“Oh, my God!” Streep gasped, hands clasped together. “Are you two in love?”
“Are you planning on stealing one of those puppies?” Max asked, smiling. “Now that we all know how much they’re actually worth, I say we take them all. Those idiots will never know.”
Nelle asked nothing. She was too busy taking a selfie.
“He waved at all of us,” Tock pointed out.
“But he meant it for you!” Streep cheered.
“I’m sorry,” Tock told Streep. “But clearly I’m going to have to kill you before this gets out of hand.”
*
“What was that?”
Shay stopped on the porch and faced his brother. “Huh?”
“You’re waving to her now?”
“I was waving to all of them.”
“Bullshit.”
“I was just being nice.”
“We’re not nice.”
“You’re not nice. That’s why my daughter calls you Uncle Mean.”
“Look, it’s bad enough this idiot—”
“Hey!” Finn barked when his brother pointed at him.
“—has involved himself with a badger. I’m just glad it’s Mads, who is less annoying than the others.”
“I’m not involving myself with anyone,” Shay explained. “I’ve got too much going on.”
His brothers stared at him.
“What exactly do you have going on?” Finn asked.
“Lots of things.”
“Like what?” Keane pushed. “And you better not say those fucking dogs.”
“They’re puppies. They’ll need a lot of care.”
“Oh, my God.” Disgusted, Keane pushed past him and opened the screen door so he could bang his fist on the hard wood of the front door.
He knew his brother was annoyed, which was why he banged on Charlie MacKilligan’s front door and didn’t think about the consequences. Shay cringed, though, when that door was snatched open and the muzzle of a semiauto was pressed against his brother’s chest because he was too tall for Charlie to reach his head.
“Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”
She lowered the weapon.
“You have guns around my niece?” Keane demanded before Shay could.
“I have guns around everyone. That’s how we survive. That’s how I protect your niece and our sister. Because I’d rather stop those who want to hurt us instead of getting revenge later.”
“I don’t like it,” Keane growled.
“You don’t like anything. But I have brownies, if you’re interested.”
Shay raised a finger. “I’m interested in brownies.”
Keane snarled at Shay.
“What?” Shay wanted to know. “I’m hungry.”
Chapter 15
Tock looked down at the big brownie on a paper plate Charlie had just put in front of her.
“Thanks.”
“I need you guys to come with me tomorrow,” Charlie said, sitting at the kitchen table with her own brownie on a paper plate.
“We have practice,” Mads said, unable to help herself.
“Dude, when have we ever gone to practice every day?” Max asked their teammate.
“You’re captain of the team. You should want us all to go to practice, every day, until we win the championships or die trying.”
Tock let out a sigh. Mads was going to continue being this unreasonable until the championships were won or lost. So it was best simply to ignore her.
“What’s up?” she asked Charlie.
“The ship that went down earlier today . . . ? We need to look into that.”
“Why? It wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
“You do? Because everyone else keeps asking if that was me.”
“No. You’re subtler.”
“Thank you,” Tock said earnestly. It was nice to be appreciated.
“We’ll meet in the morning and go over together.”
“You guys can crash at my place tonight,” Mads said, clearly resigning herself to no practice time the next day.
“Are you sure?” Streep asked, batting her eyelashes in a really annoying manner.
“Why would I not be sure? And stop doing that with your eyes. You look like you’re having a seizure.”
“I’m just assuming that you’ll want to invite Finn over tonight. Since he didn’t stay at your place last night.”
“First off, stop tracking when guys I’m fucking come over to my house. And second . . . I don’t care if you crash at the house when Finn is there.”
Max hopped onto the counter behind her so she could sit without sharing a kitchen chair. “You don’t mind us hearing your nasty sex noises, Mads?”
“Who says we make nasty sex noises?”
“He’s a cat, isn’t he?”
Chuckling, Nelle eased into a chair, phone clutched in her hand. “Is that why you spend all of your time over at Berg’s house?” she asked Charlie. “So you don’t have to hear Max’s nasty sex noises with Zé?”
“I’ve had to wear headphones to bed since Max hit puberty. She was always having dirty, nasty sex dreams and she kept waking up the entire Pack with her incessant screeching.”
“I’m a horny badger,” Max happily admitted. “What can I say?”
“Nothing,” Tock told Max. “You can say nothing. I know it’s unusual for you, but try.”
“Come on.” Mads stood. “Let’s go over to my place. Order some dinner. Watch some TV. We’ll bring the brownies with us. We’ll meet you around eight tomorrow morning. Okay, Charlie?”
“Sure. And don’t let the bears see you with those brownies,” Charlie warned. “They will just rip them right out of your hands.”
*
“No, Dani. You can’t.”
“Pleeeeaaaasssssseeee!”
He stopped in Charlie’s kitchen and turned around to face his daughter. She was starting to get red in the face, which meant a real healthy tantrum was about to happen.
“I said, no.”
“I want to stay with Aunt Nat,” she repeated, yet again. “Just for tonight.”
“She can stay here if she wants,” Charlie said, putting away recently cleaned dishes and pans. “I don’t mind.”
“No offense, but your house is a nightmare of gun ownership.”
Charlie shrugged. “She can stay at Berg’s place with me and the triplets. There’s a room she can share with Nat.”
“Aren’t the triplets a professional security team? Which means more guns.”
“Yeah. But they put their guns away in a safe. A real safe. It’s like a big closet with a massive, metal door that even they can’t tear open. If it’s bear safe, it’s cub safe. And Princess and the pups are already over there.”
“What are they doing over there?”
“Let’s just say that Princess was not comfortable having my dogs around her puppies. She nearly took Shotzy’s ear off.”
“Oh, my God. I’m so sor—”
Charlie waved away his apology with a quick swipe of her hand. “Shotzy was asking for it. He’s like Max. A little shit-starter.”
“Was the damage bad?”
“I had the jackal and the wolverine take him to the emergency vet for me.”
“I like Kyle,” Dani said on a near-whisper as she stepped forward. “He’s dreamy.”
Shay, now standing behind his daughter, pointed at her and mouthed to Charlie, What the fuck?
Charlie cleared her throat to keep from laughing and said, “He is a handsome young man, Dani. But very busy.”