Page 12 of Hellhound AU

“Who the fuck hit you, Ray?” Milo asked.

He was all puffed up and ready to go kill someone, and he reminded me even more of my old cat, Chuck.

“Is this the guy who helped you with Kevin?” Ray asked, sitting down and drinking some of his tea.

I took a sip, and I realized that Ray was either from the south, or he’d been raised by someone who was. The tea was sweet enough to make your teeth ache, and if you don’t think teeth can ache from a drink, you’ve never had southern sweet tea.

I hummed in appreciation, and Ray smiled.

I took a cookie with a lot more faith, and I wasn’t disappointed. It was chewy and chocolatey and delicious. And it was fully cooked. Somehow, Milo’s creations alwayslookedgood, but they were either burnt or raw, or a combination of both, when you actually bit into them. It had to be some kind of curse, because I didn’t know who could bake that badly by accident.

Maybe Milo was trying to kill me. Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. I looked at him, but he was busy staring at Ray’s face, his eyes murderous.

Ah, well, if Milo was trying to kill me, he’d have a hard time doing it. I could still get him to adopt me, I was sure. After all, even my vicious stray had eventually come to like me.

“Talk. Who did it?” Milo demanded.

“It’s not important. I obviously cut off all communication with the guy. He doesn’t know where I live, and I’m not going to contact him again. And I blocked him everywhere, so he can’tcontact me. Not that I think he’ll try. Our final words to one another were pretty final.”

“I’ll show him ‘final words,’” Milo muttered under his breath.

“He was a total dick, but at least I found out early in the relationship and broke it off. I’m not even sure I really liked him, now that I think about it. He was just really slick with me, even though I could tell he was an asshole.” Ray turned to me. “Never date someone who’s mean to wait staff at restaurants. If they’re mean out of nowhere to people who are there to help and serve them, then they’re total assholes. He was always a dick to other people, even if it was subtle, and I shouldn’t have let it go past the first date.”

“I want the details,” Milo demanded.

Ray sighed, but he explained about a date gone wrong, a “few drinks,” a big fight, and what he called a “tussle” over the car keys. Basically, Ray had done a good deed by not letting a drunk person drive and kill someone.

I liked Ray, and the more he talked about what had happened, the more protective I felt. The guy who’d hurt Ray sounded like a piece of work, and I was itching to get my hands on him.

Or, more accurately, I was itching to let Milo get his hands on the guy. I wasn’t a big fan of wet work, but I had the sense that Milo wouldn’t mind getting his hands a little dirty. Nevertheless, Ray refused to give Milo the guy’s last name or address. Apparently, he knew his friend well and didn’t want anyone murdered on his watch.

Eventually, we moved on to other topics, and we actually had a nice sit down with tea and cookies and some chatting. Ray was a funny and sweet guy. He had wooden models, books, and framed puzzles as decorations, and it was a quirky look that totally fit the soft-spoken man.

“How did you two even become friends,” I asked during a lull in the conversation.

Ray chuckled, and Milo said, “You mean, how did Ray-bear here become friends with a psychopath like me?” He grinned in a way that made me think about evisceration again, but I answered anyway.

“Yes. You’re more like a chaos demon, and he’s so… nice.” I might have wrinkled my nose at the word “nice,” because Milo looked decidedly less pissed off.

Ray laughed. He got up, gave me a pat on the back, and said, “Bless your heart, I think you actually like Milo.”

I laughed at that. It was a lovely southern “fuck you” and “you have no idea what you signed up for” all in the first three words. I thought I might’ve had an idea about what I’d signed up for with Milo, but I just shrugged and smiled at Ray.

“Can you show Rowan where the bathroom is? And maybe grab him those clothes?” Milo asked, and Ray looked at me. Milo was giving me a subtle glare, so I just nodded my head, letting Ray lead me off into the house.

He showed me the bathroom, and I went to go in, but he cleared his throat. “Did Milo tell you how we met? We dated the same douchebag, and when we found out, we actually became friends over the whole thing. So, yeah, I have terrible taste in men. But Milo’s taste is obviously questionable as well.”

I tilted my head. What was his point?

“So, if you hurt him, I’ll kill you and they’ll never find the body,” Ray finished.

I smiled. “That’s sweet. Milo is lucky to have such a good friend.”

I went into the bathroom and shut the door in Ray’s surprised face. I heard him mumbling about bringing me a shirt and shoes, so I waited until I heard him come back and leave those outside the door. When he walked off again I cracked open the door. He was gone, and I could hear voices from the kitchen again, so they were chatting.

There had to be a reason that Milo wanted me to be shown the house. Ray refused to give us the last name of the guy he’d been dating, but I figured Milo wouldn’t let it rest there. After all, I wouldn’t if I were him, and he seemed as vengeful as my family. I had two fury sisters, a hellhound brother, and a hellhound brother-in-law, and I thought that Milo would fit right in at family gatherings.

It would be kind of fun to watch him claw at Riley and see what she did in return. I wasn’t sure Riley would come out the victor in that battle, and that made me feel gleeful.