Page 7 of Their Pup to Tame

“Good, I hope you come to a conclusion that doesn’t necessitate any more ER trips after this,” Aspen declared. “I’m getting in the car now. I’ll be there shortly. Try not to provoke anyone else before I arrive.”

“This wasn’t even on me,” I muttered, words a bit garbled between my nose and the t-shirt, but man did that ruffle my feathers. “I was literally collateral damage this time out. If I’d ducked, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“The conversation hasn’t even started yet,” Aspen said. “But it will when I get there.”

Oh shit.

I might have been better off calling Rex and enduring the shit he would have given me for being incident prone.

The tone in Aspen’s voice echoed through my brain, even now, with pain radiating across my face. He was pissed because of me; whether it was for me, at me, or both, I couldn’t say, but the emotion wasn’t one I was used to having directed my way, nor was the outrage I’d heard when he’d learned what happenedto me. The first thing my brother would have said waslearn to duck,if he didn’t chastise me for letting my reflexes slip in my old age, even with me being more than a decade younger than him. I guess that was a type of love language too, but there was something about having a man sound truly pissed on my behalf. Well, that was doing something to my insides that had nothing to do with the blood flowing down the back of my throat.

“Help me up,” I told Malachi. “I need to get the hell out of here before Uncle James decides to poke his head through the door to get a peek at what happened to me.”

I kept my t-shirt pressed to my face with one hand and offered him the one that looked the least bloody to my blurred vision. He grabbed it and yanked me to my feet faster than was necessary, meaning the whole world spun and I almost wound up on my ass again.

“Th-thanks for covering for me,” Landon stammered. “I am so, so sorry.”

“Thank me by burying this beef you and Dream have going on,” I muttered as Malachi wrapped an arm around me to steady me while we shambled toward the door. “We’ve got enough bullshit to deal with from the patrons. We don’t need you to be at each other’s throats.”

“That fucker has it out for me, I swear, Phoenix…” Landon rambled.

Groaning, I let my head rest on Malachi’s shoulder while I mustered up the energy to put the fear of the goddess in him.

“If you can’t leave it be, I will pair you two up to work the party room from now until next Juvember, and you know I can get Uncle James to agree to it too,” I grumbled. “The momentI remind him of what a draw you both are individually, you know he’ll be dying to see what you can bring in together. Shit, that wouldn’t be a bad idea no matter how you feel about each other. Get yourself in check, because mark my words, you will be working together soon.”

“F-fuck, Phoenix, you can’t seriously…”

I let Landon see the seriousness written all over my face, which he’d etched with that heavy-ass blow dryer of his. He clammed up then and stayed the fuck out of the way while Malachi escorted me out the back door and into a crisp fall night.

“Dude, why didn’t you duck?” Malachi asked as we shambled across the alley to the parking lot.

“Because I didn’t really think he’d try to brain Dream with a blow dryer with my big ass standing in the way.”

“Bet you believe it now.”

“I hate you so hard.”

“Yeah, that seems to be your motto tonight.”

“If you had just kept your mouth shut…”

“I know, I know. I swear I will never mention how a night is going again.”

“Yeah, you will. You do good for a couple of weeks, then open mouth, exit curse; you invite the universe to piss all over us again. I’ve given up on believing in your apologies. It’s as bad as when you sayoops. Half the time I think you do it on purpose just to get a rise out of me, and the other half I want to ask how many times you’ve been hit in the head.”

“Probably fewer than you,” he replied, snickering. “Especially after tonight.”

I flipped him off because talking was getting exhausting. Fortunately, a familiar car came skidding around the corner, damn near on two wheels. If he kept it up, he’d have to take it to the shop like Parker needed to do.

And bum another ride on my Harley.

Heh. Maybe that was his plan.

I could get behind it, too. Well, as long as it didn’t involve any more ER trips for me.

“Oh my god, honey, how goddamn big was the fucking blow dryer?” Aspen snapped the moment he rushed around the car and saw my face.

“Big enough,” Malachi replied, snickering until Aspen shot him a withering look. “I’d, um, better get back in there and make sure all’s still quiet out front. See ya, Phoenix.”