Page 45 of Will Bark for Pizza
“Why Kira’s back.”
I shot a look at him, wondering if he read my fucking mind. Hoping that if he did, he didn’t read the part where I imagined slipping my hand up Kira’s oversized pajama shirt in search of her supple breast that I strongly suspected would fit perfectly in the palm of my hand.
“Kira’s in town?” Thoren asked, sounding surprised.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Been nothing but a pain in my ass. Did you know I found her sleeping in the goddamn bookstore apartment the night before last? On the fucking floor in that sleeping bag Connor gave her.”
“What?” Connor nearly choked on his pizza, and reached for his drink.
“Said she didn’t break in, but Dad changed the locks a month ago.”
“Maybe he mailed her a key?” Connor suggested.
“He didn’t,” Luke fired back.
“Has she been back since . . .” Thoren didn’t finish his sentence, but the brothers looked at one another, filling in a blank I wasn’t privy to.
“No,” Luke said.
“She apologized,” Connor said.
“And you let her off the hook, right?” Luke grumbled.
I shoved another bite of barbeque chicken pizza in my mouth to keep from asking the half dozen questions swirling around in my brain. Why did she need to apologize? What happened last summer? Why was she sleeping in the bookstore when she had family and friends all over town?
“C’mon, Luke,” Connor said. “You know why she lashed out.”
“Lashed out?” Thoren let out a loud laugh that drew everyone’s attention. “She stole the fucking microphone from the band.”
“To give a toast?” I tossed in a guess.
“It was at first,” Connor said, as though coming to her defense.
I understood why when Luke chimed in.
“Then she basically told everyone in this town to fuck off. That she was better than all of us.”
“That wasn’tquitewhat happened?—”
“The hell it wasn’t,” Luke said, cutting off his brother. “I was on call.”
Meaning he was sober and had a better memory than most. But Luke was also harder on people than they sometimes deserved. I wanted to believe this was one of those times. It seemed all too possible there was a side of Kira I hadn’t experienced, because I’d only known her a few days.
“She was lit that night,” Thoren said, his eyes sparkling, as though he was enjoying the conversation. He looked at me. “Drunk Kira isunhinged.”
“She was going through a hard time,” Connor again came to her defense.
“Yeah, yeah. Because of The Asswipe,” Luke mumbled, fixing himself another slice. “Still not a good excuse.”
“Who?” I asked, hoping my question wouldn’t get too much scrutiny. I certainly didn’t want anyone to mistake my curiosity for the interest it was. But something didn’t fucking add up here.
“She was dating this asshole for a while,” Connor explained. “She broke up with him the night of Aspen’s wedding. Did you know that?” he directed at Luke.
“Doesn’t give her the right to take it out on everyone else.” Luke shoveled in the rest of his pizza and stood, rubbing his hands together. “We going to cut up the smaller pieces of drywall tonight or what? Because if you girls want to keep on gossiping, I’m fucking out.”
SIXTEEN
KIRA
