“Wait . . . what?”
Tock didn’t bother answering him, because Mads had walked out onto the porch and the pair stood there, staring at each other. Well, Tock was staring. Mads was glaring as she looked her teammate up and down.
“Really?” Mads asked.
“What? I thought you’d want to get a little practice in, so I changed my clothes.”
“To that?” Mads’s eyes narrowed and she took a step forward, bumping her shoulder against Tock’s. And Tock bumped her back.
“Uh . . . ladies?” Shay weakly called out. But it was too late.
“Let’s do this, Isiah,” Mads sneered.
“Okay, Michael.”
Mads spun around and marched back into the house. Tock picked up the red-and-blue basketball, but just as quickly as Mads was gone, she came back, snatching the ball from Tock’s hands. She imbedded her unleashed claws in the ball, deflating it while staring Tock right in the eyes. When she’d made her ridiculous point, she tossed the useless piece of leather aside and walked back into the house.
Once the screen door shut behind her, Tock started laughing. That’s why she liked Mads. Her teammate entertained her in ways no one else ever had. She was ridiculous! Who loved basketball this much? Except maybe Michael Jordan himself! And even he liked golf and baseball, too. Mads could not say the same.
“I don’t have to worry about you two, do I?” she heard Shay ask from behind her. He was standing up now. Thankfully, the house the MacKilligan sisters were renting had been built for bear shifters, so Shay’s head didn’t scrape against the ceiling of the open porch.
“Worry about what?” she asked, truly confused.
“You two fighting it out like at the hospital.”
“Mads and I don’t fight.”
He pointed at the leather on the floor. “She punctured your basketball with her claws.”
“And?”
Shay threw up his hands. “Okay. Maybe I just don’t understand how your relationship with Mads works, but—”
Shay landed face-first at Tock’s feet with Finn on his back after his brother had leaped over the banister to attack him from behind.
Grabbing Shay by the back of the neck with his hand, Finn announced, “We’re going swimming before dinner. Let’s go.” With that, he lifted his brother high enough to toss him over the banister and into the yard.
“Ow!” Shay complained.
“Stop whining!” Finn grinned at Tock. “Nice outfit. It’s like you’re trying to start a fight with Mads.”
“We don’t fight.”
Finn shook his head and muttered, “Whatever,” before heading out the way he came in. Over the banister and onto his brother’s back. By the time they both were on their feet, they’d shifted to cats and were in the midst of a battle involving claws and fangs.
“The Malones sure do fight a lot,” she said to herself just as her head jerked forward. Forced by the power of the basketball that hit her in the back of the head.
Snarling, she glared at Mads over her shoulder.
“Ready, bitch?” the psychotic Viking demanded.
*
Shay thought the whole dog discussion with Charlie was over, which was good. He wanted to focus on the absolutely brutal one-on-one game taking place on the half-court across from the pool he was lounging in with his daughter and three siblings. But he knew he couldn’t relax just yet when Charlie, sitting on the ground near him, asked, “So you’re not going to breed her again, right?” She pointed to Princess. The dog seemed to have attached herself to Charlie, even when Charlie didn’t have the puppies with her—although at the moment, there was a large pup splayed across the top of Charlie’s head, fast asleep. Maybe Princess was making sure the little fella didn’t fall off its perch.
“I didn’t breed her in the first place,” Shay explained. “She breeded herself.”
“The word is ‘bred,’ and you allowed her to breed.”
“Not on purpose.”
“Oh . . . Daddy.”
“Stop saying that,” he told his daughter as she swam around behind him. From the corner of his eye, he watched Dani lift her hands out of the water and sign to Natalie, “He is pitiful.”
“I know,” Nat signed back. “We all know.”
It had been a mistake, teaching his daughter to sign before she could walk and then enrolling her in ASL classes from the time she was three. He knew that now. Because Nat was a bad influence.
“It was an accident,” Shay insisted. “And now I plan to read that book you gave Dani and learn all I need to know about dogs.”
“You’ll need to read more than one book to do that,” Charlie told him.
Shay couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Why are dogs so much more complicated than cats?”
“Because people let their house cats stay wild. They don’t know where they are half the time. I see them roaming around neighborhoods. No leash. No person attached to them. Shitting wherever they want. But they belong to somebody because they usually have a collar on, sometimes with a little camera attached. If I did that with any of my dogs, I’d get tickets from the city.”
“Because dogs are disgusting,” Keane cut in, swimming up to Shay’s side and resting his arms on the rim of the pool. “They shed. They drool. They stare at you with their dumb dog faces. I don’t know how any of you put up with it.”
“While you cats have such a wonderful temperament.”
“I don’t have to have a wonderful temperament,” Keane replied. “I’m an Amur tiger. My kind roamed the Mongolian flats before Ghenghis Khan was even born. In my cat form I’m more than eight hundred pounds and nearly ten feet long. You’re all just lucky I have deigned not to eat you.
“What?” Keane pushed when everyone simply stared at him. “Speaking of which . . . where are your dogs?”
“Over at Berg’s house. Hiding from you. The mean cat that wants to eat us all.”
“I don’t want to eat any of you. Quite honestly, you look a little gamey. I’m just saying I could. Luckily for you . . . I’m benevolent.”
“Yes, yes. So very benevolent. Like a loving king.” That voice came from a long set of legs strutting by the Malone brothers. While the other honey badgers had on shorts and T-shirts or tank tops, Nelle Zhao had on an extremely tiny bikini with straps that crisscrossed around her muscular midsection, and heels that seemed to make her legs go on forever.
Shay watched those legs strut by until he saw Tock and Mads get into a tug of war with the ball they’d been using during their game. Neither would give the stupid thing up. They eventually landed on the ground, kicking and growling while trying to pry the ball from each other.
“Can you believe this shit?” he asked, glancing over at Keane. His brother didn’t answer, though. He was still gawking at Nelle.
“Forget it,” Shay bluntly told Keane. “You haven’t got a shot in hell.”
Blinking, Keane looked at him. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m just sitting here. Minding my own business.”
“And her ass.”