid fight,” she said, playing at casual.

She threw in a shrug. See? So easy breezy.

“Jamie wouldn’t talk to me, and I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the silent treatment the whole rest of the semester, so I went to ask for advice.

I wasn’t going to get that from this one.

” She hooked a thumb Shep’s direction and he tsked.

Raven’s already-big eyes went bigger, edged with sadness, and even though Cass knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose, the expression still tugged hard on all her guilt strings. “You could have come to me .”

Cass hadn’t expected to feel quite this shitty about keeping things from her sister. But she had vowed not to cause her more stress, and she was going to stick to that. “You’ve had wall-to-wall meetings, and the baby, and you’re…” She gestured.

“I’m what?” Raven asked, voice hardening.

Cass gestured some more, and wished she could rewind and edit her initial statement. “You’re running a company. And you’re married.”

Raven’s gaze sharpened. “Ian’s running a company. And is married.”

“Yeah, but…” Cass’s pulse picked up, flashing under her skin like a warning sign. Danger, danger. Proceed with caution . “He’s been married longer. So he and Alec probably don’t even…” She trailed off as one of Raven’s dark brows cocked to a disbelieving angle.

“You’ve seemed overworked lately,” Cass said, and the other brow joined the first. “I didn’t want to dump my problems onto you.”

Shep cleared his throat, loud and unsubtly. A darted glance proved he was giving her an I told you so look, one that Toly definitely noticed if his quick frown was any indication.

“You wouldn’t be dumping your problems,” Raven said, expression troubled. “If you’re having difficulty at school—”

“I’m not.”