“Hey, buddy,” he said to dragon pig. “Nice work out there.”
Its little curly tail wagged.
I shrugged into the shirt and rucked the sleeves up to my elbows. “She needs to get out of here,” I whispered.
“Motel for the night. Sand Garden?”
“Yes. She wants to do a ride along.”
“I can handle that.”
“She is not riding along with you to spy on this town.”
“You want her spying on the town on her own? Because that’s what she’ll do. She’ll poke around until she finds something we can’t explain. And then the entire DoPP will be down our throats.”
I ran through options, trying to come up with other ways to deal with her. But his idea of basically letting her think she was seeing all of our town while actually being babysat by someone who could steer her away from the worst of it was the best chance we had of convincing her we were just a normal, boring, ordinary beach town.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
“It will be okay.”
“How long?”
“With her? Week, tops.”
“Fuck.”
“But hey, at least I won’t be focusing on the wedding so much.”
“Not funny.”
He shrugged and from the purse of his lips and the twinkle in his eyes, I knew he thought he was hilarious.
“A little funny,” he said.
“Are we sharing secrets?” Vivian called out. “I love secrets. Did Ryder tell you about that night we both flew into New Orleans and there weren’t any rooms left? About how we ended up sleeping on the couch in suite of a very nice older couple who liked to swing?”
I raised an eyebrow. Ryder’s face slashed red at the cheeks.
“It was a weird weekend,” he muttered.
“You’ll have to tell me sometime.”
I turned to the dragon pig. “No more peeing to the rescue, got it?”
It squeaked.
I picked it up and put it on the floor, then opened the bathroom door. “Off to bed,” I told it. I moved to follow, bur Ryder caught my hand, and pulled gently.
“Nothing happened between us. She not my type. I’ve never trusted her. She has too many secrets and hidden agendas.”
“I know,” I said. “We got this.” I squeezed his hand, he squeezed back. Then I walked over to the spare room to make sure dragon pig was settled.
Dragon pig was in the middle of its little bed, kicking toys across the room. Spud picked up the stuffed octopus and carried it over, wagging his tail.
The pig grumbled, but accepted the toy, then dropped down on the bed like an angry little pink rock. Spud curled up around it.
I shut the door.
