Page 69 of Wayward

“Not so much,” I said, grabbing another slice of the combination pizza, which had all the veggies plus sausage. “Thanks for bringing dinner.”

“Oh yes, Gale,” Ada chimed in. “Pizza is a treat.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said, reaching out simply to touch my cheek.

“You gonna eat some of your greens?” I asked, glancing at the antipasto salad and then meeting his gaze.

“Yes,” he said, scowling.

“When?” Ada asked pointedly. “Maks and I finished ours, but you—darling, you must eat some roughage for your bowels.”

“Yeah,” I seconded. “Think of your bowels, man.”

“You’re both disgusting,” he griped but picked up his fork.

After dinner, the two of us were walking Misha when Gale got a call. The entirety of the conversation, from his end, was a series of grunts and groans until he finally said, “I’ll be right there.” The long sigh afterward let me know he was annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Maks. We have a noise-disturbance call. Apparently things are getting out of control.”

“Party?”

He nodded.

“Misha and I will go with you.”

“What? No,” he said, shaking his head. “If we end up making arrests, you could both be there all night.”

“If that happens, I’ll get a cab.”

He scoffed. “Honey, there’s no cabs in Rune that run any later than ten.”

Did he know he just called me honey? “Then I’ll follow you in my Jeep.”

“Why do you want to come along so badly?”

“Because I’ve seen your two deputies, and I think it would be better if I came to back you up.”

Wicked grin from him. “You don’t trust them to take care of me?”

“Not at all.”

He was quiet a moment. “You can come with me, but I want you to retreat to the car if anything happens.”

“Certainly,” I agreed, but there must have been something about the way I said it because he was looking at me closely. “What?”

“You’ve never retreated from anything in your life, have you?”

I had not. It was not in my nature. “We should go, don’t you think?”

“We should take Misha inside.”

But I had a feeling.

Over the years, at different times, my intuition had told me things. My mother said it was my guardian angel, but in my case, since I couldn’t imagine I had anything heavenly looking out for me, I had to go with my father’s explanation. According to him, it was a memory from your past life. He believed we were all reincarnated over and over to live another shit life because we were all evil deep down.

“Unless you are perfect, like Pasha and your mother,” he’d told me, “you come back.”

So when I met someone I wasn’t sure of for whatever reason, that was because they had fucked me over in a previous life. One damaged, broken soul acknowledging another. At the moment, feeling that I should bring Misha with me meant I had to go with my gut. And maybe it was all crap and I just wanted to bring my dog because I liked him, or maybe there was something more I just couldn’t see right now. Either way, I told Gale that Misha was coming with us.