Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,16

girl? Or…?”

“My girlfriend is a Hagan heifer, and she can kick your ass,” Dead said through a grin.

Quickdraw’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Well, I don’t know about the kicking your ass part, but my animal kind of wants to give it a go.”

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope, you keep her locked deep inside of you,” Two Shots advised her. “We’re all friends here, and friends don’t let friends kill other friends.”

Quickdraw looked at Cheyenne and back to Raven, then to Cheyenne again. He seemed highly offended now. “So, I can’t even punch him?”

“I mean,” Cheyenne drawled out. “…You can…but then you have to deal with Dead and the Bacon Heifer, whatever that means.”

“Hagan Heifer,” Two Shots corrected her. “Trusty trust me, we don’t want her changing. My leg hurts like a sonofagun. Can we just eat and not fight? For freaking once? Huh? Can we just do that tonight?”

Quickdraw shoved Dead in the shoulder hard and jammed his finger in his face. “Don’t call me that again.”

Dead took a long drink of his soda and asked Cheyenne innocently, “How do you use hashtags on social media?”

“No!” Two Shots and Quickdraw yelled together.

Dead was grinning like a villain now, and Raven thought he was so handsome when he was being a little bit evil. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and searched him up on Instagram, then followed Dead of Winter’s page. And then before she could change her mind, she sent him a message.

Dear pretend-boyfriend,

It’s our one-day anniversary, and that’s a pretty big deal, so I figured it was time to give you my number.

She typed out the number and hit send, put her phone away, and settled onto the chair Dead pulled over to her, feeling an easing in her soul she’d never felt before.

Would she regret giving him her number tomorrow? Probably. She was an overthinker and would probably lie in bed tonight going over all the reasons she should leave him alone. They lived in different towns, probably different states, and she didn’t have a lot of money to travel for a long-distance relationship or friendship, or whatever this would turn out to be. But she didn’t get sad thinking about the end of the night anymore because there was this little connection out there in the universe between them. One that he didn’t even know about yet.

Right now, it was her little secret that tonight wouldn’t be the end of them.

Chapter Six

“I’d better get going.” Raven shifted her weight from side to side and hugged tight around her the giant hoodie Dead had given her.

Dead waved to his herd—that’s what he’d called Two Shots Down, Cheyenne and Quickdraw—as they walked back to their campers.

“I was thinking you should stay here tonight,” he said. “I got everything a girl could need to stay the night. I internet-searched a checklist of stuff chicks like, and I got a girlfriend starter pack all put together.”

“A what?” she asked, controlling her smile. He looked very very serious here under the strands of outdoor lights.

“A girlfriend starter pack. Here, I’ll show you. Oh,” he said, turning before he opened the door. “And chicks like to know they’re safe, so I promise I won’t bone you unless you ask me to bone you.”

Raven pursed her lips against a giggle that was threatening to bubble up the back of her throat. “Um, thank you for controlling your boning. I wasn’t scared, though. You’ve been mostly a gentleman all night.”

“I’m gonna need you to put that in writing and submit it to Cheyenne so she gets off my back. I’m basically contractually obligated to be a gentleman.” He grinned brightly and pushed the camper door open and gestured her in grandly.

“What else does your contract say?” she asked curiously as she walked up the stairs and made her way into the camper.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it outside the herd.” Dead pulled a blanket out of a cabinet. “You can sleep here, and I won’t even make any mooooves on you. Cow joke.”

She cracked up and plopped onto the couch where that rough-and-tumble man tucked her in like a little burrito with the blanket, which, by the way, smelled like his cologne and she was definitely going to try to steal it tomorrow.

There was a recliner by the tiny kitchen island, and he sat down there. Like a gentleman. “I’m supposed to be respectful during interviews—”

“I’ve seen your interviews. You’ve ignored that rule.”

He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, rule ignored. I