“It’s the dog from the car!” My eyes widened as the creature turned its head, an old banana peel dangling from its lips as it locked eyes on Spencer. “Poor thing has to be starving. Maybe we can find it something to eat.”
Softly cooing as I picked through Spencer’s bike bag, I found an old stick of beef jerky and tore open the package. “You hungry, baby?”
As the Rottweiler’s gaze shifted from Spencer to me, its mouth watering at the sight of the jerky, Spencer tensed. “Please be careful, Kiera. You don’t know that dog.”
The scratches on its side were starting to heal over, brown now instead of the bright red that had drawn my eyes the night we found her.
“It’s just a baby.” I muttered, never taking my eyes off the puppy. “You’re just a sweet baby, huh?”
The dog’s big, orange eyes flicked from the food in my hand up to my eyes, trying to decide if it could trust me. And I didn’t blame it — my own experiences with shitty men made me cagey around strangers.
But just as the puppy’s hunger was about to win out, a screech of tires behind me made all of our heads whip around.
My heart raced, terrified that I was about to get hit, but it was just some asshole in a pickup who’d taken the turn a bit too hard. The puppy didn’t know that though, and the second my eyes left it, the dog bolted down the alleyway, disappearing around the back corner of a shop.
“Wait!” I called out, preparing to run after it, but Spencer stopped me with a hand around my bicep.
“Kiera…”
“It’s going to get away!”
“And what’s your plan for catching it?” Her tone wasn’t unkind, but the concern on her face was clear. “Listen, I want to help it just as much as you do. But we’ve got to be smart about this. Chasing it down now is only going to freak it out.”
“What if it doesn’t come back?” I frowned.
“It will. There’s only so many places it can dumpster dive in town. Most of the tourist places lock up the dumpsters. So if we start leaving out some food, it’ll have to come back. We can earn its trust from there.”
I pouted as I craned my neck down the alleyway. “You really think that’ll work?”
My heart ached at the thought of its brown eyebrows, scrunched together in confusion. The little Rottweiler needed somewhere to eat in peace. And I wasn’t certain the alley next to an autobody shop was going to fit the bill.
“I promise it will, Bunny.” Spencer wrapped her arms around me from behind. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll track it down myself. Okay?”
“Okay…” I murmured, melting into her embrace.
Rubbing my arm, she placed a sweet kiss against my temple before rumbling in my ear. “Alright, baby, ready to head inside?”
I took a deep breath, “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Lacing her fingers with mine, Spencer led the way into Lucky Strike. There was an energy radiating off of her — a sort of tension clashing against excitement. And as we entered the shop, I realized that it wasn’t just her energy that had shifted.
The entire inside of the autobody had been rearranged. It was hard to tell where exactly everything had been moved with the lights off, but the ring of candles surrounding a big, empty car lift in the middle of the shop certainly hadn’t been there yesterday.
My head buzzed trying to guess what kind of romantic surprise Spencer had planned for me — and why she had chosen here, of all places.
But my chest tightened as two figures stepped out of the shadows: Dom and Leo, each with a set of bike chains in their hands. “What are we…?”
Before I could finish the question, Spencer placed a hand on my back, pressing me forward as she locked the door behind us. And only then, as I watched my last exit close behind me, did I notice the bike chain dangling from own pocket and wonder what the fuck I had gotten myself into.
17
KIERA
My heart was beatingout of my chest as Leo stepped forward, stretching out her hand to me. “Your initiation is nearly complete, Princess.”
Pressing on the small of my back, Spencer moved me farther into the shop. She was delicate but powerful, and it was clear to me that I shouldn’t resist her now.
I’d barely stepped into the candlelit circle when Dom flicked on a single, circular light at its center. The bright fluorescent cast a cool glow over the middle of the shop, illuminating just the empty lift at the center.
