So. Long.: Bad Boy Next Door Read Online Free Page B

shuffleboard puck going for the
goal.
    I dart across the room.
    Too late.
    The pullet takes flight across the kitchen—apparently feathers
aren’t necessary after all.
    Hands out, I launch into the air. The slippery hen evades rescue,
landing on the floor with a thud, skidding between the mutt and me on its way
toward the door.
    The dog loses all interest in the kitten as he snatches the bird.
The whites of his eyes show as he watches me, all the while dodging my flailing
grasp.
    Oh, hell no. Not my chicken.
    I block the exit, arms wide. “Oh, no you don’t.”
    He readjusts his grip on my dinner. His big paws slide on
the linoleum as he tries to plow past me.
    I get hold of his collar, hooking my fingers under it. “I’ve
got you now.”
    Fucker’s a freaking diesel truck.
    He pulls me down, but I hang on for all I’m worth. Too much
has been taken from me lately to lose my lunch to a mutt.
    I manage to flip over and get one leg on either side of him,
feet braced against the doorframe of the kitchen’s entrance for leverage. Like
a cartoon, his legs are in motion, but he’s going nowhere fast. Until he manages
to get his front paws to the place the linoleum meets the carpet.
    He gains traction. He strains against his collar, whipping
his head left and right as I try—and fail—to grab my chicken with my free hand.
    Suddenly, the tension between the beast and my grip is
relieved when the leather snaps. The brown, bobbed tail and sinewy hind legs make
tracks through to the living room.
    I scramble to my feet and follow.
    By the time I get into the other room, all that’s left to
show there was a strange pooch mauling my buttered and seasoned roaster is a
busted out screen, a kitchen catastrophe, and my poor, shell-shocked kitty
staring down from the top of the refrigerator as though she expects the hellion
to return any second.
    I lean out the window, hands on the sill, yelling to the sky,
“Whoever owns that damned dog owes me a chicken dinner!”
    Adam jogs over from his yard, a mangled poultry carcass
wrapped in an old towel in his hand, a grin peeking out from under all that facial
hair. “So this is yours?”
    I glare. “Who does that brute belong to? Did you see? I’ve
got a thing or two to say to them about keeping their mutt in their yard,
rather than turning him loose on the neighborhood where he can rain down chaos
and terror on unsuspecting homeowners and tiny kittens.”
    Adam tucks the turbaned chicken behind his back and rocks on
his heels. “That’d be Spike. He’s my mutt. Sorry.”
    My nostrils flare, and my teeth grind.
    “That’s all you have to say? Sorry ?” I brace my knees
against the window frame and lean out to poke him in the chest. “He stole my
dinner, not to mention the mess he left me to clean up. And my cat—my sweet
kitty is going to need extensive counseling and will probably still suffer
PTSD. And God help you if my computer is broken—that’s my freaking living.”
    “The cat? PTSD?” His brow wrinkles. “ Seriously ?”
    A brown and white streak passes behind Adam.
    Adam stumbles forward, then catches himself against the
siding of my house with his empty hands.
    Ears back, my dinner firmly clamped between his jowls, towel
flapping behind him, Spike makes tracks between the houses.
    Adam calls after him, “C’mon, Spike. You’re not helping!”
    I lean further out of the window as the ass-end of the dog
skids around the gate into Adam’s back yard.
    Adam turns to me with a half-shrug. “Well, it was already
ruined anyway. Right?”
    “You. And that mutt . Ugh!” Fury wells in my chest.
    Intending to slam the damned window and show him what I
think of his freaking critter, I move to duck backward through the opening.
    A crack accompanies a sharp pain lancing the back of my
skull.
    “Aw, fuck.” I press my hand against the throb. “Damn.”
    I open my eyes, wincing as I check for blood.
    Adam reaches for me. Before I can dodge his palm, he pushes
my head