“I heard the worldwide birth rate increased nine months after the first wolf pack went into heat.”
“That's not surprising at all. It’s the top-rated episode that doesn’t have the Pirate King in it.”
The next video that pops up on my screen is about Amanda Chase. He huffs. “Yeah, I don’t see what the big deal is about that girl.”
My stomach drops. I don’t think I could be with a man who has open disdain for Amanda. “What, you don’t like beautifully written and insightful music that rips your heart out one minute and gives you hope for humanity the next?”
He shrugs. “I’m not saying she’s not a good artist, I just don’t get the hype.”
Ok, this I can work with. “Oh, my dear sweet man, you have stumbled into my second hyperfixation. Are you sure you want to be schooled on the lore of Amanda Chase?”
“Do I want to be? No. Are you going to do it anyway? Probably.”
“I happen to have an epic power point ready on this topic.” I squirm out of his arms and grab my laptop. In seconds, it’s loaded. “Welcome to Amanda Chase—the lore, the legend, the longing.”
I black out for like ten minutes as the Narrator Lady comes out and ignores all social cues. I rave about Amanda and Grae’s song writing, the power point includes a clip of a song, which it kills me not to play the whole thing. Then I talk about her battles with Joey’s cousin, Terk Henderson. I don’t know how I feel about this, but Joey assures me, he fucking hates the guy, so then I shift the topic, to the most epic night in history. Amanda caused the Capital Internet Providers’ servers to overload during her first professionally streamed concert, between merch sales and a new album drop she made more money in one night than Terk Henderson did the last three years combined. I get choked up thinking about it. “You might be a mob boss, but are you Amanda Chase level of badass?”
I blink a few times out of my hyperfixation word vomit. “Sorry, how much of that were you paying attention to? Sometimes I can’t tell when people are bored and don’t want to listen to me anymore.”
Joey scrunches his face, like he’s thinking or counting in his head. “Like seventy-five percent of it. The other twenty, I was thinking about how cute you are when you’re excited about something.”
I cock my head at him. That was only ninety-five percent.
He grins, like he knows exactly what I was thinking. “And the other five percent was me ignoring the guys in a group chat.”
This is new and unnerving. He’s interested in what’s important to me, and he thinks I’m cute. Which is super strange. Has anyone said that to me before? I’m always trying to tone things down and make myself less. But each time I let my mask slip, he’s there, and hasn’t yet told me to be quiet.
Alana told me to be a chaos gremlin. To be myself. Until now, that was always too risky.
But damn, the sex is awesome, and… shit. As much as I keep trying to run away, I think the feelings are catching up to me.
This can only end badly.
Chapter Seventeen
Joey
My phone has been going off all morning. I keep expecting news about the guys in her apartment or updates about this war we’re in, but instead, I keep getting pictures of Donny putting his tiny plastic penis in random places, and Thiago growing more annoyed. I kinda love it. Donny has a ton of questions about 3D printers, and after thirty seconds of texting him her answers, I toss her my phone.
She blinks at me in total disbelief. “You gave me your phone.”
“Yeah.”
“The one item that has all your secrets. Your internet search history, banking info, game saves…” She scoots over to a different cushion on the couch, a little closer to me.
Oh… I see. I just handed it over to her. I’ve got guys on my team who won’t even give their wives the unlock codes, much less willing to hand it over without a thought. I should have a swell of panic and fear. An urge to snatch it out of her hands. But I don’t.
The phone buzzes, and she types away for a few seconds then looks back at me. “You’re not worried that I’m going to hand this over to the FBI or something?”
“Noooo,” I say, and the word sounds as confused as I feel. Why am I not freaking the fuck out? I punched Uri for violating my privacy because he told me I had three missed calls notifications.
She throws her feet on the couch, wiggles, frowns, and tosses the phone back. “For a mob boss, you have a terrible sense of personal security."
I hate that she’s right.
The phone buzzes again, and it’s Donny, with a text: “I bought two.”
“Did he buy two 3D printers?”
