Random on Tour: Los Angeles (Random Series #7) by Julia Kent Page A

I got back to the front stoop with the phone, Tyler was standing. He was crumpled a bit from my kick, and rubbing his bitten calf. He was soaking wet and while I should have felt pity or empathy or anger or something any decent human being would feel, all I noticed was how his wet t-shirt molded to what appeared to be an eight pack of abs.
    Oh, my.
    Mrs. Wilmer adjusted her glasses, then switched the hose into her left hand as Attila seamlessly leaped into her right arm and nestled in, panting at me like she expected a treat.
    “Good dog,” I muttered.
    Tyler mumbled a single-word obscenity.
    “I’m fine, Mrs. Wilmer,” I explained.
    “Glad someone is,” Tyler interrupted.
    “Shut up, Frown.”
    He did.
    My phone buzzed. A call. I slid the phone open and caught Charlotte.
    “Hey, what’s up?” she asked.
    I surveyed the scene. “Do you really want to know?”
    “Is Frown there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “No.”
    “Did he...what’s going on?”
    “She kicked me in the crotch and her neighbor’s little yappyass dog bit my leg and I got waterboarded!” Tyler screamed, his face red with rage and body taut with fury. “Tell Darla I never signed up for this shit!” 
    Charlotte went silent. I said, “That’s about right.”
    “What?” Charlotte gasped.
    “Why are you and Darla calling me and texting me?”
    “Because Tyler needs help getting to L.A. for a Tuesday concert, and you’re his only hope.”
    “What the hell is he doing here? Is he stalking me?”
    “In your fucking dreams,” he said under his breath. “I don’t stalk chicks who try to remove my balls with their toenails.” 
    Charlotte sighed. “He’s from St. Louis. You didn’t know that?”
    “No. What part?”
    “What part what ? Isn’t he there? Ask him.”
    I turned to him. “What part of St. Louis are you from?”
    “Why the fuck does that matter?” he snapped. 
    I just cocked an eyebrow and played his silence game. I waited. And waited.
    He muttered the name of a neighborhood that was constantly in the news for crime.
    Mrs. Wilmer pointed at him. “I knew it! No good comes from that neighborhood.”
    My turn to step in. “Thank you for your kind assistance, Mrs. Wilmer.”
    “Kind,” Tyler snorted.
    “But I’m fine now. Really. Tyler is a friend of mine from Massachusetts,” I said to her. “Where I work.” 
    The poor old woman’s shocked face made me feel awful suddenly. “He’s your friend? Why didn’t you say so, Margaret! I would never have treated a friend of yours so poorly, even if he is,”—sniff—“from that part of the city.”
    Tyler turned a new shade of purple.
    “Come on in,” I said to him as Charlotte chattered on the phone. “Let’s sort this mess out.” 
    Tyler
    I stood in the foyer of her really nice house in shock, dripping all over white tile. The house smelled like cinnamon and lavender and freshly-baked cookies. While Charlotte explained whatever Maggie needed to hear, I was a fucking wreck. Between getting a kick in the nuts that made any female MMA fighter look like a wimp, having fucking Cujo the poodle bite me like I was a chew toy, and some old lady who thought her watering hose was an AK-47, I was done with this day.
    Done fucking done .
    L.A. wasn’t worth it.
    Nothing was worth it, least of all multi-colored muppet head over there, with her feet of steel. Holy fuck. Those were some powerful quads behind that kick. 
    So why did my mind flit over to thinking about other ways those thighs could...oh, fuck.
    She murmured and gasped on the phone with Charlotte. Protested and argued. I knew she was going to hate everything Charlotte and Darla said. Who wouldn’t be pissed to have a person they despised show up at their door needing a favor?
    Unannounced, too. At least I wasn’t penniless. Thank God for small favors and savings accounts you can’t drain with a debit card.
    But three hundred and fifty bucks was probably what they paid for a month of gardening