got up and walked toward the hallway. “I’m making us steaks and potatoes tonight. Just let me get changed.”
Staring at where he’d just been with his words still going around in my head, I looked down at Clyde, who looked like he was frowning at me. “What the hell do I do with that information? And how long do you think it’ll be until he starts finding the guns and knives I’ve hidden?”
Two guns and two knives were hidden in strategic places in the house, including one under the couch cushions. I wasn’t brave enough to tell him about them today, though.
Chapter Nine
Garrett
The next morning…
My plan of wooing Zuri—no, she was Tamsin now—had changed. Learning what I had about her situation kind of changed where our relationship was at.
I knew I needed to go slowly and ease into her circle of trust because, if I were in her shoes, I’d have a whole new level of trust that needed to be hit by people around me. I also felt like I was ten feet tall after she’d shared it all because it showed she trusted me. Yeah, sure, that was trust, but what I wanted with her meant I had to earn a different level of it. Fuck it, I knew what I meant, and I was going to do this properly.
Unfortunately, Mom had called early this morning to say that Dad needed help with something, so my plans for the day had changed from nothing but Tamsin to bringing her to see my parents.
And that’s why I was about to open their front door, with my hand around her wrist as I delicately tugged her along behind me.
“Just crack a window in the car, and I’ll stick my nose out of it,” she begged again. “Think about poor Clyde, think of the child.”
Pulling it open, I moved through the entrance and sighed when the air conditioning hit me. It was hot as balls out—welcome to Texas, have sweaty balls for life.
“Phil has him for the day to do some training with him, and then Alex is collecting him to spend some time with his mom.”
Just as she was about to try a new tactic, something came running down the hallway toward us with its teeth bared. It looked like a rat on steroids.
Jumping in front of Tamsin, I put my arms out so it wouldn’t see her behind me. “Fucking shit! Dad, call an exterminator. What the hell is it?”
I expected a screeching noise to come out of it, but instead, it started doing this high pitched barking that freaked me out even more.
“Is that…” Tamsin whispered from somewhere under my armpit, “a dog?”
Lowering my arm to protect her face, I hissed out of the corner of my mouth, “Don’t make eye contact with it.”
There was a clicking noise behind us as the door shut, and my heart sank into my balls—our way of escape was closed. Then again, if the rat jumped at us, I could block it from landing on Tamsin with my back while opening the front door at the same time. It would take some maneuvering, but we could probably get her out before it could do much damage.
While I was thinking all of this, though, I’d been backing us up into the corner without realizing it until I couldn’t press any further back into Tamsin without smothering her.
“Hello, darling,” Mom called as she came down the hallway toward us. “I see you’ve met our new gorgeous man, Fonzie.”
“Gorgeous?”
The thing, sensing I was talking about it, growled at me.
Christ, its eyes looked like they’d had an argument and were trying to take off in opposite directions. And it’s teeth… they were like the front of a forklift.
Squatting down beside him, Mom reached out and started stroking its prickly hair. “There, there, sweetheart. Your brother doesn’t mean it.”
At the word ‘brother’, Tamsin started choking behind me.
“Ma, what the fuck is it?”
“A dog, Garrett. We adopted him the other day because he was just so handsome.”
This time both of us choked.
“Are you sure it’s a dog? Did you have a vet check him over?”
Sighing, she picked him up off the ground and made weird noises at it. “Of course we did. We made sure our baby was perfectly fine. Speaking of, where’s your new baby? The pictures and videos you keep sending us are just adorable.”
Yeah, I might’ve gotten carried away with Clyde when Tamsin wasn’t looking. Speaking of, when she heard this, she pinched me on