Page 32 of A Little Red
“Ah?” repeated Paxton, angrily. “That’s all you have to say?”
“What do you want me to say? Yeah, we’re sleeping together. So what?”
Paxton looked flabbergasted. “So what? You’re going to… I cannot believe this…”
“Believe what?” demanded Liam, angry at his brother’s small-minded reaction. “She’s hot and extremely compatible with my lifestyle.”
“I don’t care how compatible she is,” hissed Paxton. “We don’t violate rule number one!”
“What?” Liam was confused.
“I may have been standing by the elevators, but it’s a clear line from where I was standing to her desk and I’m not deaf. She called you wolf!”
“Oh,” said Liam, and couldn’t stop a small chuckle from escaping.
“You think this is funny? Did you really tell her what we are?”
“No,” said Liam still laughing. “Calm down. No, I really didn’t.”
Paxton eased back a fraction, but his posture was still tense and worried.
“Then why did she call you that?” he demanded.
“Because we first got together on Halloween when she happened to be dressed as…” he paused to clear his throat, “Little Red Riding Hood.”
Paxton sat back, his normal energy returning. “You lucky fucking bastard.”
“And she said if she was Little Red then that made me the Wolf.”
“You lucky, lucky bastard. God, you look so smug.”
Liam chuckled unrepentantly.
“Seriously? With all the red and white checks?”
“Yes, and stop picturing her naked.”
“I’m not. I’m picturing her in braids and that wee little hood. Gah. Seriously, how do you manage to get a girl to do that?”
“Just lucky,” said Liam, grinning.
“Wait,” said Paxton frowning. “Halloween… That’s… She still smelled like you. That’s over a month. That’s not sleeping together. That’s dating.”
Liam shifted uncomfortably and dropped eye contact.
“Yeah,” he said and shoved a biscuit in his mouth.
Paxton looked around the fire pit area and then back at Liam. “That’s why you snagged those rabbits earlier. You’re bringing her rabbits, aren’t you?”
His mouth full of biscuit, Liam made a half-hearted agreeing noise.
“Human girls don’t like that kind of thing,” said Paxton, looking shocked.
“She wants them. She wanted to get some over Thanksgiving, but her brother didn’t bring her bow. She doesn’t support the industrial meat complex.”
Paxton looked skeptical. “So you have a protest-sign waving, bow hunting secretary who really cares about the plight of the wolf and doesn’t mind dressing up like Little Red Riding Hood?”
“Yeah?”
