Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Okay, as a kid, I’d had bunnies, a cockatiel, and I’d babysat a dog for two months for my friend while her parents had to go away on business, and she was staying with her grandma. I’d seen cats, played with cats, even thrown them bits of ham from my sandwich, but I genuinely had no idea what they did or needed.

“What’s that for?”

“For it to shit and piss in.”

Standing up, I turned to look at him, checking to see if his nostrils were flared. I knew his tell—when Logan was lying, his nostrils gave him away. At that moment, they weren’t doing it, though, and that confused me.

“What’s litter? Do I have to go to Home Depot or something?” Wasn’t that the stuff you put down when the roads were icy? Why would a cat need it?

“It’s a thing you put in a tray for a cat so it can go to the bathroom without going outside. You get it from grocery and pet stores.”

Chewing my lip, I thought about it. Could I put up with the smell from the attic in my house?

What Logan said next kind of sealed the deal for me. “If you don’t, you’ll have it pissing on the furniture and curtains while you’re out, or you’ll have to cut a hole in the door to put a cat flap in.”

“I’ll get a litter tray and anything it needs so I don’t have to do any of that.”

I could deal with poop in whatever litter was.

I was so caught up in my thoughts, that I didn’t think about what was going to happen when Doyle met the cat, and just let him in the back door before we left.

The good news was that they obviously knew each other or recognized each other’s scents, because neither of them attacked each other.

The bad news was that they both still hated Logan, so he got corresponding growls and hisses as he walked past them.

What the hell had Pops done to them to make them hate him so much?

Chapter Nine

Logan

It’d been three days since I’d seen Bex, and I was still stuck in the bowels of confusion hell.

I think the biggest problem was that I was scared to say something that’d upset her and make her run away again, and it meant I wasn’t letting myself relax fully around her.

Sure, years had passed, and she’d moved home, but I kept overthinking what I was doing and saying around her. My brain was stuck in eighteen-year-old Logan mode when it came to her, and it was having problems with adult Logan mode. Like the two were clashing.

Why was that a problem? Well, maturity for one. I was a Sheriff’s Deputy now, a man who had to think maturely and wisely to do his job properly.

It bugged me that peeks of teen Logan kept coming through when it came to her.

Did she look at me? What did that look mean? Did she mean to brush her hand over mine?

It was messed up, and I needed to get control over it.

That’s why I was keeping some distance between us. I needed time to get control over myself again. At least, that was my excuse at this moment.

The reality was that I was running kind of scared. I’d intended to go and see her once I finished work today, but it’d been a long shitty day, and I was about done with it all.

I had sweat in my ass crack, which was uncomfortable in itself, but add on the vest and all the shit on it and my belt—I was in ass crack sweat hell! I also had a sore eye from where an eighty-four-year-old woman had headbutted me when I’d pulled her off another woman at the retirement home.

I was over the day and just wanted to have a shower and a beer. So, that’s what I was headed home for now.

I was just pulling up in front of my apartment when my phone rang, and I saw Bex’s name flash up on the dash. Picking up the phone, I killed the engine at the same time as hitting the answer button.

“You good?” It might sound a bit abrupt, but did I mention I had irritable ass crack sweat syndrome going on?

“I got the job!” she squealed as I used my foot to close the door behind me.