Page 11 of Savagely Yours
“A girl dog? No, she’d be here with me. But a boy dog? I’d leave that motherfucker at the house.”
I laughed.
The side of his mouth tugged.
“Ask me what you really want to ask me, Tapley.”
I bolstered my nerves with a deep breath. “Do you have a lady friend waiting for you back at your place?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t mean a girlfriend, necessarily.”
“Still no.”
“So, how do you spend your weekends?”
“With you, usually.”
“I mean, when you’re not working.”
“I don’t get paid for working weekends,” he clarified. “I spend that time with you by choice.”
The lights flickered several times before they came on and stayed on. I silently cursed the interruption, but it was for the best. I’d already come too close to pushing against our professional boundaries.
“Well, then,” I said, stretching as I stood, “want to help me put these candles out? And, if you’re staying, I’ll grab you a blanket and some pillows.”
For a moment, all he did was watch me.
Then, he nodded. “I’m staying, and I’ll only need a pillow. Won’t need a blanket. I might even turn on the ceiling fan.”
“You sleep with the TV on too, don’t you?”
He searched the cushions, found the remote, and aimed it at the TV. An app home screen popped up, one littered with the too many subscriptions I now possessed, my bills pretty much equaling what I used to pay for cable.
“Tapley, what if we went out, just me and you, this weekend?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’m game.”
“I mean out but not working.”
“What else would we do besides work?” A notice along one of the sidebars on the home screen caught my attention. “Hey, Dez? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
He faced the TV just as a new message appeared:
First Major U.S. City Falls
Martial Law Enacted in Multiple States
CHAPTER THREE
LARKE
“I’m telling you, it’s the Chinese!”
“No, it’s Russia!”
“Russia wouldn’t do this to us! We’re not at war with Russia! Russia is our ally!”
