Broken Dreams (Broken 2)

When we walked into the house, we were greeted by Midnight and Lulu. We both looked at each other and said, “Oh shit!”

“You didn’t crate them!” Courtney said in a panicked voice.

Wait, what? “Me? I’m cow-sitting. You’re the one who’s dog-sitting,” I said as I held up my hands and quickly looked around the house. Oh fuck. If they chewed up anything, Layton will have our asses.

“You check upstairs. I’ll check down here,” Courtney said as she took off her shoes. She started running around with Lulu right behind her.

“Gotcha!” I said as I made my way upstairs.

Every door had been shut, except for the second master bedroom where I was staying. I let out the girliest shriek when I walked in and saw one of my cowboy boots had been chewed up. Midnight ran in and went right for the boot. He picked it up and practically threw it at me, wanting to play fetch.

I grabbed on to the door to hold myself up. My boots…oh God…he chewed up my boot.

“What? What was that noise? It sounded like you stepped on a cat’s tail or something!” Courtney said as she skidded to a stop and ran into me.

I pointed to my boot. “My…my…my boot. That bastard ate my boot…my favorite boots.” I put my hands on my knees and took in a few deep breaths.

Court let out a gasp. “Oh…oh, Midnight, you bad boy. You didn’t. That is unforgivable. You got his boots. Oh. My. God! My shoes!” With that, she took off running back downstairs, screaming, “I left the bedroom door open,” over and over again.

When I heard her bloodcurdling scream, I knew it must have been bad. Midnight ducked and ran out of the room. When Court didn’t stop screaming, I got worried. I ran downstairs and into Layton’s room. I stopped on a dime when I saw her with a gun.

“Where in the hell did you get a gun?” I asked, confused as hell.

“Whit told me where one was. I’m going to kill them both. Get out of my way.”

I looked around the room and didn’t see any signs of torn up shoes. “Court, wait. The dogs? You’re gonna kill the dogs? Why?” I tried to take the gun from her.

She shook her head, and I swore I could see steam coming from her ears.

“Reed, just tell me that this thing is loaded because I’m going to kill both those motherfuckers.”

When she extended her hand with the gun, I grabbed it. “Jesus, Courtney. You never, ever handle a gun if you don’t know what you are doing or if it’s loaded.” I checked the chamber, and it wasn’t loaded. Thank God.

She pushed me out of the way and started screaming, “Lulu! I know it was you! You were so jealous of it.”

“What? Courtney, stop and tell me why you are so pissed.”

She spun around and looked at me. “I’m pissed because those animals…those beasts…those stinky, nasty, shit-eating dogs…ate my Kindle!”

Oh hell. Those poor dogs.

“I’m. Going. To. Kill. Them.” She turned and started screaming each dog’s name as she headed out of the room.

I was pretty sure they were hiding—or at least, I was hoping they were hiding.

“There you are!” she shouted.

I put the gun down and ran out after her. Lulu was sitting in the den, wagging her tail, as Courtney walked over and picked up a bat that Layton had leaning against the wall, and then she headed over to Lulu. I ran up, grabbed the bat, and spun her around. She began pushing me away while arguing that she needed her payback. I started laughing, and that just made her all the more mad.

I pushed her up against the wall and tried to get her to settle down. “For Christ’s sake, Court, I will buy you a new Kindle. Ju

st calm down.”

Her eyes lit up for a brief second. “Are you admitting that you forgot to put them in their kennels?”

“What? No.”

She began trying to get out of my grip, so I pushed my body into her.