Free Beneath the Glitter: A Novel (Sophia and Ava London) by Elle Fowler, Blair Fowler

stopped. “It wasn’t—” She stopped again. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sophia perking up considerably, apparently enjoying this, which made her even more annoyed. “You have no right to make me feel bad about that. You don’t know what happened and you don’t know me. I care about animals as much as you do. I’m a super-serious animal lover.”
    He said, “Wow, that’s a nice little speech.”
    “It’s not a speech, it’s a fact.”
    “Really?” His eyes behind the glasses got wide and Ava noticed that she’d been wrong, they weren’t brown but instead a really dark green. “Then you should sign up to volunteer here at the shelter. They’re really short staffed and can use all the super-serious animal lovers they can get.”
    Too bad such nice eyes were wasted on such a jerk. “That’s an excellent idea,” she said. “I will.”
    “Sure,” he sneered, giving her an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it kind of look.
    She gave him a just-watch-me kind of look back. They stayed like that, staring at one another for a few moments.
    If he hadn’t been so annoying he might even have been cute, she thought. Or would be if you were into surfer hipster types who looked hot in glasses and filled out their I ♥ TV T-shirts like underwear models. But that wasn’t her type and he was annoying so she barely noticed how well defined his chest was, or the way the muscles in his forearm rippled when he held out his hand to Sophia.
    “I’m Dalton.” He smiled at her as they shook.
    “Sophia.” She smiled back at him.
    “Are you two—?” he asked, tipping his head toward Ava.
    “Sisters,” Sophia told him.
    He nodded. “So it’s like good cop–bad cop, only good sister–bad sister.”
    “I’m not a bad sister,” Ava insisted.
    “I didn’t say you were,” Dalton said.
    “You implied it. You made it sound like I—”
    He stood there impassively watching her as though she were an alien species. “Go on.”
    Ava’s hands curled into fists as she searched for words. “Grrr.”
    “Did you just grunt?” He looked at Sophia. “Did she just grunt?”
    Sophia was laughing so hard she couldn’t answer.
    “You are very frustrating,” Ava told him.
    “Me? I’m just standing here.” He glanced at his watch, an old Timex on a Velcro band that had been patched with duct tape. “By the way, you’ve been here nearly ten minutes and you still haven’t signed up to volunteer.”
    Ava made another noise that was not exactly a word but he ignored it, turning to Sophia instead. “Why did you come here this morning?” he asked Sophia. “Since it clearly wasn’t to volunteer.”
    “Show me where to sign up!” Ava said. “Show me.”
    Dalton kept his attention on Sophia who was laughing openly now. “I don’t know,” she told him. “It was Ava’s idea.”
    “But it was for you,” Ava said. Then to Dalton: “We came because Sophia needs a kitten.”
    Sophia stopped laughing completely. “No I don’t.”
    “Yes,” Ava said definitively. “You do. Because it will cheer you up. You can do as much boytoxing as you want but I know your heart is still mending and a kitten will help.”
    “I’m not getting a kitten.”
    “We’re not leaving here without one.”
    Dalton cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion?”
    Both London sisters turned to look at him. “What?” Ava demanded.
    “I’m going to open the door of the shelter and leave you two on your own. You can come in and see the kittens we have, or not, it’s up to you. The volunteer sign-up sheet is on the front desk.”
    He jiggled the key in the lock and was just pushing the door open when he stopped and faced them again. “You know, we did just get a new tiny kitten who could really use a loving home. I know you’re not interested”—he said that to Sophia—“but maybe you know someone who would be? He’s only a few weeks old, but he’s partially deaf so the people who originally took him decided to just