“Hagan Heifer,” Two Shots corrected her. “Trusty trust me, we don’t want her changing. My leg hurts like a sonofagun. Can we just eat and not fight? For freaking once? Huh? Can we just do that tonight?”
Quickdraw shoved Dead in the shoulder hard and jammed his finger in his face. “Don’t call me that again.”
Dead took a long drink of his soda and asked Cheyenne innocently, “How do you use hashtags on social media?”
“No!” Two Shots and Quickdraw yelled together.
Dead was grinning like a villain now, and Raven thought he was so handsome when he was being a little bit evil. She pulled her phone out of her back pocket and searched him up on Instagram, then followed Dead of Winter’s page. And then before she could change her mind, she sent him a message.
Dear pretend-boyfriend,
It’s our one-day anniversary, and that’s a pretty big deal, so I figured it was time to give you my number.
She typed out the number and hit send, put her phone away, and settled onto the chair Dead pulled over to her, feeling an easing in her soul she’d never felt before.
Would she regret giving him her number tomorrow? Probably. She was an overthinker and would probably lie in bed tonight going over all the reasons she should leave him alone. They lived in different towns, probably different states, and she didn’t have a lot of money to travel for a long-distance relationship or friendship, or whatever this would turn out to be. But she didn’t get sad thinking about the end of the night anymore because there was this little connection out there in the universe between them. One that he didn’t even know about yet.
Right now, it was her little secret that tonight wouldn’t be the end of them.
Chapter Six
“I’d better get going.” Raven shifted her weight from side to side and hugged tight around her the giant hoodie Dead had given her.
Dead waved to his herd—that’s what he’d called Two Shots Down, Cheyenne and Quickdraw—as they walked back to their campers.
“I was thinking you should stay here tonight,” he said. “I got everything a girl could need to stay the night. I internet-searched a checklist of stuff chicks like, and I got a girlfriend starter pack all put together.”
“A what?” she asked, controlling her smile. He looked very very serious here under the strands of outdoor lights.
“A girlfriend starter pack. Here, I’ll show you. Oh,” he said, turning before he opened the door. “And chicks like to know they’re safe, so I promise I won’t bone you unless you ask me to bone you.”
Raven pursed her lips against a giggle that was threatening to bubble up the back of her throat. “Um, thank you for controlling your boning. I wasn’t scared, though. You’ve been mostly a gentleman all night.”
“I’m gonna need you to put that in writing and submit it to Cheyenne so she gets off my back. I’m basically contractually obligated to be a gentleman.” He grinned brightly and pushed the camper door open and gestured her in grandly.
“What else does your contract say?” she asked curiously as she walked up the stairs and made her way into the camper.
“I’m not supposed to talk about it outside the herd.” Dead pulled a blanket out of a cabinet. “You can sleep here, and I won’t even make any mooooves on you. Cow joke.”
She cracked up and plopped onto the couch where that rough-and-tumble man tucked her in like a little burrito with the blanket, which, by the way, smelled like his cologne and she was definitely going to try to steal it tomorrow.
There was a recliner by the tiny kitchen island, and he sat down there. Like a gentleman. “I’m supposed to be respectful during interviews—”
“I’ve seen your interviews. You’ve ignored that rule.”
He laughed and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, rule ignored. I hate doing interviews. Wait! You watched interviews of me?”
Her cheeks heated again and she dropped her gaze, busied herself with pulling the blanket even tighter around her. “Um, I wanted to see what kind of person you were before I drove out here to meet you. I was curious about you. Not just because you were a bull shifter either. I mean…I was curious about what kind of man you were. I was scared you would see me in your VIP line and think I was just…I dunno…silly.”
His smile slipped a little, and his green eyes churned with honesty. “I don’t think you’re silly at all. What did you learn from the interviews?”
“I learned that you’re funny, and you don’t care about impressing people. I liked that part. You’re confident. The only time I saw you get serious was when an interviewer asked one of your herd a question they didn’t like. You got protective of them. The humor would fade away from you face, and you would look…”
“Look what?” he asked softly.
“Terrifying.”
“What else did you learn?” he asked low.
“I have a silly present.”
His eyes went wide with shock. “You got me something?”
“It’s nothing big. I was going to give it to you when I got to the front of your line, but I ended up working at your table instead and forgot it.” She threw off the blanket and scrambled for her little purse she’d left by the door. The package of candy took up most of the space in the little satchel.
Raven took a deep breath before she turned around because she was nervous. Why? She had no idea.
“Happy one-night anniversary,” she teased as she handed him the candy.
“Skittles?” he asked, taking the present from her.
“I saw you eating them in an interview once so I knew you liked them. But you were putting all the yellow ones back in the package so I know you don’t like the yellows. I’ll eat those if you don’t want them.”
He was staring down at the palm of his hand where the red Skittles package laid. “I take out the yellow ones for Cheyenne. They’re her favorite color.” He looked up at her and asked, “What’s your favorite flavor?”
“Red.”
“Mine, too.”
She grinned big and sat back on the couch. Raven didn’t know why, but she really liked that they enjoyed the same flavor. “Red ones taste the best.”
“I got you a present, too,” he blurted out. “But it was before I met you, so I didn’t know what you liked.”
Raven didn’t understand, so she shook her head and said, “Wild boy, what did you get?”
“The girlfriend starter pack.”
She brayed a laugh. “Okay, I want to see what’s in it.”
He stood and shoved the Skittles in his back pocket. As he passed her on the couch, he paused and leaned down, squeezed her knee and murmured, “Thank you. I don’t remember the last time I got a present.” And then he jogged up a set of narrow three stairs and into the bedroom, then reappeared a few seconds later with a cardboard box in his hands. He set it beside her on the couch and then took his seat again in the recliner.
She opened the lid flaps and immediately laughed. There was a half-empty bottle of hair-growth vitamins, a box of tampons, and a box of pads. “In case a girl needs to grow long hair or spontaneously starts her period?” she asked.