“Let’s keep walking,” I said and slipped my arm through his, relieved when he relaxed at my touch.
Chapter Twelve
Have to work late. Dinner tomorrow? Miss you!
I glanced at my phone just long enough to read Brennon’s message before slipping it back into my purse, and I hoped Steve hadn’t noticed the light. He probably had no clue what time it was, and I had no intention of filling him in.
I wouldn’t have guessed Steve could have so much to say. I had only briefly mentioned something about Seth and Catherine being in Fiji, and he went off about whitewater rafting the Navua River. That turned into describing the Northern Lights in Iceland, which turned into fishing excursions in Alaska, which became free diving in Zanzibar. The man really had been everywhere, and though I expected him to get moody when he remembered he likely couldn’t do any of those things again, he simply lit up. Became human again.
I wasn’t sure how many miles we’d walked, and I certainly hadn’t spent any time looking around for places to work, but I had no regrets about the afternoon. Not when Steve hadn’t stopped smiling, even when I failed to steer him around a puddle and he ended up with one shoe soaking wet.
Night had settled in now, and though I knew we should have been heading back, it was hard to want to stop Steve’s stories. His life had been so…full. He hadn’t wasted any time, and he hadn’t let his own doubts convince him not to try something. I couldn’t even imagine the sudden shift he’d gone through after the accident, and I walked next to him, wondering how he’d managed to keep going for so long.
He was so much stronger than I’d guessed at first.
“What?” he asked suddenly, and I realized I’d been staring at him for a little too long.
“Nothing.”
“Sure.”
“You’re just…different.” And I really didn’t need to point it out, but I couldn’t help myself. It was like the man who walked arm in arm with me was someone I’d never met before.
He laughed softly. “You mean I’m not acting like a helpless, cranky blind man?”
“Something like that.”
Shrugging, he tightened his arm in mine a little as the sky above us continued to get darker. “I dunno,” he said. “I guess I feel different. Freer than I’ve felt in a long time.”
I smiled. “I’m glad.” I really was. Even if I was only going to be around him for a short while, I was glad I had been able to do at least a little bit to improve his life. Hopefully he wouldn’t go backward from here when I was gone living my own life again.
“It’s all your fault, you know,” he said, making my smile even wider.
“I think what you meant to say was, ‘Thank you, Lissa, for letting me be the big strong man so you could wander the city without fear of being murdered.’ Or, you know, something like that.”
His arm tightened even more. “Where are we, anyway?” he asked. “I lost track, like, this morning.”
I searched for the nearest street sign then said, “9th Street? And Mission Street.”
Forehead crinkling, he thought for a moment then nodded to our right. “That’s east, right?”
“I’m impressed.”
“The car should be over that way somewhere, assuming you haven’t gotten us completely lost.” He was tired, and I mentally smacked myself for not realizing it earlier. He could barely walk on his swollen knee, and he looked ready to fall asleep while standing as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Not that they were doing him much good in the dark anyway, but still.
“Getting sleepy on me?” I asked, trying to sound teasing instead of worried.
He grinned, but then he dropped his smile as he froze. “Did you hear that?”
Well that was a good way to make a girl freak out. “What?” I whispered, suddenly wishing I’d brought my pepper spray.
He held up a finger, leaning his head toward the alleyway to our right. “Listen,” he whispered.
I did, but it wasn’t so late that the sounds of the city had faded. All I could hear were cars and the chatter from a nearby restaurant. “Steve? What is it?”
Pulling away from my grip—he had to fight a little because I held so tight—he took a couple of wary steps into the alley. Then he crouched and held out one hand, his palm up, and clicked his tongue. “Hey there,” he said gently.
An animal? I crouched next to him so I wouldn’t be as intimidatingly tall. “Dog?” I whispered.
“I think so. Come here, buddy. It’s okay.”
I pulled my phone from my purse and turned on the flashlight, shining it into the alley. At first all I could see was garbage spilling from a dumpster, but then I caught sight of a mass of dirty fur shivering in the corner. “Oh no,” I whispered and hurried forward.
The dog—I almost wasn’t sure that was what it was because it was so dirty and matted—barely managed a whimper when I approached, its big brown eyes wide and terrified. I couldn’t tell how thin it was through its fur, but I knew it was struggling, its little lungs pulsing way too fast. “Steve, come hold this for me.”
He moved slowly through the darkness, but his fingers found my shoulder, and then he took the phone from my hands. “Is it hurt?” he asked, a slight tremor in his voice.
“I can’t tell.” I held my hand out, moving as slowly as I could so I didn’t scare the thing. It lifted its head just enough to sniff my fingers, and then it whimpered again. “We’re here to help you,” I told the dog and cautiously rubbed its head between the ears. It leaned into my touch, and its tail lifted in a feeble wag. “That’s right. We’re your friends.” Then I turned to Steve, my heart aching a little. “I don’t think it can move,” I told him.
Nodding, Steve thought for a moment then said, “Go get the car. I’ll stay with it, maybe see if I can get it to stand up.”
I went as fast as I could, both for the dog’s sake and for Steve’s. I didn’t want to leave him alone in the dark any longer than I had to. By the time I got back to the alley, my heart was racing from adrenaline, and I found Steve leaning against the wall, the pup shivering in his arms. “How’s it doing?” I asked softly to announce my return.
He kept focused on the dog, as if he was worried to break eye contact with it. “He needs help,” he said.
Cupping my hand around his elbow, I led him to the car and opened the passenger door for him. “I’ll see if I can find a vet or someone who’s still open.”
A quick search told me the only emergency vet was clear on the other side of the city. A quick glance at Steve as I climbed into the car told me he badly needed to get home where he could rest. He’d dropped his head back against the seat, his eyes closed as he cradled the dog, and the pair of them were an awful sight.
“We’re taking him home,” I decided out loud.
Forcing his eyes open, he turned to me in surprise and said, “We are? But—”
“We can bring him to a vet in the morning, but right now he needs some food and water. And a good bath.”
“I don’t know how Brennon will feel about—”
“Let me worry about Brennon,” I said and shifted the car into gear. “You just worry about the dog.” I drove as quickly as I could through the evening traffic, half my focus on the two creatures next to me as I thought about what I needed to do to help them both.
When we reached the apartment, I only had to get two steps ahead of Steve to realize he had paused just inside the door. When I glanced back, he blinked hard a couple of times then shook his head. “It’s bad,” he said, a waver in his voice. “When I’m tired, I can’t…”
“We’re almost there,” I assured him and went back to slide my arm across his back so I could guide him. He practically shook from the effort of holding the dog, and I held onto him a little tighter. “Let me take him,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“Steve.”
“Just tell me where to go.”
Silently groaning, I directed him to the bathroom and flipped on the light.
As Steve gently set the dog in the tub, I hurried back to the kitchen and grabbed a package of sliced turkey. And then I paused in the front room, letting myself take a deep breath. This was a bad idea. For so many reasons, most of all because Steve was so exhausted. I was supposed to be looking after him to make sure he didn’t worsen his injuries or damage his sight more, and here I was letting him carry a stray, possibly rabid dog into an apartment that wasn’t even mine.
A week ago, I was staring down a man who couldn’t care less about my job performance and cared only about himself and his image. Now I was facing a man who didn’t seem to care about himself at all. This was new territory for me, and I nearly grabbed my phone and called Brennon to beg him to come help me, since he’d dealt with Steve at his worst and knew what to do.
“Don’t be stupid, Lissa,” I muttered and put my phone on the counter. I didn’t need Brennon to do something I could handle on my own. Besides, I worried he would only make it worse.
Steve had turned the water on low and pulled the showerhead down, holding it close to the dog to keep the water from splashing too much. He murmured to the dog at the same time, too softly for me to hear what he said. But the dog had his eyes open wide and fixed on Steve as if he was life itself. Maybe he was.
“I brought some food,” I said gently and put my hand on Steve’s shoulder.
“I can’t see what to do,” he replied. And he sounded miserable about the fact.
“Take this,” I said, holding the meat in front of him and grabbing the showerhead. “You’re doing great, but maybe you can try to get him to eat something.”
The poor dog was worse than I’d thought, the water barely making a dent in the dirt. It took twenty minutes of intense scrubbing before I could tell it was a young golden retriever beneath all the grime, but at least Steve had gotten it to swallow the meat. It perked up a little after that, still mainly focused on Steve aside from the occasional lick in my direction, but I had no way of knowing if it had any internal injuries or infections or parasites or anything it might have encountered out on the street. That was the hardest part, not knowing how to help it.
That, and not knowing how to convince Steve to let me take care of the dog so he could go to sleep.
“Don’t say it,” Steve said out of the blue.
I paused my scrubbing to stare at him. “What?”
Sighing, he closed his eyes but kept his focus on me. “You have a…feeling about you,” he said.
Yes, that totally helped me understand what he meant. I turned off the water—the dog was about as clean as he’d get without professional help—and sat back against my feet where I knelt. “A feeling,” I repeated.
“There’s just this… I don’t know, like a tension or… It’s hard to explain.”
“Clearly.”
Grabbing a couple of towels from the little shelf across from the toilet, Steve handed one to me then draped the other over the dog. With a grunt, he rose to his feet, though he barely put any weight on his bad knee as he stood there. “You feel like Brennon does when he’s extra worried about me,” he said finally.
So the blind man had a sixth sense. Awesome. “I think there’s a reason for that, buddy,” I said. “You should go to bed.”
He folded his arms, tilting his head a little to the side. “You should go to bed,” he replied. “You know, I’ve never liked people telling me what to do.”
“Neither have I,” I said, and a smile played at my mouth though I had no idea why. I was too stressed out about this dog and this man and my father and Brennon and life in general to be smiling right now.
Steve broke into a smile too, only his was more of a lopsided smirk that made him way too attractive for a man who spent his days locked up alone in an apartment. “So what are we supposed to do now?” he asked. “Arm wrestle to decide who’s going to bed and who’s going to dry off Captain?”
I stood as well, though he had a good five inches on me and wouldn’t likely be as intimidated by me as the cowards I used to work with. He couldn’t see me anyway. “You think you could beat me in an arm wrestle?” I asked. “You weigh, like, a hundred pounds.”
“Ouch.” But his grin widened. “What about a battle of wits?”
That sounded more intriguing than it should have. “I’m pretty sure I would win that too,” I said. “Hang on, did you just call the dog ‘Captain’?”
“He needed a name.”
“And why did you get to decide what it was?”
“I was the one who found him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You may have heard him,” I said, “but I was the one who found him.”
“I carried him to the car,” he argued.
“I’m the one who just spent half an hour making him look human again. I mean dog. Doggy. Whatever.”
Steve laughed, the sound echoing off the walls of the small bathroom. He had such an incredible laugh that it was distracting me from my argument, and I wanted to just stand there and listen to him laugh instead of standing my ground. “You’re so weird,” he said as the dog’s tail thumped his approval of the man’s happiness. I fully agreed with the dog.
“I still think I should get a say in the dog’s name,” I replied, my cheeks warm.
“Well what do you want to call him?”
Glancing at the dog, who rested his chin on the side of the tub as he watched us with big brown eyes, I stood there and wondered when the last time was that I’d been able to banter with someone like this. Seth was always fun to tease, but I didn’t see him all that often when we lived on other ends of the country. And I didn’t know Brennon well enough to know how to tease him.
I spent more time with his roommate than I did with the guy I was dating.
“I think it needs to be something brave,” I said as that thought rolled around in my brain. Was that the reason Brennon gave me that overpowering kiss at lunch today? Because he was jealous Steve saw me more than he did? Don’t be stupid, Brennon. He was the one who worked crazy hours instead of spending time with me. It certainly wasn’t my fault.
“Definitely brave,” Steve said. He crouched down and rubbed the towel over the dog’s sopping fur.
I stooped down to help him. “And it should be strong,” I said. “Confident.”
“Absolutely,” Steve replied.
“And heroic. He seems like a heroic dog.”
“Can you really think of a name that fits all of that?” Steve asked, and his hand slipped on top of mine.
We both paused in our drying, and I looked up at him as he looked down at me, his eyes fixed on mine. Yet again I wondered how much he could see, or if I was just a shadow and a blur to him. When most men looked at me, they looked at me with interest. My brother was known around the country as one of the sexiest men alive—he threatened to toss me into the ocean when I brought that up once—and he definitely got most of that from our father, who obviously was handsome enough to have left a string of pregnant women all around the country. Catherine said I inherited the same good fortune as Seth had and even disliked me for a while because of it.
But the problem with generally being considered pretty was never knowing why people did the things they did. Did I get my analyst job because I was the most qualified? Or because Mikaelson liked my face the best? I never put a lot of effort into my appearance just because it shouldn’t have mattered.
So why did it suddenly matter now?
“I think I have the perfect name,” I whispered.
Steve leaned a little closer. “Do you now?”
I bit my lip to keep my grin from giving me away and let the silence drag on just a little longer than I should have. Building the suspense. “What about Captain?” I said.
His jaw dropped, incredulity in his eyes. “Lissa, you are…”
Laughing, I pulled my hand out from under his and carefully lifted the dog, pulling him against my chest even though he was still super wet. We needed to get him somewhere more comfortable, somewhere warmer. And I needed
to get a little distance from Steve. “What am I?” I asked Steve as I stood.
“Impossible,” he replied immediately. “You’re impossible, is what you are. Where are you going?”
“The couch.”
“Why?”
“So I can put on a movie while I keep trying to get my new friend dry.”
“He’s your friend, is he?” Putting his hand on my shoulder, Steve followed me out to the front room and onto the couch, where I set the dog between us and resumed my towel drying.
“I am the one who found him,” I said.
“I’m the one who carried him,” Steve replied.
“Just the first time. I carried him the second.” I smiled, both because of the ridiculousness of our argument and because Captain immediately put his head on Steve’s lap, pulling himself closer. “Okay,” I said, “maybe he is your friend. Heaven knows you could use one.”
“Meaning?” He frowned, a bit of an edge to his voice. Poor guy.
“Meaning you’re friends with Brennon Ashworth,” I replied and shifted a little closer to the dog so he’d be warmer. “So I’m not sure how good your taste really is.”
Steve rolled his eyes and leaned in so he could rest his arm across Captain’s back and easily rub his neck. “Are you saying I made a bad choice in keeping Bren around?” he asked.
I’d forgotten how comfy Brennon’s couch was, and I slid a little deeper into the cushion to rest my head against the back. I turned my face to Steve and gazed into his dark eyes as he gazed right back at me with that confused wrinkle on his forehead. “You could do better,” I said.
“So could you,” Steve replied.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything at all.
* * *
A soft sound woke me from my light sleep. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been out, but I’d never gotten around to putting in a movie. Steve had zonked out pretty quickly, though I didn’t remember his head falling onto my shoulder. What was it that woke me up?
Brennon.
He stood a few feet from the couch, his blue tie hanging untied around his neck and his jacket in one hand. Though it was dark, he looked right at us, taking the strange scene in with his eyebrows low. I didn’t blame him, considering there was a real-life dog sleeping soundly on the couch with us.
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