Page 33 of Beware of Dog (Lean Dogs Legacy #6)

The morning of her twentieth birthday, Cass woke alone, the smell of bacon permeating the air. She pulled on the hoodie Shep had left casually/not-so-casually draped over the bedpost and padded down the hall.

The first thing she noticed was the small, shoddily-wrapped stack of presents on the coffee table. Wrapped in newspaper no less. Hovering above this, its string tied to a table leg, was a very non-birthday Garfield balloon that declared he hated Mondays.

It was the most charming thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“Shep!” she exclaimed, heart squeezing.

“Nuh-uh,” he called from the kitchen. “Don’t touch those, presents are for tonight. Breakfast first.”

“You’re not any fun at all,” she complained, grinning, as she skirted the table and headed toward him.

He turned from the stove and slid a pancake out of the skillet and onto an already-formed stack of its fellows. He’d clearly showered and shaved already, his hair gelled up and his cheeks smooth. He smiled and waggled his eyebrows. “Nah, I happen to know I’m a shit-ton of fun.”

“Well, yes,” she conceded, and climbed onto the stool across from him. “What’s all this?”

“Birthday breakfast,” he said, proudly. He dropped the skillet in the sink and pointed to the plates. “Pancakes, bacon, eggs, apples. All your main food groups.”

With his hands braced wide on the edge of the counter, and his black wifebeater so stretched in the neck she could see the scattering of hair on his sternum, the only thing she wanted to eat was him.

She swallowed hard and said, “I can’t eat all this.”

He pulled two forks out of the drawer and hip-checked it shut. “Yeah, I’ll help.”

He came around the bar to take the stool next to her and dragged the plates closer.

Before she dug in—and the man could make a killer pancake—Cass leaned sideways and wrapped both arms around his waist.

He kissed her forehead, and let his lips linger there when he murmured, “Happy birthday, babydoll.”

Because they both had busy days, plus dinner plans, she pulled reluctantly back after a long minute and dug in.

“What time do we need to be at Raven’s?” he asked between bites.

“Six. So we’ll have to go straight from campus.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Shep had continued to attend every Wednesday night family dinner, and apparently, they weren’t projecting any sort of fucking-and-living-together energy in front of Raven and Toly, because neither of them acted like anything was different.

It didn’t therefore feel like a risk to bring him along for her birthday dinner.

“Anything exciting happening for you today?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.

His face went smug. “Maybe.”

Cass set down her fork and turned toward him. “What’s that look?”

“What look? This is just my face.” He gestured to it, even smugger. “Pretty handsome, huh?”

“Pretty shit-eating. What are you up to, Francis?”

He hummed a non-answer. “Eat your eggs before they get cold.”

“ Francis .”

“Come on, you don’t wanna be late for school.”

“Ugh. You’re the worst,” she said with a smile.

He smiled back. “No, I’m not.”

~*~

Cass had a hard time focusing at school. She kept zoning out, envisioning the presents at home on the table, so obviously, endearingly wrapped by Shep himself. I’m going to marry that man , she thought, only half-dreamy, but half, more than half, dead serious.

Speaking of half: she was packing up her halfhearted notes at the end of her last class when Professor Swift said, “Cassandra, can I see you a moment after class?”

Oh shit. “Sure.”

She heard snickering around her. Whispers. Felt pointed looks that she ignored. She took her time gathering her things, and approached Professor Swift’s desk only once the classroom was empty.

For a long beat after she’d arrived before him, he stared at the open door, frowning. “Has anyone been giving you any trouble? Students, I mean.”

Cass frowned. She didn’t want to discuss that with any of her professors, especially not one of her favorites.

He turned to her, finally, frowning, eyes wide and searching behind his rimless glasses.

He was a kindly-faced man, with a receding hairline and a gray ponytail; he had a tendency to look a little lost and befuddled, save when he talked about comics, and then he could rattle off dates, and authors, and artist styles like a gameshow contestant.

He never talked about his personal life, or politics, or campus goings-on, which Cass appreciated.

But now he gazed up at her like a Concerned Adult and said, sincerely, “I was very sorry to hear about Jamie. I hear she’s taking some time away?”

“Yes. Just until things settle down.” Cass hoped that was true; she worried that, once removed from campus and all its stresses, Jamie wouldn’t be able to stomach returning.

He nodded, glum. “That might be for the best, though I hate to think she’s missing out on her education thanks to the terrible actions of others.”

“Yes,” Cass agreed, and resisted the urge to fidget. “Professor—”

“Don’t worry,” he said, knowing curve to his mouth. “I won’t pry. Please give Jamie my best.” Before she could assure him that she would, and find some excuse to leave, he pulled a familiar sheaf of papers from a folder on his desk. “I wanted to talk to you about your project.”

“Oh.” Her stomach lurched, and she couldn’t decide if she was nervous or excited.

When she moved in with Shep, she stopped trying to pretend he hadn’t been the main inspiration for her rendition of the Punisher.

In fact, she’d reworked her existing pages to exaggerate the resemblance, and leaned heavily on her anime chops to give the whole panel a surreal, almost cartoonish flair.

Professor Swift looked up at her, and grinned. “I love it.”

“You do?”

“ Yes .” He dropped his head over the paper, and his hands started to fly with excitement as he pointed out details. “You can clearly see you were inspired by the Ennis run, but Frank himself, and your original character—you, I presume?”

She blushed, but nodded.

“Some of the lines, the exaggerations here, remind me of manga.”

“Satoru Noda,” she supplied, still blushing. “I’ve been on a bit of a Golden Kamuy kick.”

“Yes! That’s it! And then your backgrounds, your flatwork, it’s as saturated as a watercolor. The bridge, here, in this panel looks like Monet.”

Overwhelmed, all she could say was, “Thank you.”

Profess Swift gazed lovingly on the page one more long beat, then set it aside, folded his hands, and looked up at her seriously.

“There’s two things I wanted to say. One”—he tapped the edge of her project—“I think you’ve more than managed to make Frank Castle into a wholly different character.

If you’ll take an old man’s advice, I think your retooled version should star in your final for this class. ”

“Really? You think it’s original enough?”

“I do, definitely. Your Frank is softer, funnier, and more willing to work with others.”

Yes , she thought, my Frank certainly is .

“The second thing,” he continued, “is that a select group of my graduate students are hosting a gallery show in July, and I’d like you to participate. If you’re willing, of course.”

“A gallery show?” she breathed, stunned. “But…”

“Here.” He produced a flier from his desk drawer and passed it over. “It’s a mix of comic artists and animators and street artists. The theme is ‘Unconventional Beauty.’” He smiled at her, kind and eager. “There’s a place for you, if you want it.”

~*~

“A gallery ?” Shep asked a few minutes later by his parked bike. “That’s some VIP shit, kiddo.”

Never mind he’d had his tongue inside her, his praise left her face heated. “It’s a nice offer. It’s a start, anyway.”

They arrived at Raven’s building amidst the thick of rush hour traffic, and Shep slanted his bike in the same reserved parking place where Toly kept his Harley.

They didn’t worry about arriving together anymore, because Raven and Toly never seemed to find it out of the ordinary.

After dinner, when they left each time, Shep would say, “I’ll make sure she gets home safe,” and Raven would say, “Thanks, Shep.”

Tonight, though…tonight would be different. Cass just didn’t know it yet.

~*~

Dinner was spaghetti with rustic meatballs, and more bread than Raven would ever have deemed appropriate on any other occasion.

A two-tiered chocolate cake decorated with frosting roses waited on the kitchen island, and crepe streamers reached from the chandelier to the corners of the room.

It was clear Raven was going for festive, right down to the ridiculous party hats that Raven of course could pull off, but which made the rest of them look stupid.

Maybe it was the idea of being in a gallery show, or the fact that she was no longer a teenager, or the idea of those badly-wrapped presents at home, and the way Shep had draped a hand over the back of her chair and didn’t seem inclined to move it, but Cass was hyped up, and she and Shep couldn’t seem to stop joyously bickering.

“Go back and watch it, and you’ll see I’m right,” Cass insisted.

“I don’t have to.” Shep wore a wide, manic grin.

They were turned in their chairs so they faced each other, his arm still along the back of hers, the other braced on the table between their plates, save when he was gesturing, like he was now.

“I saw that shit in theaters on opening weekend! Before you were fucking born!”

Cass was smiling, too; her face hurt from it. “Which means you need to watch it again and see that I’m right because your old-man memory is shit!”

“Bullshit.” He rapped his knuckles on his forehead. “Steel trap, baby.”

She leaned in to knock at it, too, right where laughter was pressing lines up into his still-thick-as-hell hairline. “Sorry.” She made a dramatic pouting face. “It’s hollow.”

He snorted and snatched her wrist out of the air.

“ Children .” The sharp crack of Raven’s voice froze them both in place.