Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
“Well, that’s what he gets for stealing a yard flamingo he didn’t even need.” She headed into the store.
“It was his pride and joy.” That idiot had it on display in the living room for half a year before Zepp decapitated it during a party. “He even buried it in the backyard after its untimely death.”
“You really need to start surrounding yourself with sane people.”
I maneuvered the buggy around a display of diapers. “Sane is boring.”
“So, I’m boring?”
“Hendrix didn’t call you Weirdo in high school for no reason…”
“We both know he thought I was weird for not wanting to screw him. Apparently, that’s all you have to do to qualify.”
Thank God she had never given in to that crap. I would have hated to castrate one of my best friends.
The wheel on the buggy squeaked as I pushed it past the produce section. “Where do they keep rat traps?”
“I don’t know. The garden section?”
We made our way to the back of the store in silence. When I stopped in front of the traps, I grabbed a wooden one with a metal spring.
Jade snatched it out of my hand and put it back. “You can’t kill them.”
Why did she assume there was more than one? I cut my attention to her. “Them?”
“Rats are social creatures. They live in colonies. Why would there only be one?” Her lips flattened, her cheeks going slightly red. “You know, they laugh when tickled, and in war-torn countries, they train them to find mines. They save lives! I don’t even know why Rogue is freaking out. They’re really clean. They groom themselves all the time… So, yeah. You can’t kill them.”
That was a guilty Jade ramble if I’d ever heard one. I swore to God, if this was her and Cassie’s doing… “Right…” I turned back to the traps. “Well, then what the hell else am I supposed to do with them?”
“No poison, and no brutally snapping its spine and leaving it to die a long, painful, awful death.” She scanned the shelf and picked up a big plastic box. The packaging had a picture of a rat in someone’s hand, like anyone would want to pet a feral rat. “Look, catch and release.”
I lifted a brow. “Catch and release?”
“Catch it, and release it in the wild.” She tossed the trap in the buggy. “Or, by a trash can or something.”
I glanced at the price on the shelf. “That’s twenty bucks. The other ones are three!”
She frowned into the buggy, then up at me. “So, steal it.”
“Do you see the size of that thing?” I waved a hand at the massive box in the back of the buggy. “Where the hell am I supposed to put that? Plus, I’m not shoplifting when Mrs. Seaton is working the door.”
“That’s your line?” She looked at me in disbelief.
Sighing, I tossed the expensive, humane trap back to the shelf and tossed the three-dollar one in.
Of course, Jade plucked it right back up with an angry frown on her face. “So help me, God, Wolf…” She put it back. “Let’s just not get a trap. We should all pretend we don’t hear or see the rats! Rogue will think he’s going crazy.”
Her and her bleeding fucking heart. “I am not becoming roommates with a rat.” I made a compromise and grabbed a glue trap for seven bucks. “There. No snapping that diseased thing’s spine. Happy?”
“No! That’s even worse. Its little feet stuck there while it starves to death.” Huffing, she glanced down both ends of the aisle before meeting my gaze. “Look, if I tell you something, you have to promise you won’t tell Rogue.”
There it was. “Let me guess. You put the rat in the house?”
“I didn’t say, guess.” She folded her arms across her chest.
I knew she was going for stern, but all I could focus on was her tank stretched across her tits.
“I said, promise.”
“I already know the answer, Jade.”
“Fine. Cassie did—unbeknownst to me—and you can’t tell him, or he’ll kill them. And her. Besides, did you not hear the part about them clearing minefields? They’re like hero rodents.”
The woman Googled too much shit. “Can’t be inhumane to hero rodents…” Shaking my head, I put the trap back and picked up the hippy-save-the-earth, tree-hugger one. “You and Cassie are a pain in the ass, you know it?”
And I was a fucking sucker.
Seventeen
Jade
The lines in Wal-E-Mart were always a mile long. And as we stood in it, I couldn’t help but notice people throwing glances at Wolf.
A group of college-aged girls in the line beside us whispered to each other, their starry gazes aimed his way. I couldn’t really blame them. I was pretty sure I used to look at him the exact same way—still would if I had less discipline.
The girls’ attention drifted to me, and their grins fell. I knew it was good old-fashioned jealousy, but there was always a dash of extra venom because I didn’t fit the mold of someone he “should” date. To their minds, Wolf Brookes was on a pedestal of god-like status. For him to date someone they wouldn’t aspire to look like, short-circuited their brains.