She freezes like she’s been caught with her hand in the honey jar. “Good morning.”
“Feeling better today?”
There’s zero guilt in the look she aims my way. Wariness, yes. Guilt, no. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“Did you sleep here?” she asks.
“No.”
Jitter lunges, straining the leash and pulling her along until he can lick my hand. It’s second nature to lean the short distance required to scratch his back.
He’s a good dog.
“Did you stay awake here all night?” she presses.
Am I smiling bigger at her concern? Yes. Yes, I am. “No. I thought I’d get in before the snow and cover inside.”
She blinks.
Blinks again like it’s unnatural for me to actually work.
My cheeks warm despite the frigid temperatures blasting into the kitchen. “Even Super Vengeance Man needs to learn to pour drinks. Come in. I taught myself to use the cappuccino machine, but I don’t like coffee, so I can’t make a positive determination about the outcome of my efforts.”
Once more, she doesn’t have a quick answer. It’s not lack of coffee. She’s carrying her coffee tumbler in her free hand.
And maybe it’s a trick of the light, but I think she’s softening.
Like maybe she thinks I’m cute when I call myself Super Vengeance Man.
I think she’s cute when she’s standing in swirling snow, watching me over her coffee tumbler. I also think she’s cute when she’s competently holding onto her massive dog despite the pull it looks like he’s putting on the leash to lean against me and pant up at me.
“Do you actually think it’s wise to accept a drink made by someone who calls himself Super Vengeance Man?”
“I’m not trying to get vengeance on you.”
She grimaces. “Yet.”
“I’m a fair person. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Yet.”
Right.
Her deadline.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her I can wait longer, that I can get my vengeance on Vince instead, that it doesn’t matter anymore.
But it does still matter.
I’m so fucking tired of people doing shitty things and getting away with it.
If I don’t hold firm now, when will I?
And I have faith in her.
I know she can find something, even if I can’t.
“C’mon.” I hold the door wider and beckon them inside. “It’s cold out here. Jitter, want a treat? Got a whole bag inside.”
Jitter barks and lunges.
“Cheating,” Sabrina says while she stumbles along behind him.
I grin at the dog. “Good boy. Sit.”
Jitter sits.
I grab the pack of treats out of the top drawer in the desk and look at Sabrina. Probably need to make sure she’s okay with this.
Her eyes narrow. “You can’t not give it to him now.”
Yes. “It’s the same kind you give him.”
“How do you know?”
“I asked your mom.”
“When did you see my mom?”
“I needed a haircut.”
She looks so taken aback by the news that I wonder if there was some kind of invisible line I wasn’t supposed to cross there.
Or is it that she hadn’t heard?
I give Jitter the treat and get a reward of him once again leaning against my legs and gazing at me with so much adoration, you’d think the treat was an entire steak dinner.
“Go kennel,” Sabrina tells Jitter.
He looks at me.
Sabrina folds her arms and looks at her dog.
He flops to the ground, then rolls onto his back, pushing me back three steps.
“Kennel,” she repeats.
He whines.
“He gets lonely,” I say.
“So get in there with him.”
Jitter barks, flops back to his stomach, rises, and trots to his doggy house.
He looks back at both of us like he understood exactly what we said, and he’s waiting for me to follow.
“I have to watch your mom try the coffee I made,” I tell him with a shrug.
Jitter snorts, but he finishes walking into his house and flops to the ground again, where he puts his nose between his paws, his jowls flopping over his legs, and gives us the most heart-wrenching puppy dog eyes.
“Did you train him to do that, or did he come with those guilt-makers?” I ask.
“Those are the reason he’s mine.”
“It’s sweet that your mom adores him but worries he’ll crush you in your sleep.”
“Did you have pets before Duke?”