Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,15

didn’t want to worry about Booth.

Not anymore.

I wanted to embrace what he threw at me.

Because Booth was nearly taken from me today, and I had no idea until right then that I was suppressing my feelings for him so hard.

Well, that ended tonight.

Finally slipping into sleep, I did it with an excited smile on my face.

Chapter 4

More money. More puppies.

-T-shirt

Dillan

I blinked in surprise at seeing the kennels being cleaned out by Bourne.

“Umm,” I said as I stared at the man. “What are you doing here?”

My day had been long, and awful.

Not only had I started the day out with very little sleep—I’d stayed awake and daydreamed about a certain bruised up man—but my day had gotten worse from there.

The first person to get their donuts had complained that they weren’t ‘as cute’ as she thought they were going to be. Of course, she’d posted this to the Donut Place’s company page, meaning everyone who followed me saw them.

When I got a look at the picture she posted, it’d been obvious to me that they’d been dropped at some point, smashing the cute little flag—the theme was American flags due to it being so close to the Fourth of July—and making it appear to be just a rather large, mushy mess.

Another customer had written on my wall saying that my calendar that I had hanging on the wall—the SWAT calendar that Booth just so happened to be on the cover of that month—was ‘inappropriate’ in a family environment.

Thankfully, in both instances, my customers had come to my aid, protecting me with their words.

One lady had called the SWAT calendar complainer out, stating that it was for charity and if she didn’t like it, she didn’t have to actually go in to buy the donuts. She could go through the drive-through, and from there you couldn’t see the calendar.

Needless to say, there’d been a war from there, and I’d had to delete the post due to all the negative words that had been said on it.

Kerrie had then stopped by, pissed off that I’d been ignoring him.

I hadn’t seen him in weeks, since his last impromptu visit, and the first thing out of his mouth was that I should ‘really rethink going on a date with Booth.’

In front of my customers.

He also had to point out that ‘Booth had a baby with my sister,’ making it sound like I was a homewrecker or something in front of about half of my customers.

The customers hadn’t actually left, but they’d definitely been curious.

After getting rid of Kerrie—thankfully he had to go to work—I’d explained to my customers that I was seeing a man that I’d always had a crush on, and that it was complicated.

They’d known the story, though.

Everyone in Kilgore knew the damn story.

Booth was a town hero, having deployed four times, and coming home from his last deployment wounded.

They’d thrown him a freakin’ parade when he’d arrived in town.

So yes, they knew his story well.

Needless to say, when I arrived at my place to find Bourne there, I wasn’t really as nice as I probably should have been since I now didn’t have to deal with poop.

“Why do you hate me?” I finally got the courage to ask, blurting out the words before I could think better of them.

Bourne’s eyes flicked to me, then went back to the poop he was spraying off the concrete. During the day, when I couldn’t be here with them, I had no other choice but to put the dogs outside in their kennels.

Their air-conditioned kennels, but kennels nonetheless.

I hated that they had to be cooped up, but it usually wasn’t for long seeing as normally Delanie or I were able to be home during the day and they were let out in the runs built alongside the kennels.

“I don’t hate you,” he said, his voice much more different from Booth’s. I wasn’t sure how anybody ever got them confused. “I just highly dislike you.”

My mouth fell open, and at first, I wasn’t sure what to say.

Then I started to laugh, because Bourne wasn’t one to beat around the bush. He’d always told it like it was.

“You what?” I snickered. “How is that any better?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But hate requires a certain level of feeling that I just don’t have for you. You’ve never done anything to me that instilled that level of emotion.”

Well, that was true.

“Why do you ‘highly dislike’ me then?” I pushed.

I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting out of him.

But