Chapter Twelve
I ground to a halt. Even though I didn’t dare look over at Ben, I had to assume that the scowl had made a reappearance. “Oh,” I said brightly, knowing that we probably looked like a couple of kids trying to sneak off school grounds in between classes, “thank you for everything, Mr. Nicolini, but I’ve got a litter of two-week-old chihuahua puppies at home that a couple of friends are watching for me, and I really need to get back and check on them.”
“Luke,” he corrected me, still smiling. “And if you have friends dog-sitting for you, why the need to leave the party so soon?”
“Because they’re not exactly dog people,” Ben put in, his tone almost defiant, as if he’d decided that he might as well dive headfirst into this confrontation, since there was no way to avoid it. “They
