“Yeah?” I ask when I find some guy in a brown uniform standing there. He smiles tightly at me.
“Hi there,” he says as Dodger appears from out of nowhere and starts “dogging” the shit out of my leg. “My name is Christian Gross, and I'm from Humboldt County Animal Control. We received a complaint this morning about—”
Kinzie breaks into a violent scream behind me, shattering my eardrums into pieces as I struggle to remove the horny hairless dog from my leg. Things were going great. Awesome. Perfect, even. In fact, I was actually kind of starting to enjoy this whole thing.
Not so much anymore.
“One second.”
I turn around and find Kinzie in a wild fistfight with one of the twins, pausing to scoop her up and deposit her on the fuzzy pink toilet seat cover.
“Seven minutes,” I say as I step out and close the door, grabbing the twin and parking him on the bottom step. “Four minutes. If you move, I'll know. Remember: I really do have eyes in the back of my head.”
I step back up to the door and find that the animal control officer's already wrangled up two escapee chihuahuas. Dodger's still following me around and doing things to my leg that no human being ever has. Makes me a little uncomfortable, you know? I push the dog away with my foot and snatch the chihuahuas from the guy's arms.
“This is about that garbage can thing?” I ask and the man nods, giving me a really sympathetic look, especially when I grunt and stumble forward, turning around to find a football on the floor behind me. Bella is grinning and fist pumping across the living room while Sadie screams.
“I'm going to the first female quarterback in the NFL!”
“That's great, babe, but please don't throw footballs in the house, okay?” Bella nods vigorously and pounces over to grab her toy.
“Why did I get a time-out and she doesn't?” Kinzie yells, curled around the bathroom door, her butt cheeks still technically sitting on the toilet seat and therefore not violating the rules of her TO. I roll my eyes and lift my hands up.
“Because it was an accident. Stop talking or I'm adding time to your sentence, kid.”
I turn back to Animal Control Dude as Brooke appears in the kitchen doorway looking concerned.
“You know what, just … try not to lose your dogs again, okay?” The man starts to turn away, his eyes telling me that he'd rather be out rounding up strays than dealing with his nightmare. I don't blame 'im. Hell, where do I sign up for that shit?
“Everything okay in there, Zayden?” Brooke asks as she slings her coat back on and shrugs it over her shoulders. “Tinley and I were thinking of going out and grabbing a drink if that's okay?”
“Um.” I ruffle my hair and bite my bottom lip as Brooke stares me down with those crazy beautiful eyes of hers. “Sure thing. What time do you think you'll be back? I need to run over to my brother's place and check on the empty duplex.”
What I really want to say is please, don't go out with this chick. Hang with me, and I'll show you a better time. If I don't spend more time with Brooke, fuck these feelings out of my system, I'm going to be in serious trouble. Like, even now I'm looking at her in those big black glasses of hers like she's the cutest fucking thing since sliced bread.
Brooke and Tinley exchange a look before she turns back to me and shrugs her shoulders.
“How about ten?” she asks and I shrug back, stepping aside and holding my arm out towards the door.
I barely manage to get it closed before a football crashes against the wood and falls to the floor.
“Okay, squirts,” I say as I suck in a deep breath and look at the big eyed faces staring up at me. “We are going to get our shit together right the fuck now.”
“Curse jar!” Kinzie yells, still peering around the doorframe from her spot on the toilet.
I sigh and dig two dollar bills out of my pocket, depositing them inside the jar … only to find out that the other twin stuck his sucker inside the glass. Now all the money I planned on pinching back is covered in sticky candy.
I narrow my eyes and take a deep breath, standing up straight and putting my shoulders back. They might be kids, but they'll get the message. No more shit. I was tough on them at first and they listened, but then this whole Brooke thing made me go soft.
Not anymore.
I'm done with the misbehaving … and I'm done fantasizing about Brooke Overland.
Time to get this shit under control before Rob and Mercedes get back. Because once they do, Hubert and I are so gone.
When I get back from drinks with Tinley, I'm even more pissed off than I was when I left. Not at her, not really. I mean, she saw a hot guy that she slept with back in the day and decided she'd go for him. He never gave her any indication that she shouldn't.