“Holy crap.”
“Yeah.” I shook my head. “The icing on the cake, however, was when I went to my dad’s to pick Brawny up and take him to my friend’s place, I found out that Brawny was missing. No one had seen him in hours.”
“Fuck that bitch.” He shook his head. “You win. My parents suck, but not like that.”
I smiled, though it didn’t reach my eyes. “And now I refuse to have anything to do with her, which pisses my parents off because they think she’s perfect. None of them think that she did anything wrong.”
“She stole the man you were going to marry,” he replied in outrage.
“I know.” I threw up my hands. “But they think that she did me a favor. Because after our breakup, she dumped him.”
“Of course.” Meo rolled his eyes. “At least tell me you called and canceled the hotel where you were having your honeymoon.”
“I did,” I confirmed. “I had a great event planner that worked with me through the entire process. She canceled everything and I got my money back on everything but the flight. They canceled her connecting flight to Bora Bora, though. I’ll bet she was pissed as hell.”
“A great endorsement for travel insurance,” he mused.
“You’re telling me.” I shook my head. “When she asked us if we wanted it, I was hesitant. But Morris said it was a ‘good thing.’ I guess he knew better than I did what he was about to do. Maybe he has a conscience after all.”
“Or maybe he was thinking about himself, and thought he might be getting sued civilly after all that bullshit,” he pointed out.
“You may be right. He paid for almost all the other deposits but the honeymoon. But the honeymoon was by far the most expensive,” I explained. “And I’ve actually been trying to gather evidence that Birdee was the one to dump Brawny. But she’s good. She’s been doing this sleuthing thing for a long time. I have to catch up.”
He tilted his head again, his hair falling into his eyes slightly with the move. “How legal are you wanting to keep it?”
Brawny lifted his head and rested his jowls on my bare knees. “I don’t care how illegal at this point.”
His lips kicked up at one corner. “Well, I know a guy.”
Four
Up your butt and around the corner.
—Dru to Romeo
Romeo
The woman definitely didn’t bench press small cars.
In fact, she was absolutely tiny.
And I’d seen her before.
She was the reason that I’d had Apollo look into Brawny.
I’d heard her and her sister talking as I’d walked in, contemplating whether to take a seat at the table or the bar.
I’d heard the two of them talking, and I’d heard the sister’s comment about the woman’s dog.
And I’d thought, what if that’d been me and my dog? How would I feel if someone had stolen him and given him away? Or dumped him?
That’d had me looking at Dog, whose real name was Brawny, differently.
What if he was someone’s pet?
I’d never thought that he would belong to the woman that I’d seen at Meridian, though.
“You know what kind of guy?” she asked.
