How About No
Page 18

Landry was a picky eater when it came to meat. Under no circumstances did sushi, fish, or shrimp get anywhere near her.
Though, shrimp didn’t get near her at any time because she was allergic to it, though I’d never seen the side effects, and hoped that I never had to.
After hearing that she breaks out in hives and starts swelling with a single bite, I hadn’t ever wanted to either.
Just as I was about to comment, the woman standing in the entryway with her lawyer started to wail, and Jimmy looked at us with a frantic “help me” in his eyes.
Instead of helping him, we chose to leave.
My bladder protested walking past the bathroom, but I’d rather piss myself than talk to a crying woman.
Once I got outside, I immediately took a left down the alley that ran in between my uncle’s building and the one next door. The only thing between them was a large dumpster at the end.
“Wade, where are you going?”
“To take a piss.”
My mother growled. “Wade Beauregard I will kick your…”
Her voice trailed off the farther I moved down the alley, and by the time I was finished and limping back, my mother was laughing with Landry.
“They have the best chocolate cake,” she was saying to my wife.
My wife.
God, it felt so goddamn good to call her that again.
Calling her my ex-wife always felt like I was taking a sharp knife to the heart.
“I’ll have that, too.” Landry sighed, then turned to me, her cheeks pink. “Are you ready?”
Her words were stiff, and she looked like she was ready to blow.
My lips twitched, and her eyes narrowed, causing me to bite my lip to keep the smile from overtaking my face.
She narrowed her eyes even farther. “Give me your keys, and I’ll go get the truck.”
Not even thinking about arguing with her after the look in her eyes, I handed over my keys, thankful that I didn’t have to make the walk.
First, the drive hadn’t been kind, and I was stiff all over. Then, sitting down for that short amount of time only seemed to give me the smallest of reprieves.
Everything hurt—and my leg felt like it was going to fall off any second.
Landry snatched the keys straight from my hand and left without another word, and we all watched her walk off.
Me staring at her ass and thighs in those goddamn shorts that were driving me wild.
My mom in happiness that she was seeing Landry.
My dad? Well, who the hell knew what he was thinking. He was always hard for me to understand motive-wise.
Speaking of…
My father snorted. “Y’all go back to the house. Let the dog out, and we’ll go get lunch. This place takes a fuckin’ hour to get the shit ready, but their steaks are the best. It’ll give you an hour to calm her down.”
I snorted.
I’d need it.
“Thanks, Dad.”
Chapter 9
Pineapple goes on pizza like tongues go into assholes. It’s not for everyone, but who are you to judge?
-Text from Wade to Landry
Wade
“My mom wants me to go let her new puppy out,” I murmured, trying not to let my eyes linger too long on Landry’s shorts. Shorts that were so short that I wouldn’t even consider them shorts as much as long underwear. “Do you mind if we go do that first?”
Landry shrugged. “What happened to Boscoe?”
Boscoe had been my mother’s Jack Russel Terrier who had been older than dirt. He’d died last year of a heart attack while my parents had been asleep.
“Dead,” I said simply.
Her breath inhaled deeply. “Your mom loved him.”
She had.
“She did,” I confirmed. “And she’s still trying to get over it, to be honest. Dad brought her this dog to hopefully help her get out of her funk. He’d have brought her one earlier if she could’ve decided what breed she wanted. Eventually, we decided to find her a rescue.”
I saw Landry melt a little bit.
“I almost got one from your rescue,” I admitted. “But I didn’t want her to get attached to another dog and have that one die on her, too. I felt it was kind of the wrong thing to do in that situation.”
She smiled at me sadly. “Not all of the ones I’m getting lately are old, though. Some of them are just so broken and or unwanted that they have nowhere else to go. Sure, the majority of the ones that I’m getting are older, but we’re branching out into some battered souls with missing body parts.”
I grinned as I pushed open the door. “Watch out, he’s rather feisty.”
I hadn’t actually seen him in a while, but what I remembered of him had me bracing my legs and hoping that the dog wouldn’t barrel into me like a freight train like he had the last time.
Luckily, Rover didn’t come barreling out.
He came at us quietly and softly, almost as if he’d realized that we were both hurt.
“Awww,” Landry said as she dropped down to her knees.
I stopped her before she could make it all the way down.
“Pet him outside. Mom says he pees when he’s excited,” I ordered. “I don’t want to be cleaning up pee.”
She snorted but did as I asked, walking farther into the house and closing the door.
Instead of stopping to pet the puppy, who was looking at us and wagging his tail, we both shuffled past him to the back door and walked outside.
Rover followed us outside, did his business, and immediately came to Landry who was once again crouched on the ground waiting for him.
“Is he a pure bloodhound?” she asked.
I shrugged and walked to the swing and took a seat, groaning audibly when the pressure on my leg finally diminished.
“I don’t think so,” I admitted. “He might be, but we don’t really know.”
She hummed and petted the dog’s ears for a few long minutes before the dog finally broke away from her and started to explore.
“Mom says that if he finds a scent, he’s occupied for hours.” He paused. “Which is why he was at the shelter to begin with. He wanders. Doesn’t do cages well. Dad said that they let him out sometimes in the morning, and he doesn’t come back until the sun is going down.”
“Coonhounds are notorious for that,” she murmured. “They’re easily distracted by scents and will follow it all the way back to its source if they’re interested enough.”
“Guess we’re just lucky that they live off in the middle of a hundred acres,” I admitted, shifting slightly on the seat when I saw she was looking to sit down, too.
Once there was enough room, she took her seat next to me and started to gently push the swing with her toes.
And although it was causing me pain, I let her do it because I knew that she loved to rock.
We sat in silence like that for about five minutes before she said, “This is bad.”
And suddenly I got angry.
So. Fucking. Angry.
“It’s not bad,” I snapped. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened.”
It gives me a fighting chance to show her that I was no longer the dumb, useless piece of shit that I was to her when I found out about her sister.
I just needed time!
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. “You don’t think that being back together is going to blow up in our faces?”
I tried to remain calm, even though the idea that she didn’t want to be with me still stung. “How would it?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Oh, I don’t know. You’ve turned your whole club against me. Everyone in town looks at me like I’m a pariah, and I’m living with another man! Let’s not forget about that date I saw you on a few days ago.”
I frowned. “I haven’t been on a date. I haven’t wanted to be on a date. I don’t fucking want anybody but you.”
Please give me a chance.
She frowned. “I saw you. You were eating at a diner with a woman.”
“I was eating at a diner with a woman because I was almost done, there were no other tables, and I invited her to sit with me while I took the last bite of my hamburger,” I countered. “Which you would’ve known had you had the balls to actually talk to me when you came in instead of glaring holes through me.”