Page 30 of How to Trust a Hellhound
“So is she moving here, or are you moving to wherever she is?” Josh asked.
He sounded sad when he said the last part of his sentence, but I loved the fact that he didn’t even question whether or not I would take Thea in.
“I‘m not going anywhere,” I reassured him, squeezing his hand. “You can count on me staying right here.”
Josh gave a small smile before asking, “Are you afraid of how the guys will react if you adopt a daughter?”
“No, the problem is that she had no interest in being helped. She doesn’t trust easily, and she’s old enough that she can get by on her own. She’s been doing it for quite awhile, so she doesn’t think she needs help. But she called me this morning, and she’s run into a bit of trouble. Nothing major or anything, but enough that maybe she’ll finally be open to letting me help her.”
Josh squeezed my hand this time. “I’m sure you’ll help her if you can, and I know you’d welcome her into your family. She has to be ready, though. Sometimes it takes a while to realize you need help.”
“It does, and that only makes it more admirable to reach out. No one can go it alone, and no one needs to.” I knew we were talking about more than Thea now, and I almost expected Josh to clam up. I should have known better, though.
“That includes you, you know,” he told me. “You raised all these great guys, but you don’t need to do things alone, either.” He blushed a bit as he added, “I’m always willing to listen and help however I can.”
“Thank you, Mei Ume. That means more than you can possibly know. And I canalwaysuse help reining in my troublesome pack of boys. They only egg each other on to more chaos.”
He laughed at the last part, just like I intended, but I hoped he also saw that I thought of him as an equal. Atlas and Corbin had been right—I was always willing to support Josh and be there for him, but he needed to know that I wanted him to be there for me, as well.
My phone dinged at that moment, and Josh let go of my hand, motioning to my pocket. I would have ignored it and continued our moment, but I guessed that would be awkward now.
When I looked at the phone, the message was from Quinton, and I stared at it, puzzled.
“What is it?” Josh asked.
“Quinton messaged me, but I don’t know what he’s talking about. He said, ‘It isn’t my fault that they went all hellhound on the dick.’ I have no idea what that means.” I looked up as Josh groaned.
“Ugh. Hellhounds are good guys who take care of bad people in Toby’s books, and Q calls my ex Rick the Dick. I told Q about the phone call from him because I was asking about changing my number. My guess is that Liam said something or did something to Rick.” Josh stood up, suddenly looking a little nervous. “I hope Rick didn’t hurt him.”
I stood up as well, giving him a smile. “Trust me, Liam can hold his own. Not only that, but I saw him looking mischievous earlier, and he had Atlas with him. I’m sure they meant well, but…” I trailed off.
Yeah, there was really nothing else to say. They always meant well, but that didn’t mean they didn’t occasionally fuck things up. I just hoped the fallout didn’t come back on Josh.
I was also a little miffed. After all, if anyone got to threaten Josh’s ex, I really felt like it should have been me.
“Let’s go see what trouble they got into,” I told Josh, and we both walked up toward the main house.
We all sat in Liam and Quinton’s living room—the main house, not the one they shared with Aiden—and listened to Liam describe their little field trip. Quinton looked pissed off, as usual, but he was also throwing concerned glances at Josh. Atlas was still in his human form, but he mostly just sat there looking menacing while Aiden sat on his lap.
Josh had introduced himself to Atlas and said it was nice to meet him, which had made Atlas look puzzled since they’d met a dozen times already. A subtle elbow from Aiden had him grunting andnodding. He’d apparently forgotten that he’d been Fluffy every time Josh had met him in the past.
Dexter, Toby, and Jude had come over as well, because everyone wanted to hear about their escapades. Corbin was the only one missing because he was out hunting for a few days.
“...so then, Atlas put his face close enough to kiss the guy—not that he would ever kiss anyone but you, Aiden—and he growled. And that’s when Rick actually peed his pants, and Atlas just looked down as the wet patch continued to grow, and then he dropped Rick right into the puddle,” Liam boasted.
“You’re both fucking morons,” Quinton muttered. “Go ahead and tell them the part where the dickhead threatened to call the cops on everyone.”
“Hey, I’m sure he wasn’treallyserious about calling the cops,” Liam reassured Quinton. “After all, what’s he gonna say? We didn’t leave a bruise on him, and nothing is on camera anywhere.”
Toby was frantically writing in a notebook, and he distractedly said, “You did threaten him, and if a person feels bodily harm or death could result from the threat, that’s illegal. Plus, I’m sure you guys were all scary and… stuff.” Toby looked up at Josh for the last part.
We all knew what he meant, though. The boys had more than likely gone all fire and glowing eyes on Rick. Not that I blamed them.
“Eh, so he was ranting a little bit about us being psychopath killers.” Liam shrugged, and they all continued to chatter about their visit to threaten Josh’s ex.
I looked over at Josh, but he looked surprisingly calm. “Are you okay?” I asked him.
He didn’t look at me—instead he continued to stare at Liam. Liam and Atlas sensed it, because eventually everyone stopped talking, and they all looked at Josh, who was still staring down Liam.
