Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,5
a little and was embarrassed, but when she looked up, he had the biggest grin on his face. And a silly little piece of her glowed with pride. Over drinking a beer? Her life was really strange tonight.
“Want me to sign your boob?”
“Wh-what?” she yelped.
“Dead!” Cheyenne exclaimed. “You can’t ask girls that!”
“Why not? Most of them ask me to sign their boobs. ‘It’s Okay’ seems a little shy. Figured I would ask her first and then she doesn’t have to muster up the nerve.”
Cheyenne’s whiskey-colored eyes were round as moons. “I’m so sorry for his behavior. What’s your name again?”
“Cow shifter,” Dead answered for her.
“Zip it, Dead. No more words,” Cheyenne growled.
Okay, they were kind of funny. “Um, my name is Raven.”
“Haaaa!” Dead laughed. “A cow named Raven. This is awesome.”
Cheyenne snapped her fingers at the exit and glared at Dead. “Go. I know what you’re doing. You’ve being awful so I won’t make you sign autographs tonight. You win! Go check on Quickdraw.”
Dead arched his eyebrows up high, and his lips thinned to small lines under that hotboy beard. “On second thought, I want to sign autographs. Me and Raven the Cow are going to sign them together.”
“Um, I’m good,” Raven said softly. She tried to unhook their arms, but Dead, smooth-as-you-like, grabbed her hand and hooked it into the crook of his elbow.
“I feel like starting some rumors tonight,” he said, staring at Cheyenne.
“You know what?” Cheyenne said loud enough to echo down the hallway. “Go do it then. Do whatever you want. Go start some media circus. Go spiral, but it doesn’t take away from what’s really happening!”
“And what’s that?”
“You’re upset over Two Shots, and you’re spiraling over dropping a rank. You’re still part of the herd, Dead! Dropping a rank doesn’t matter to me or to Quickdraw or Two. You’re still one of us.”
“Go check on your mate,” Dead murmured. “Me and Raven have boobies to sign.”
“But I don’t want to sign any boobies,” she quietly assured him as he pulled her toward the signing tables.
“Come on, girlfriend.”
“I’m not anyone’s girlfriend! Oh, my gosh.”
She swallowed hard when they got to the doorway. The VIP crowd had grown, and they all looked at her and Dead in the mouth of the entrance. Her cheeks caught fire. “I’m gonna go see about a thing and go bury myself in a hole and never come out again,” she murmured, releasing his arm.
She tried to duck to the side and make her escape, but Dead grabbed her hand in his, intertwined their fingers—intertwined them!—and then waved at a group who were snapping pictures. The line at his table was cheering.
“Shoot me with a water gun,” she uttered on a breath.
“This is my girlfriend, Raven,” Dead announced.
“I actually just met him,” she said as he dragged her straight through the crowd toward his table.
“She is a moo cow shifter.”
“It’s actually just called a cow shifter.”
“Her name is Raven and her mother is a pirate and her father is a seaman who works on a crab boat.”
“They’re both schoolteachers.”
“Who teach bomb diffusing in the Netherlands.”
“Um, sixth grade math and English in Idaho?”
“And she has an announcement to make about how big my dick is.”
“I have no knowledge of his dick size!”
He yanked the chair away from Quickdraw’s table and set it gallantly beside his, then gestured for her to take a seat. “My queen.”
“I’ve never wanted to kill a stranger before now,” she muttered under her breath, frowning at the boxes of magnets and bookmarks and pictures of Dead that filled open boxes under the table.
“That feeling won’t fade with me.” Dead arched his eyebrow up higher and pulled her seat back a little. “Have a seat, Sugar Tits.”
Raven eyed the exit. All she had to do was make it across an alleyway of trotting horses with riders, bolt under the VIP sign, and then leave the way she came in. Just with two less beers. She was still holding her empty cup.
“Have a seat, have a seat, have a seat,” Dead started chanting, and to her utter dismay, the line in front of them started chanting the same.
If the earth opened up right now and swallowed her whole, she’d had a good long run at life and would be fine with it.
Cheyenne was standing off to the side, arms crossed over her chest, frown furrowing her forehead. I’m so sorry, she mouthed to Raven.
Me, too, Raven mouthed right back.
Living a literal nightmare, which was to have people’s attention on her, she