Page 47 of Bleed the Shadows

She exhaled. “Okay.”

I put my book down and stood. “Let’s go.”

I smirked at Bram as I followed Maeve down the stairs, because I wasn’t above being a little petty when it came to Bram. I still didn’t know what had happened between them, but whatever it had been, Bram had done it to himself.

He flipped me off behind Maeve’s back, which only made me smile wider.

Pissing off Bram while scoring alone time with Maeve was a double win in my book.

“We need to take the Hummer,” she said when we hit the parking lot. “The Spider won’t fit all the groceries.”

“You’re the boss.” I was feeling pretty chipper at the prospect of having her all to myself for a couple hours.

We started walking toward the car when Maeve stopped. I followed her gaze to a scrawny, mangy-looking dog with a patchy yellow coat lurking at the corner of the building.

“Poor thing,” she said. “He looks hungry.”

She started toward it.

“I don’t think you should…” But there was no stopping her.

“Hi there, boy,” she cooed, holding out her hand. “Or girl.”

The dog was medium-size, with the short hair of a lab mix. Either he’d been in a scrap with another dog or he was sick because some of his fur was missing in patches, but when Maeve walked closer, he opened his mouth in a smile and trotted over to her.

“Aw, look!” she said, stroking his neck. “He’s friendly.” She craned her neck to look at his belly. “And it’s a boy!”

“Um… congratulations?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I wonder where he came from.”

“I have no idea,” I said. “I’ve never seen him before.”

The dog rubbed up against her legs. “Poor boy.”

“You like dogs?”

“June was the dog lover.” Her voice had turned flat. “She even volunteered at the shelter.”

She straightened. “We have to go now, boy. Stay out of the road.”

He whined when she walked away, but I was glad to see he stayed put so I didn’t have to worry about accidentally hitting him on our way out of the lot.

“So what’s the errand?” she asked when I pulled onto Main.

“Errand?” I was still thinking about the dog, about how happy Maeve had been to pet him. It was the first time I’d reallyseen her with her guard down, not counting the times Poe and I had fucked her.

“You said you had an errand?”

“Right. I need to stop by my parents’ house. My little brother is going to the winter formal in a couple weeks. I told him I’d loan him one of my ties.”

She looked at me like I’d grown two heads. “Ties?”

I laughed. “Do you think I was born this way?”

And by “this way” I meant wearing ripped jeans and boots that could put a dent in a man’s head, carrying knives and guns, depending on the day and the occasion.

“Well… no, but I also never imagined you in a tie.”