Cella laughed and walked up the stairs. She could feel Jai’s hand swipe past her T-shirt, just missing her, as she made a wild grab to stop her.
“You guys,” Cella teased. “Did you do that to a lot of girls? Pretending to be each other?”
“We were kids,” the one with the hat explained, still grinning. “We didn’t know any better.”
“Well you know what?” Cella asked, stepping close to him. “I’m an adult. And I still don’t know any better.”Then Cella punched the smug bastard in the face.
Crush only had a split second to laugh before Chazz was over the banister, landing on the porch. Crush shot up the stairs, ready to beat his brothers to death before he let either one hurt Malone. But Chazz grabbed a bleeding, roaring Gray and yanked him back.
“Dude,” Chazz said, eyes wide, “I know her.”
“What?”
“I know her. She plays on the Carnivores. That’s ... that’s Bare Knuckles Malone.” They both gazed at the She-tiger. “You were just hit in the face by fuckin’ Cella Malone!”
Crush’s eyes crossed. His brothers were such idiots. And how did Chazz know Malone on sight? Probably oozed his way into the team locker room, the bastard.
Chazz desperately searched the pockets of his jeans and Windbreaker jacket until he pulled out a marker. “Could you sign my arm?” He held the marker out to her.
“My chest. Can you sign my chest?” Blood pouring down his face, Gray grinned at Chazz. “I can’t wait for Marcie to see this.”
“Marcie?”
“His wife,” Crush explained to Malone. “Gray didn’t mention her?”
Malone pointed an accusing finger at his brothers. “You were hitting on me while your wi fe was sitting at home, waiting for you to come back?”
Crush doubted all that.
“What she doesn’t know ...”
Malone pulled her fist back again, but Chazz held up his hands. “Wait, wait. Hit me.”
Crush blinked. “You want her to hit you?”
“She’s Bare Knuckles Malone, dude!”
Crush leaned forward and said next to Malone’s ear, “Please tell me I wasn’t this bad with your dad.”
“You were, but you were really adorable about it. This is just annoying.”
“Wait a minute.” Gray stood straight, swiping blood from his nose. “What is she doing here with”—his brother eyed him with contempt—“you?”
“I’m his girlfriend,” Malone said.
Crush sighed. “Are we here again?”
“Don’t start.”
“You?” Gray and Chazz said together. “You?”
“You’re dating Marcella Malone?” And Chazz didn’t bother to hide his disgust. “How is that even possible?”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“We thought you were still a virgin.”
Crush went to hit Gray, but Malone stepped in front of him, managing to hold him back without doing much of anything.
Wanting his brothers to go, Crush asked, “Don’t you have wives and children to get home to? I’d hate to think you’re only making me miserable today.”
Gray smirked. “Aren’t you going to ask why we’re here?”
“I know why you’re here and you can tell her no.”
“We all know she doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“That, and the eventual liver damage she’s well on her way to experiencing, is not my fuckin’ problem. Now get out.”
Chazz threw up his hands and started to walk around them, but Gray snatched the marker from him and asked Malone, “Do you think I can still get your—”
Malone slapped the marker from Gray’s hand. His brother jerked back and Crush caught the feline’s arms before she could start slapping the crap out of him in front of the whole neighborhood.
Laughing, Gray followed Chazz. Crush watched until his brothers got in their truck and drove off. Then he went back down the porch stairs, picked up his groceries, and headed into his house—closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER TEN
Cella followed Crush, but stopped when the door closed in her face.
Gasping, “Oh, no, he did not!”
“Cella—” Jai began, but Cella didn’t want to hear it.
The bear hadn’t locked the door, so Cella threw it open and marched inside.
“What are you mad at me for?” she demanded, following the bear into his tidy kitchen.
Placing his bag of groceries on the table, the bear said, “I didn’t say I was mad at you. Just don’t want you in my house.”
“Well ...” Cella stopped talking. What had she just seen? She spun on her heel and walked back through, meeting up with Jai in the middle of the bear’s living room.
Together the friends studied the area, gazes moving around until Jai observed, “I’ve never in my life seen so much hockey stuff in one place that wasn’t a museum or your father’s closet.”
Jai wasn’t kidding, either. There were framed and signed jerseys from what Cella assumed were the bear’s favorite players, including her dad; someone’s signed skates; a glass case with signed pucks; and framed signed sticks, crossed, on his wall.
“It seems,” Jai went on, “that he favors the Islanders, Philly Flyers, and the Carnivores.”
“I knew he was a fan, but ... wow.”
“At least he didn’t ask you to punch him in the face.”
“It seems he’s a fan of my team, not of me. According to him, I fight too much.”
“You do fight too much,” he called from the kitchen.
Cella’s right eye twitched, but Jai caught her arm, held her in place. “Cella ... remember. Calm. Rational. You need him.”
Cella went back to the kitchen, Jai behind her. The bear was unpacking his grocery bag. Cella folded her arms across her chest, and asked, “So why don’t you want me in your house?”
“Because I can just look at you and tell that you’re trouble.”
“I’m trouble? It wasn’t my brothers softly threatening me with some unknown ‘she.’ And you gonna tell me about that?”
“What would make you think I’d tell you anything at all?”
Cella opened her mouth to say something rude, but Jai cut her off.
“Calm down. Let’s discuss this.”
Cella rolled her eyes. “Discuss this? Really?”
“I have two words for you, Malone,” Jai reminded her, “matchmaker and cousin.”
Realizing she was right, Cella pulled out a chair and dropped into it.
The bear eyed them both. “Matchmaker?”
Jai shrugged. “Like I said, we need a favor.”“What kind of favor? Does it involve money? Gambling debts?”
Annoyed—again!—Cella slammed her hands on the table and went to stand, but Jai shoved her back down by pushing on her head. “Sit!”
“I’m not a dog!”
“Do as I say.” Jai faced the bear again. “I know you two have a history but we, I, have a big favor to ask.”
“Let me guess. This involves her father and him thinking I’m her boyfriend?”
“Well—”
“I told you that was going to be a problem,” he told Cella. “You don’t listen, do you?”
“Look—”
“She doesn’t,” Jai quickly cut in. “She’s a determined, unreasonable female, and she desperately needs your help.”
“Jai!”
“Quiet, difficult female!”
Cella and Jai scowled at each other until, at the same moment, they both burst out laughing. Cella was not surprised when she heard the bear sigh.
While the two females found reasons to laugh, Crush finished putting away his groceries and put down food for Lola. That was around the time the laughter stopped.
“You have a dog?”
“I’m fostering for a friend.” He whistled and Lola came out of the hiding place she always went to whenever his idiot brothers broke into his home. It used to be his apartment, now it was his house.
Lola trotted into the kitchen, but commenced to barking as soon as she saw Malone and her friend.
The two women looked at him and he shrugged. “She’s not a cat-friendly dog.”
“You foster this dog?”
He didn’t know why Malone sounded so disbelieving. Bears had pet dogs all the time.
“Yeah. You have a problem with that?”
Lola continued to bark, so Crush said, “Cut it.” She did and trotted over to him, turning and sitting down on his foot while facing the two felines.
Malone and the other woman exchanged another glance and Malone said, “This is your dog.”
“She’s a foster. That’s all.”
“Uh-huh. How long have you fostered her?”
“Three years.”
The felines began laughing again and Lola snarled at them. That was his girl.
“What?” he asked.
“She’s your dog. Your dog. No one fosters a dog for three years.”
“It’s hard to place her.”
“A purebred English bulldog?” the woman with Malone kindly asked. Unlike the She-tiger, this woman had basic manners.
“I don’t have papers or anything and she’s been fixed.”
“No one has shown interest in it?”
“ ‘It’ is a her,” he snapped at Malone. “And there have been a few interested people but they weren’t the right family for her.”
“For three years?”
“Why are you here?” he barked, fed up with this line of questioning.