Page 33 of Chasing I Do
“I remembered. Say hi to everyone for me…Never mind.” Shaking her head, she wrapped her arms around herself in a protective move. “Forget I said that. Have a good night, Gage.”
Chapter 8
He was being watched.
Gage felt it with every fiber of his being. His body ached as if he’d managed less than a few hours of sleep, and the hot doggy breath on his neck was saying that was all he was going to get.
Littleshit wanted to be fed.
“We’re in a standoff, pal,” Gage said, rolling on his back and putting the pillow over his face. “You’re hungry and I’m exhausted. Maybe if you didn’t keep me up all night with that whining, I wouldn’t feel the need to sleep past breakfast.”
Fancy laid down on Gage’s chest and let out a pathetic whimper. Gage sighed in defeat and eyed the dog. “For a guy who tries to rip people’s fingers off, you sure are needy.”
“Yip.”
“Breakfast. Yeah, I got it when you dragged your bowl in here an hour ago and started acting like I starve you.” Gage tossed back the covers and sat up, his eyes scratchy and irritated.
With a glare that said he wasn’t happy about this arrangement, Gage tucked the dog under his arm like a football and padded to the kitchen.
Fancy panted happily, turning those big wet doggie eyes up at Gage. His expression full of gleeful innocence—as if this hadn’t beenhisplan.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Gage said, as he glanced at the clock over the fireplace. It wasn’t even seven. On Saturday morning. Better than dawn, but not as good as nine-thirty. “One more night, then you go back where you belong, and I get to sleep more than three hours without taking a potty walk.”
Fancy whimpered his apology. Potty walks when one lived in a downtown high-rise meant more than just opening the back door in your underwear.
“Nothing personal, I just don’t share my bed with dogs. And if I did, he’d be a big beast of a thing, with a spiked collar, and jowls, who didn’t force me to put silk sheets on the bed.”
This time his yip sounded more like a defensive yap. And there were definitely teeth involved.
Gage jerked his hand out of bite range. “Hey, all I’m saying is for that much trouble, there had better be a naked woman waiting for me in those sheets.”
So what if the woman he imagined looked a hell of a lot like Darcy, right down to the melt-your-soul eyes and mile-long legs—which would be wearing nothing but a thong and tanned legs in those sheets. If he was showing off his silk, it was only fair she showed off hers.
“Any sane woman would take one look at the state of this kitchen and you’d never get her into the bedroom.”
Margo Easton sat at his kitchen table in a charcoal grey suit, heels, and enough diamonds to accessorize the Grammys, serenely sipping coffee—and folding his clean clothes.
“I was going to fold those.” Gage scowled down at Littleshit, whose nose was tucked securely between Gage’s bicep and chest. “You could have at least warned me.”
Not a single yip in response.
“What are you doing here, Mom?” Gage asked, giving her a kiss to the forehead before pulling the doggie kibble out of the pantry.
“Making my son coffee.” She reached for a pair of boxer-briefs and Gage watched in horror as Margo smoothed them out with her hands, then folded them into a neat little square. “Can’t a mother wake her son up with a fresh pot of coffee and folded clothes?”
Gage looked at the pot on the counter. It was empty. Next to it sat two paper cups boasting the logo from the roasting company in the lobby of his building.
“You brought coffee from downstairs,” he said.
Margo took a sip from the cup she must have snagged from his cupboard. “Your coffee pot is different than mine. All those buttons and levers, I never know what to push. Plus, it doesn’t make blueberry scones. And I know you like blueberry scones.”
His stomach growled on cue, which delighted Margo. “I figured that you must have been starved. Seeing as you missed family dinner last night.”
And the reason for her visit, Gage thought, setting Littleshit on the floor. He grabbed a pair of folded jeans and a clean shirt still in the basket next to the table and tugged them on. Then he filled a cereal bowl with kibble and set it down. Everyone looked offended. Margo for serving a dog out of a people bowl. And the dog for getting kibble.
“You wanted the good stuff? Then next time don’t leave a brother hanging,” he whispered. To his mom. “Sorry I missed dinner.”
“I was just worried. You haven’t missed a family dinner since college.” Not true. Gage hadn’t missed a family dinner since Kyle died. “With no call to let me know you weren’t coming, I got worried.” Margo rolled his socks and set them pointedly on the table. “So here I am, with scones and coffee, checking on my boy.”
