Gemma Halliday

“That craptastical, gutless, son-of-a-cactus-humping butt monkey!!”

“I need to be casual but not too casual. Dressy but not too dressy. I need him to think I just threw on the first thing I found and that I'm not taking this too seriously or overthinking it or even that I was thinking about it at all. Because I'm not. I'm totally not thinking about him, and I don't want him to think I was thinking about him, but I don't want him to think that I'm not thinking about him, because clearly he thought about me enough to ask me out and it would be mean not to be thinking about him at all, so I need just the right amount of thinking, and I'm not sure if that means boots and a skirt or skinny jeans and ballet flats. Help!”

“I'll go," he said."And that's safer because?""I'm a guy.""Right, and having a pair of dingle balls makes you invincible how?”

“I took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I lied, I like your Star Wars sheets, you're not that bad of a driver, and I swear on my Very Cherry lip gloss that I will never lie to you again.”

“Caw! Caw, Hartley, caw!"Chase narrowed his eyes again."Sam?"I nodded. Then crossed to the window again and called down to Sam. "You can quit squawking. He caught me.”