Page 64 of Out for Blood
“Same.” The smell of burgers on the grill and onion rings in the deep fryer was enough to make my stomach grumble.
Honey sashayed over, her long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. “Hey, there. Long time no see.”
“Hey Honey,” Jagger said. “How’s it hanging?”
“About as good as can be expected,” she said. “How about you?”
“Same.” Jagger turned to Cassie. “This is Cassie.”
Honey’s eyes widened in surprise. “No offense, sugar, but does Bram know you’re here?”
Cassie sighed. “No, and he doesn’t need to know.”
“If you say so, darlin’.” Honey looked skeptical, but since she couldn’t ask Cassie to leave she turned her attention to more practical matters. “What can I get you?”
I looked at Cassie. “One cheeseburger or two?”
“One.”
I looked at Honey. “We’ll take seven bacon cheeseburgers, four onion rings, three beers, and a Coke.”
Cassie didn’t really like beer.
“You got it.”
Cassie didn’t question our order. She’d been around long enough to know that we ate the way we fucked, the way we did everything: in excess, balls to the wall, no holds barred.
“This was a good idea,” Cassie said, looking around the room. “I always feel so bad when Reva’s at the house cooking.”
“Not as bad as you’d feel after she was at the house if youateher cooking,” Vigo said.
Cassie laughed. “Fair.”
“What did you want to tell us about Daisy and Sarai?” Jagger asked.
Cassie had been excited when we’d shown up at the coffee shop, and not because we were taking her to Syd’s but because Daisy and Sarai had given Cassie a fresh angle on the phone.
“So… I showed them the phone — and don’t worry, I told them not to tell anyone — and— ” She froze, her eyes on the door. “Oh god…”
I followed her gaze and saw Bram and Poe stepping into the room.
Bram’s jaw tightened when he saw us, and he hesitated before coming toward our table.
Cassie said he’d been working his own angles on Dimitri Kaprolov, but we hadn’t seen him since the moment at the hospital when he’d thanked us for saving Cassie.
“Hey,” Cassie said.
“What are you doing here?” Bram demanded.
Poe gave us a neutral nod, clearly not eager to wade into… whatever this was going to be.
“Having dinner,” Cassie said. “What areyoudoing here?”
I was proud of her. She didn’t sound even a little bit intimidated. Sometime in the past four months — between her accident on the mountain and her blindness and our trip to see Anna and the explosion at the paper mill — Cassie had stopped being Bram’s little sister and started being Cassie Montgomery.
“Having dinner,” Bram said.
“Cool,” Cassie said. “I guess we’re both just having dinner.”
