Page 44 of Burn Bag (Owens Protective Services #31)

No man needed to know every detail of a shopping trip, especially one to a pet store.

I could handle this one of two ways. I could pretend to be asleep and hope they took that as a hint to stay quiet as they entered, which would most likely not happen.

Or, I could ignore everything they said while pretending I was listening the whole time.

A few well-placed grunts of approval, a nod here and there, and of course, the occasional Wow when they saved so much money by switching to Brand X.

It was a tough choice, but I decided on the second route, considering that if they “woke me up” I’d still have to listen to everything they said. Tigger jumped into my lap, purring as he stood right the fuck in front of me, blocking my view.

“Down, kitty.”

I pressed on his hind, but he just took that as a sign I was going to rub him. Not that I wouldn’t. The fucker was so cute. I couldn’t help myself. I’d even started leaving the bedroom door open at night so he could jump into bed and snuggle me.

I was such a sucker.

I heard them walking up the steps and knew if I didn’t get up and help, I would get a death glare that would end in a fight and no makeup sex. “Alright, Tigger. Let’s go help them before we both lose our balls.”

As I stood, he jumped to the ground and followed me to the door.

I swung it open and grinned at my wife, earning me an approving smile.

Since when did I become the husband who begged for approval?

I shook my head at the thought as they surged inside, arms loaded with bag after bag of things I didn’t want to know about.

I could feel my wallet getting lighter by the second.

But then I frowned, thinking back to when she left for the store. She never asked me for money. In fact, every time she went to the store, she just walked out the door. I didn’t even have a bank card in her name yet, so where was she getting the money to pay for this stuff?

I was about to ask her when she spun toward me, her mouth open and poised to spew useless crap in my direction. I glanced at the stairs, thinking now was my chance to escape, but I wasn’t fast enough.

“You would not believe the deals we found!” she beamed. “I was going to get the regular cat food, but then I found this other one that would save me about four dollars, and that was for a bigger bag, AND it’s healthier. Can you believe that?”

I hummed and nodded, looking back at my escape route.

“And then there was this woman who tried to get the last bag of litter, but I fought her for it. I thought for sure it was gonna get bloody, but all it took was some fancy footwork.”

Harper laughed with her, and I suddenly realized I was supposed to be doing the same, so I let out a bark of laughter and nodded along as they continued to discuss the battle for the bag of litter like it was the Battle of Gettysburg.

They actually started doing a mock fight of the battle, even laughing when one of them slipped and nearly went down.

My gaze flicked to the stairs again, and I knew this was my moment. I just had to move my feet. Just start fucking walking and I would escape what was sure to be another ten minute discussion about how she defeated who I now realized was an elderly lady.

I inched my way toward the stairs, so close to freedom, when Daphne called my name.

“Oh, hey, babe! I have a few more bags in the trunk. Would you mind getting them for me?”

Gritting my teeth, I cursed myself for being too slow. “Sure thing!” I answered happily, though I was really beating myself up. At least I escaped the worst of the stories. There were definitely more of them. I didn’t know a single woman who could go shopping and not come home with a tale or two.

I looked in the back and sighed. “A few bags, huh?”

The whole fucking trunk was loaded with bags upon bags of useless crap that we didn’t need and would possibly never even open.

I rifled through a few of them, wondering why we even needed so many cat toys.

There was a cat tower, and another bag held about a dozen tiny fake mice.

Christ, I was going to have crap all over the house to step on.

I started loading the bags up, but there were too many to take in one trip. I took them straight into the kitchen where Harper and Daphne were talking in hushed tones. As soon as I got close enough, they went ramrod straight and smiled at me.

Smiled a little too hard, but I ignored them and went back outside to load up the rest of the bags.

The last thing I wanted was any part in their schemes.

Whatever they were doing, they could keep it for themselves.

For all I knew, they were in talks with Fox about building his cat army.

As long as no more cats entered my home, everything would be fine.

Maybe that’s what all this crap was for. Maybe none of this would actually end up in my house, but in this cat sanctuary Fox had started to build. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I grabbed the last of the bags and shut the trunk with my elbow, determined to drop the bags and run.

Whatever they were plotting, I wanted no part of it.

And like I imagined, the moment I walked into the living room and headed toward the kitchen, their conspiratorial whispers died and those charming smiles returned.

“Well, that’s everything. I need to hit the head.”

“Wait!” Daphne called out, panic lacing her voice. “Um…I didn’t tell you about…about the accident.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, anger rushing through me. “You were in an accident?”

“No!” She chuckled, walking over to me and tapping my chest with her finger. “No, not us. We witnessed an accident.”

“Oh. Was it bad?”

She bit her lip, her eyes darting over my shoulder. I turned my head, but saw nothing. Maybe I was imagining that she was acting weird. It had to be because I saw literally nothing. I was letting my imagination run away with me.

“Uh…yeah, it was… horrible.”

“What happened?”

“What?”

“The accident,” I pressed.

“Uh…” She frowned, thinking really hard before her face brightened. “Oh! The accident!”

Sighing heavily, I was about to turn away and forget about the whole fucking thing when she grabbed my arm and dragged me back.

“Well, see, we were on First Street?—”

“No, it was Second,” Harper interrupted.

“Was it?”

“Yeah, because remember, we saw that kid on the bike, and you started telling me about how you used to have a bike just like that as a kid.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Daphne laughed.

“And?” I said, hoping to move the story along.

“Well, it’s really not that interesting. The bike was blue and had these big handlebars and gigantic wheels?—”

“Not the bike,” I snapped, already losing my patience. “The accident. You were about to tell me about an accident.”

She burst out laughing, slapping her forehead. “Oh, right. Of course, you would want to hear about the accident and not the type of bike I had as a kid. That would just be silly.”

I pressed a hard smile across my face, hoping she would just finish the fucking story.

“Right, so anyway, we were on Second Street and the kid rode his bike across the street.”

“Did he get hit by a car?”

She frowned, cocking her head in confusion. “No, he just rode his bike across the street. So, anyway, he went across the street, and that’s when I told Harper about how I used to have a bike just like that as a kid. And then she told me that she had a totally different bike that she had to share?—”

“Daphne!” I bit out, seriously losing my patience. “The accident.”

“I’m getting to it,” she rambled on, completely ignoring the fact that I was about to throttle her if she didn’t finish the fucking story.

“So, then we turned down Maple Street and we passed that old building—you know, the one that used to be a bank—and we saw a For Sale sign in the window, and we were talking about how nice it would be if someone fixed that up and did something with it. You know, there are quite a few abandoned buildings around town. If we could just get some new business, this town might actually take off.”

She stopped and stared at me. Just fucking stared at me. Was she waiting for a reply? What the fuck was I supposed to say to that? And what the hell did it have to do with the accident? I was just about to ask her that when she continued.

“So, anyway, we were on Maple and this squirrel ran out in the road, doing one of those annoying runs where he can’t decide where to go.

And then Harper started telling me about this time that she nearly ran into a tree because a squirrel couldn’t make up his mind.

And then the squirrel ran up the same tree she almost hit! Isn’t that hilarious?”

“Fucking rib-tickling,” I deadpanned.

“Right? So, the squirrel ran across the street, darting in and out of traffic—well, if you could even say there’s traffic in this small town,” she laughed, looking at Harper. And together, they laughed hysterically.

Was I missing out on the joke?

“And just as the squirrel made it to the other side of the street, this car drove like a bat out of hell through the stop sign and hit?—”

“No, it was after the squirrel,” Harper interrupted.

So fucking close. I was just seconds from finally hearing the end of the story, and now they were arguing about the sequence of events.

For the love of God, just finish the fucking story!

But I laughed as they laughed and pretended I wasn’t about to strangle one of them.

“So, yeah, then the car blew the stop sign and hit poor Mr. Bakewell’s car!”

I nodded, not finding that at all interesting since it took so fucking long to get to the point. “And was the damage bad?”

“What damage?” Harper asked, looking at me curiously.

“To the car.”

“Which one?” Daphne asked.

“I don’t know!” I shouted, finally losing my patience. “Either one!”

“Oh, no,” Daphne waved me off. “It was just a tap. Hardly even a scratch.”

I scrubbed a hand down my face, inhaling sharply. That was a good ten minutes of my life I would never get back. And the mental anguish…fuck, could I sue my own wife for torturing me with that story?

“Probably not.”

“Probably not, what?” Daphne asked, smiling up at me .

“Uh…nothing. I gotta piss.”

There was no other polite way to put it. I was out of there. I couldn’t stay for another fucking second without ripping out my eyeballs and throwing them at my own wife. And then the cat would play with them, probably eat them.

I took the stairs two at a time and locked myself in the bedroom, breathing a sigh of relief as I leaned back against the door. “Peace.”

I headed to the bathroom and locked myself in there also, unzipping to sit on the toilet. I was making this a long one. I grabbed the Sports Illustrated out of the cabinet and opened it up, settling in for a good forty minutes of alone time.

There was finally peace and quiet, and I was going to soak it up.

The cat rubbed against my leg like he always did when he followed me into the bathroom, but I could handle him. He didn’t talk to me when I was trying to take a shit.

Maybe I needed to become an old cat man instead of having a wife. Had I gotten this all wrong?