Page 21 of I Hate You More

“You’re not? What a pity. The good men never are.” The woman on the other end of the phone released a short sigh. “I don’t see what more I can possibly do to help out. He’s only a dog. How hard can it be to walk him out a door?”

She hung up without saying anything more. Spencer stared at the phone for a second, sure he’d missed a step somewhere.

“I could have told you how that would go,” Ruby said as she took her phone back. “Mrs. Orson is a lot like her dog. She doesn’t make anything easy.”

“Neither do you,” he pointed out. “You should have brought a second cheeseburger to lure him out again.”

“I’ll remember that for next time,” she said. “What was that about, by the way? Why did you want to talk to her?”

Rampant curiosity and a desire to know Ruby better seemed like the wrong answers, so he countered with “What’s a danger word? And why do only bad men know what it is?”

The half-choked gurgle of laughter escaped her again. “Oh dear. How to explain this delicately? You see, when mommies and daddies love each other very much—”

Every part of his being balked—reared up, pulled the brakes, and refused to go one step further. “Never mind. I think I just figured it out.”

“—and when those mommies and daddies are feeling a little bored in the bedroom—”

“You can stop now. I get it.” He might not be the most sexually savvy man in the world, but he could put the pieces together. Danger word/safe word. Green light/red light. They were talking full-on sexcapades here—a topic fraught with danger and red lights on all sides. He wouldnotallow himself to discuss mommies, daddies, or any of the things they got up to with Ruby.

Mostly because he wouldn’t mind discussing them with her at all.

“Whoisthat woman?” he asked, finding it best to change course.

This time, Ruby’s laugh was a full, glorious peal. “The bane of my existence and one of my favorite people in the whole world. She lives at the retirement community where I work.”

“She’s your patient?”

Ruby’s eyes shifted down to her feet. “Something like that. She’s the reason I’m doing all this in the first place.” She rolled her shoulder in a half shrug. “She sort of roped me into it against my will. Wheezy winning the West Coast Canine Classic is her dying wish.”

Spencer cast a look of alarm down at the dog. Wheezy wastechnicallyqualified to participate in the competition, and Caleb was as good a dog-show trainer as you could get last-minute, but that dog wouldn’t get anywhere near the final trophy unless he sat on it.

“Dying wish?” he echoed. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, don’t worry. She’s not actually dying. She uses that line to force me into doing things I’d rather not.” She laughed again. “She’s also an avid reader of erotica, if that bit about the danger word didn’t tip you off. We have a book club.”

He didn’t want to ask. He wouldn’t say the words out loud.

He did anyway. “You readeroticatogether?”

She nodded. “And then we discuss it. At length. And girth, if you want to get specific. Why? Would you like to join us?”

No, he decidedly would not. Especially not if Ruby was going to look at him like that while he did it. “If a danger word is what I suspect it is—”

Her smile widened. “It’s basically the opposite of a safe word. It means full steam ahead, all engines are a go, pistons ready. It was in the last book we read—it was kind of cute, actually. The couple would text each other the wordporcupine, and then meet up at the nearest seedy motel without asking any questions. Of course, they were also exhibitionists who left the curtains wide open for everyone staying at the motel to see, but it takes all kinds.”

This conversation had taken a dangerous turn, but Spencer didn’t know how to extricate himself without making things worse. What he’d have liked to do was offer an easy reply—be more like Caleb, who could discuss porcupines and voyeurism with a gorgeous woman as if it meant nothing—but he couldn’t.

It didn’t mean nothing. Not to him, at least. It never had. That was the whole problem. His brother could meet a woman like Ruby and enjoy a brief, playful flirtation—the kind of flirtation that a dog-show judge and contestantmightbe able get away with, assuming they kept things discreet—but not Spencer. Within seconds of meeting this woman, he’d known himself to be way in over his head.

And instead of heading up for air, he just seemed to be diving deeper and deeper.

“The dog’s danger word is ‘mayonnaise,’” he blurted out.

She blinked. “What?”

He didn’t have to explain himself. As soon as the word crossed his lips, Wheezy lifted his head, his eyes wide open and his nose twitching.

“Is that how it works, Wheezy?” he asked, eager to latch on to anything other than the topic at hand. “You like mayonnaise?”