Page 8 of Crowbar

Storm-cloud blue eyes surfaced in my mind. The leather. The toothpick. Noodles playing in a metal band. I’m not most people. An ache started in my chest.

“Work?” Ken smiled like we were old friends catching up. Like the last time we’d been in the same room hadn’t ended with me locked in a bathroom calling 911 with a split lip and broken arm. “Remember that time you made four batches before your nursing exam?”

An exam I’d failed because of him.

He always remembered the good parts, polished them up, presented them like evidence that what we’d had was worth saving. He never remembered the parts that came after—the fight about the dishes that turned into a fight about my friends that turned into his hand around my throat while he explained, very calmly, very reasonably, why I was the problem.

“Ken.” I said his name like a period at the end of a sentence. “I’m not doing this.”

“Doing what? Having a conversation?” He tilted his head, and the hallway light caught his eyes in a way that would’ve made nineteen-year-old Spencer weak in the knees. Twenty-four-year-old Spencer had sturdier knees. Still a bit shaky maybe, but they knew when to lock. “We were together for almost three years. I think that earns me five goddamn minutes.”

“It earned you a court date and mandatory anger management counseling, which you never attended.”

His hand moved fast, gripping my arm and yanking it so hard, pain screamed down my left side, making me cry out. “You never did know when to shut your fucking mouth.”

A door slammed shut down the hallway. Ken turned to look. I used the distraction to yank my arm free and do the same, quickly securing the locks. I was shaking so badly I should’ve fallen part. My arm throbbed, and when I tried to lift it, a whimper escaped.

“This isn’t over, Spence,” Ken said from the other side. “We promised to be together forever. I’m holding you to that.”

I grabbed my phone from my back pocket and called the cops as I listened to his receding footsteps, terrified he wouldn’t stop until I was dead.

Chapter Three

Crowbar

“Ready to see Indoors?” I asked Gunner as I pulled her out of the saddlebag, tiny goggles covering her eyes. She yapped, tail going nuclear, then twisted in my hands trying to get down. Three days she’d been gnawing on my rings like chew toys, ignoring every single one Spencer had picked out for her.

The male had been right about the collar though. Made the darker patches in her fur pop. She looked like she should have her own cut and a road name. I’d had to pry her away from Trent, Prez’s mate, because I wanted her to come with me to the pet store. Show her the money I had to spend to replace the pee pads she’d chew up like cotton candy on a sugar binge.

“We’re going to behave like the perfect little lady inside, aren’t we?” She licked my nose. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

I removed her goggles, placing her on my shoulder, and headed inside. A wall of cedar shavings and kibble hit me. It was like walking into a warm blanket made of sunshine.

General Patton spotted us first.

“Asshole!” the bird shrieked from his perch.

“Gotta wolf you can play with.” I gave the parrot a look that would’ve made grown men piss themselves. The bird puffed up and turned his back to me. Smart.

Gunner growled from my shoulder, a sound so small it was like a teakettle trying to intimidate a hurricane.

The store was quiet for a Friday afternoon. A couple browsed the fish section near the back, and an older woman was comparing two bags of birdseed like there would be an exam at checkout. No sign of the green polo behind the register. No messy blond hair. No name tag with crooked letters.

I walked deeper into the store, Gunner’s nails clicking against my leather as she repositioned herself, her nose working overtime at the scent buffet surrounding us. My wolf was doing the same thing, but it wasn’t tracking animals. It was hunting for one specific scent, something clean and sweet, like vanilla extract and laundry detergent, threaded through with the faintest trace of strawberry.

The baking kind. Not the candy kind.

I rounded the endcap near the reptile section and spotted him. Indoor person. I wasn’t sure why that had stuck with me, but it had.

Spencer was crouched in front of the bottom shelf in the cat food aisle, a pricing gun in one hand and a clipboard balanced on his knee. His polo was still too big, the fabric bunching at his waist where he’d tried to tuck it in. His hair was falling into his eyes yet still defying gravity at the crown, and he was mouthing along to whatever was playing through the single earbud dangling from his left ear.

I stopped walking, as my world tilted.

The male was compact, like someone had taken a full-sized person and distilled them down to the essential parts. Narrow shoulders, wrists I could wrap my thumb and forefinger around, and a jaw that came to a point, which made his face look sharper than it probably was.

My wolf growled softly, pressing against my ribs.

Gunner spotted Spencer, and her entire body vibrated with the force of her excitement. Before I could tighten my grip, she let out a bark so loud it startled a cage of birds, causing them to frantically flap their wings.