Joke’s on You by Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,30

that it was only eight.

Hell, if our date hadn’t been so abruptly canceled, we’d still be out on it right now.

Instead, we were lying in my bed, and we were using the light on her phone to stare into each other’s eyes.

“Where’s your phone?” she suddenly asked as the flush started to ride up her face.

She was embarrassed.

That was so cute.

“I think it’s in the kitchen. Or in my pants pocket. I’m not quite sure,” I admitted.

She frowned. “You’re not going to plug it in?”

I shrugged. “I’ll hear it wherever it is.”

She looked at me like I was crazy.

“That’s…” She widened her eyes at me. “That’s kind of crazy. Who doesn’t plug their phone in every night? What if it dies?”

I grinned at her. “Then it dies.”

“What if you get a SWAT call while it’s dead?” she challenged.

“Then my brother will wake me up,” I countered.

She rolled her eyes. “You have an answer for everything.”

I plucked her phone out of her hands and rolled over to plug it into the charger.

I studiously ignored how badly it hurt when I did, then rolled back to my other side and hauled her into my arms.

She came willingly, obviously just as starved for my touch as I was for hers.

“You tired?” she asked, sounding sleepy.

I made a humming sound.

“Not normally this tired, no. But apparently puking takes everything out of me.” I paused. “And I have a feeling that Asa will be waking me up again tonight.”

She was silent after that, lost in her own thoughts.

I knew that she wasn’t asleep because she kept running her fingers through my hair every so often.

Only after we were lying in bed together for about twenty minutes, her tucked up tight to my side, did she broach our earlier conversation. “I wish I’d have waited for you.”

Something tight in my chest released at her words.

I hadn’t realized that I wanted to hear that.

“I think that there are a lot of things we both would’ve done differently,” I admitted. “Does it bother me that I wasn’t your first? Yeah, kind of. But Jesus. I’d committed the ultimate sin in your eyes that night. How did I come back from that? You shouldn’t have waited.”

“But you didn’t,” she said. “And I slept with the man responsible for your and my sister’s actions. All because I was pissed at you for something that he did.”

Kerrie.

She’d slept with Kerrie.

I fucking hated that.

More, I hated that I hadn’t just pulled my head out of my ass and done what I’d wanted to do all those years ago when we were in high school.

“We’re having our new start now,” I told her. “We’re not going to dwell on the past, because we can’t change it.”

At least, that was what I kept telling myself.

I’d try to be the bigger person.

But there really was no telling what would happen if Kerrie and I got into the same room as each other ever again.

Chapter 7

Life is so boring when you don’t have an online order to look forward to.

-Dillan’s secret thoughts

Dillan

Booth was right.

Not only did Asa wake up once, but he woke up five more times. All of those times having puked either in his bed, on his way to the bathroom, in the bathroom, or almost in the toilet bowl.

None of those times did he actually make it to the toilet or his bowl.

It was… gross.

After the second time, I’d gotten up with Asa.

Because how the hell did Booth get anything done when he puked the entire time he cleaned something up?

When the next morning rolled around, Asa was happy and awake.

Booth and I?

Well, we resembled zombies.

I was just happy that I didn’t have to go to work this morning.

I was even more happy to find out that Delanie had gotten home early and offered to open the shop for me, and I didn’t have to deal with her dogs.

Not that I disliked the duty or anything, but that was just two extra hours I got back of my sleep, and I was thankful for it.

Not that today was one of those days that I was going to get caught up on my sleep.

Because the moment that my sister sent the text that she’d dealt with the dogs, Booth’s doorbell had rung.

And since Booth was once again in the shower, I answered it before Asa could.

“No,” I called out when he went running—streaking—in his underwear toward the door. “I’ll get it.”

“Nobody bad comes here,” Asa declared as he reached for the door handle.

“Asa Pena,”