Page 25 of Anger Bang
“Wow,” she said, blinking in surprise. “You could have just gone with divorce rates, but murder ratchets things up a notch or twelve thousand.”
Way to go, dumb-ass. Do you want to take her through the background information you learned for your last book that was too gruesome to publish while you’re at it?
He grimaced. “Sorry.”
She chuckled. “No worries. I better go, though.” She ducked under his arm and headed for the door. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll live.” By himself. All alone. Him against the world. Just the way he fucking liked it.
That wouldn’t pass the lie detector, buddy boy-O.
He shoved that know-it-all, unreliable narrator to the back of his head and stuffed a pillow over its mouth as he walked Thea to the door and the wedding hellscape that waited beyond it.
“So what’s next for the groomsmen?” she asked as he opened the door.
He winced. “Horseback riding.”
Her gaze did a slow dive from his face down to his thighs before she looked back up at him, one eyebrow cocked. “In those shorts?”
When his only response was a growl, she simply laughed and then braced her shoulders and walked out to face down a bridezilla.
…
Many, many—too many to fucking count—hours and two sore balls later, Kade lay sprawled out on the bed in his RV. He didn’t have the energy to do much, but he did have enough to make himself two promises. One, he was never getting on a horse ever again—especially one named Nutbuster. Two, he was never going to let Dex lead a trail ride again. They’d ended up on the wrong side of the river on accident, but Kade had spotted camera men hiding behind a knot of huge tumbleweeds so he hadn’t believed it.
Anything for the drama with these people.
But now Kade was happy as a writer on deadline in a cabin in the mountains with no distractions sitting by himself in his palace on wheels. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t still thinking of Thea.
And he wasn’t just stuck on how her ass looked in that leotard or how her face had looked when he’d told her he was free-balling it before the pictures.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she’d come to his rescue with his mom. No one did that. Dex would say that was because the only beings Kade didn’t growl at were him and the dog, but his brother exaggerated. Kade usually just ignored everyone else. But Thea? Yeah, she was un-ignorable.
If she hadn’t announced her wedgie condition in front of the cameras, God knew what would have happened. He didn’t want a reunion with his mom at all, let alone while the cameras were catching everything.
He should thank Thea. It was just good manners.
Or excuses to talk to the sexy paleontologist.
After letting out a sigh of surrender, he picked up his phone, grabbed the call sheet with everyone’s contact information on it, and punched in Thea’s number.
KADE:Did you know your kidney is worth around $160K on the black market?
He hit send and then immediately wished he could recall the text.
Opening with that? What the fuck, man. What is wrong with you?
Oh, and to her, it was just coming from a random, strange number.
Wow. Way to go, shithead.
KADE:This is Kade by the way.
THEA:Should I be worried? About my kidneys?
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. She responded, and it wasn’t with a “fuck you, weirdo.” That was a good sign. Right?
KADE:I’ll protect you. Did you know people with DUI convictions in Ohio have to use yellow license plates?
