The Three-Week Arrangement (Chase Brothers)
Page 37She glared. “What’s so funny?”
He piled three eggrolls on her plate and handed it to her. “You made a conscious decision not to look like a Barbie. This is amusing.”
She cringed at the memory. Why was she telling him this stuff? “My mom paraded me through pageants until I was thirteen, when I first got a version of this haircut. I did it myself, backstage, right before they announced the winners. That was probably the only time my mom was utterly mortified that I was crowned princess snot or whatever it was.”
He snort laughed. It was adorable.
“Anyway, she took me to her salon to have it cleaned up. The only person there who would touch it was a new girl, and instead of putting on extensions or whatever my mom expected when she said fix this, she styled it. I loved it, and I’ve stuck with variations of it ever since.”
Laughter danced in his eyes, but there was more there. Maybe respect. Probably fear. Her heart flip-flopped anyway. “You really are a rebel at heart, aren’t you?”
“I rebel against her pretentious insanity. I’m not sure that counts.”
“It counts,” he said. “And your friendship counts. I guess I did need to get back out there, just not in the way everyone wanted.” His gaze drifted to a spot on the wall that hosted nothing but an empty, freshly painted hook—probably one that had recently held a photo of his wife. When he blinked back to Rue, he said, “Having you here with zero chance of complications and entanglements has been really nice.” He opened the fridge and snagged a beer, then handed her an iced coffee.
Who the hell did that?
She was still thinking about it two hours later when he insisted on walking her downstairs and paying for a cab. He’d stocked his apartment with her favorite drink.
And he’d adopted her favorite dog.
And then he’d friend-zoned her.
If this was how he did friendship, she was screwed.
Chapter Eight
The next morning when Ethan walked into work, he wasn’t alone. Shaggy trotted at his heels, a lot less concerned about wearing a harness than Ethan expected. He’d met with Abbie and a vet as part of the whirlwind adoption process, and the vet had confirmed most of the leathery skin was actually scar tissue, probably from some kind of burn, and she wasn’t likely to get any of the missing hair back. The damage was extensive, but it was old. Shaggy was otherwise in good health and from the looks of things, lucky to be alive.
“She’s a dog, you asshole.”
“Boys!”
“Sorry.” Ethan hadn’t seen their mom behind her computer. If he had, he would have watched his language, but the way he figured, Sawyer deserved it. Besides, it sure as hell wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before.
“It looks like a skinny hippopotamus.”
Ethan suppressed a laugh. She kind of did look like a skinny hippopotamus, but he wouldn’t give Sawyer the satisfaction of telling him that. Fortunately, their mom came over to see the object of their attention. He hadn’t wanted to take Shaggy away from the staffed shelter to leave her on her own during the day, so before he went back to talk to Abbie about adopting her, he’d run the idea past his mom, who said she’d love to have her in the office while he went out on jobs.
“What do you think?” Sawyer asked her. “A face only a mother could love?”
“This isn’t about you,” Ethan shot back.
“Is she sick?” his mother asked. Ethan had warned her Shaggy had an unconventional look, but even he had to admit that was an understatement.
“No,” he said. “She’s a rescue. Probably burned at some point, but she’s okay now. The vet said she’s healthy.”
His mother knelt to greet the dog, and Shaggy ate it up, leaning into the attention. “Poor baby.”
“Her name is Shaggy.”
Sawyer spit out the coffee he had the misfortune of having lifted to his mouth. “You’re shitting me.”
“Sawyer Chase, I have some dish soap in the back if you can’t watch your language.” She spoke in a quiet, sweet voice—obviously for the dog’s benefit—but left no question about her intent.