by Maggie Marr
Chapter 7
Sophia
People loved dogs. And they hated people who hit dogs with their cars and then fled the scene. Guess who the public loathed now?
“Sophia? Can I come in?”
Huddled in a ball on my bed, with my comforter pulled tight around me, I hadn’t left my room in three days. Why leave? I was persona non grata, I was mud. I was, according to TMZ, worse than mud. I was the loathsome slime in which the creepy crawly things that couldn’t exist in mud lived.
“You can’t stay in there forever,” Ellen said, adding, “Choo is here.”
Choo? Choo! I’d been so distraught I hadn’t even looked in the mirror for two days. I hadn’t showered for two days. I’d simply shielded my eyes with my hands so I didn’t have to look at my reflection. If I was going to wallow, I didn’t really want to see the effects. Besides, I had a pretty good idea what I looked like right now because well, Ellen looked like this nearly every day when she went to the library. Speaking of Ellen …
“Okay, Soph, we’re coming in. I’ve tried the sappy I-feel-sorry-for-you sister routine for three days and now I’m going to do the buck-it-up-sissy thing.”
The door opened. I pulled my comforter up to my chin and flipped over onto my side. I pulled a pillow over my head. Ridiculous? Not when I’d just learned that they pulled my spread in American Vogue because I accidentally hit some mutt with my convertible. The corner of my bed sank. I pulled the pillow tighter over my head.
“Go away. I don’t want to see anyone. And, believe me, no one wants to see me!”
“Girl, you cannot sit in here like this. You’ve got to pick up that pretty little ass of yours and get real. We’ve got to find a way to rehabilitate your image and make the public love you again.” Choo’s voice was low and quiet. He was deadly serious.
I pulled the pillow away from my eyes. “You can make the public love me again?”
Choo walked to the window and pushed open the drapes and pulled up the window. Ignoring my question he said, “Besides, girl, you are starting to stink.”
The words drove a knife through my heart. Me. The supermodel, the beautiful girl, member of the Legend family was starting to stink. The entire thing was too much to bear. I squinted. The sun hurt my eyes. “Is that even possible? To make the public love me again?”
Choo’s gaze shot from me to Ellen. “I’m not going to lie to you, running over a dog, especially one as cute as Drummond, is pretty damn bad for your image.”
I pressed my pillow to my mouth.
“And then, instead of staying and seeing how you could help, you zip away in a Porsche?” Choo pressed his fists to his hips and shook his head. “Your public is pretty damn mad and I don’t blame them.”
“I didn’t mean to hit him, it’s not like I tried to hurt him.”
“Sophia, there is video and it’s going viral at this very moment. There is also video of you trying to return Ellen’s new rescue dog. You’ve really dug a hole for yourself.”
I flopped backward and pulled the pillow over my face. A hard dark heat thrashed at my chest. Damn dog! Who the fuck cared about that damn dog? Just as my career was taking off, just as my life was finally becoming what I wanted, what I deserved it to be, that four-legged mongrel had to dart in front of me and ruin my life. Ruin. It.
“I know how to fix this.”
Those were magic words coming from Choo’s mouth. My heart pitter-pattered. I slid the pillow from my face. “You do?”
Choo nodded. “I do. But you are going to have to do exactly as I say and you aren’t going to like it.”
I sat up. “Anything. I’ll do anything. Have you seen the images of me with the red circle and the slash over my face? The ones that say dog hater … please … Choo, we have to make that go away. Please tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
Choo sat on the edge of my bed. “The public wants to forgive you. We ran some numbers and already people say they still love you. The public just wants to know that you feel badly about what happened. They want to see remorse. They want to hear an apology. They want to see you do something that attempts to make a right out of this wrong.”
I clutched my pillow to my chest. My eyes widened. “I can make a donation to charity. Maybe Pawtown? Write them a check.”
Choo’s smile remained, but his eyes hardened with my words. How could I forget? This guy loved dogs. Choo and his brother Dillon had a half dozen four-legged furballs between them. They loved how these beasts drooled and yapped and bit perfectly innocent little girls in the ass when they were attending birthday parties.
“I don’t think a check will begin to take care of this.”
I pursed my lips. “No?”
“No.”
“Then what? What do I have to do?”
“Shower and pack a bag. We’ve got some serious public image rehabilitation to do.”
Trick
Drummond was on the mend. He had a cast on his left front leg, but thanks to the vet in L.A., soon he’d be good as new. He’d been staying at my place at the ranch since we gotten back from L.A., and he fit in with my other four-footed roomies just perfectly. The only difference was that Drummond needed a little extra TLC for a while.
Priya hopped up on the couch beside me. I’d just showered and was checking my emails before I headed over to the red shelter to see if Luis had any updates about Rose and her brothers. How were those fighting dogs doing now that they’d been at Pawtown for nearly a week? I scratched the back of Priya’s head. She was a boxer-lab mix and smarter than most humans I knew. Seriously, if she had opposable thumbs she’d run the house.
“Hey, girl, how’d you sleep?” She tilted her head. With those liquid brown eyes, I was putty in her hands. She’d stolen my heart. In response to my question, she nudged my chin with her nose. Then she turned in a circle and settled beside me on the couch. Her nose and paws hung over the edge. I rested my hand on her back and her ears fluttered in response to my touch. Damn, I loved this dog.
When we started Pawtown, Priya was the first thing I’d loved, other than Angie, in a long, long time. Those two girls had saved my ass. Costello trotted through the doggie door. He had a ball in his mouth. He dropped the ball onto the floor and then grabbed it back up as he ran. Yep, Costello could dribble a ball. He trotted toward me with his white scrubby-looking fur scooting out at all angles. Gabe followed behind Costello, hoping that Costello would miss catching the ball and get a chance to grab the ball away from his pack mate.
“You two boys take it outside.” They both looked at me like I was nuts but turned tail and headed for the back door. Drummond hobbled behind them on his three legs plus a cast. He was still all puppy and ready to play. Costello, the most senior of the three boys, stopped at the door and waited for Drummond. He was a good boy with some serious manners. Drummond went through the back doggie door. Costello shot me a look, like it’s all good, man, I got this, then followed Drummond out into the yard.
“You guys really don’t need me much except to give you food.” Priya turned her head to me and again with those liquid brown eyes sought to reassure my fragile ego that my sentiment simply wasn’t true. I swear she was smiling at me, as if to say I still love you, even if you’re only human. Never had I felt so loved as when I was with my dogs. When Angie was here too, with her pack of four pups, then life was pretty damned complete.
“Well, Priya, it’s about time for me to head out. Have to go see those fighting dogs.” Her ears popped up. “Maybe you’ll get to meet Rose soon, I sure hope—”
Woof. Woof. Woof.
My phone rang. Of course, it was a barking sound. My entire life had gone to the dogs. I glanced at the screen. On the other end of the line was one of my favorite people.
“Choo! Man, you miss me already? You just saw me last week.”
“While you are a man after my own heart—you were the teen heartthrob of my pre-pubescent, pre-coming-out, oh-my-God-how-do-I-have-a-crush-on-a-boy youth, plus you hav
e dedicated your life to dogs … oh my God, seriously, Trick, you may be my perfect man!”
“You have your perfect man. He is black, a former college athlete, and according to you, the most perfect guy on the planet.”
“True, Jackson is all that, but you get to be in number two position. So if anything ever happens to Jackson—”
“And I suddenly become gay?”
“Well, that too.”
“Thank you, Choo. I dig the ladies, but I’ll definitely let you know if anything ever changes.”
“Right, right. So you are amazeballs in every way and—”
A tingle raced up my spine. My Spidey sense was on high alert. Choo was a good friend, but he didn’t randomly just call to tell me that I was amazing and sexy and—
“What do you want?” I interrupted him. My tone was harsher than I wanted but, seriously, I’d just spent three days in L.A., I went to the Left Coast gig, we had a fundraiser, got a lot of money, got a lot of forever homes for dogs and now … now I could feel that there was something else. Something that would involve me, Pawtown, and the public. Maybe living around the pups for so long had helped me know things, pick up on things humans wanted. Choo wanted something from me. I felt sure of it.
“I did call for a specific reason.” His voice was softer and more serious. “I need a favor.”
While the words, “sure, anything” were on the tip of my tongue … caution prevented me from letting those words fly. Dillon and Choo had done a ton of things for me, for Pawtown, for Angie … and while I would do anything for them, this sick feeling in my gut let me know that the ask that Choo was about to make was going to be pretty fucking high, higher than any commitment I wanted.
“What is it that you need?”
Chapter 8
Trick
“He wants us to do what?” Angie spun her chair around and faced me. She held a pointed knife in her hand and I took two steps back. The sweet scent of cooking garlic wafted through the kitchen.
All day I’d ruminated on how to talk to Angie about what Choo wanted. His idea solved a lot of Pawtown’s problems, but damn, it created about a thousand more.
“That’s what he asked.”
“Are you kidding me?” Angie shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “You have got to be kidding me. There is no way. Do you want someone like that out here? She ran over a dog and then took off!”
“No, I get it, Ang. I don’t want her here.”
“Besides, doesn’t Sophia Legend epitomize your former life—a bunch of your old bad habits rolled up into one woman? She’s a model, she’s a brunette, she’s tall and leggy and she’s fame hungry. Wow, five years ago put an eight-ball in her hand and she would have been your perfect date.”
Angie was absolutely right with that assessment. But it still felt like a bullet to the heart. She’d watched my downfall. The hard work, the success, the drugs, the girls, then the hard landing as I blew nearly everything and destroyed my world and hers.
“Choo and Amanda think this solves Pawtown’s problems and Sophia’s.”
“I know the reality show could fix our financial problem. Believe me, I have a complete grasp on our problems,” Angie said as she turned back to her recipe. She wheeled toward the sink. “Seriously?” She turned the tap and then glanced over her shoulder toward me. “Amanda wants this too?” The anger drained from Angie’s face.
After our accident, when Angie had been on the edge and really struggling with the new reality of never walking again, it’d been her friendship with Amanda that had pulled her back from the brink. They were tight, Amanda and Angie. “That must be why she called today.” Angie mumbled. She bit her bottom lip. “I was going to call her later tonight. Once I was finished making dinner.”
“They think with all the bad press Sophia is getting if we put her on the Pawtown reality show, we’d be guaranteed a hit.”
Pawtown had bills and my residual checks weren’t covering the entire nut. While the fundraiser had raised a ton of dough and gotten forever homes for a lot of animals, as well as raising Pawtowns’s visibility, the event in L.A. was just one event. And we needed a lot more.
“Angie, you know that list of dogs that need placements? If we do this, we can expand. It’s pretty likely that people will see the animals on the show and fall in love and then choose to adopt. Plus, they’ll send in donations. Not to mention our cut of the TV licensing fees.”
Angie closed her eyes and pulled her arms around her chest. She sat like that for a moment and then opened her eyes and looked across the room toward her pack snuggled on their beds scattered across the floor.
“You know that this is exactly what I want for Pawtown. I was totally on board with the reality show idea when Dillon told me about it. But now?” She shook her head and wheeled back toward the oven. She stirred the pasta. “I just didn’t think we’d have to deal with a spoiled brat supermodel to get this deal done. I know her just enough to know I do not want to spend any time with her.”
Angie turned back from the stove and looked at me. “You know this could be dangerous for you. Things didn’t end well the last time we worked in TV.” She ran her fingertips over the chrome of her chair.
She was right. Our TV years hadn’t ended well. She’d lost the ability to walk and I ended up in rehab and then jail for a year.
“The reasons were different then.” My voice was soft. “I was doing it for the fame and the money and eventually the drugs and the girls. You were doing it to keep track of me. This time, we’ll be doing it to raise money for the animals, to expand, to find forever homes.”
“Fame is a beast.” Angie took a long deep breath. Her lips were a hard thin line. “You can’t control fame. You can ride it and protect enough of yourself so that it doesn’t devour you, but what happens if this show gets big?” Angie shook her head. “Then we’re in the exact same spot we were a few years ago. Have we changed enough not to let it affect us like it did before?”
The question behind Angie’s question was whether I’d changed enough. Angie never seemed to have had a problem with fame. She was who she was no matter what. She didn’t start in with the drugs and the sex and the parties. Sure, she clubbed and had fun, and maybe there was some recreational drug use, but Angie was always the one who wanted to go home and run lines, be ready for the next day on set.
It was totally messed up that I, the fuckup, was the guy who had ultimately shut down her career.
“I can handle it.” I said.
“Those words prove to me that you can’t.” Angie pulled on the wheels of her chair and rolled out of the kitchen and toward the living room.
“I don’t mean I can handle it alone, Angie. I’ll work my program. I have you and the dogs and everyone here. I have Pawtown. Those are the reasons I can handle it. I’m not stupid.” I leaned against the wall. Delilah pressed her nose against my hand and I scrubbed my fingers across her fur. Damn, petting a dog made me relax. A deep breath and my gaze locked onto Angie. “I’m not cured. I’ll never be cured. Why do you think I stay so far away from Los Angeles?”
Worry brushed through Angie’s eyes. “Right, and with a show like this Los Angeles and entertainment and everything that goes with it comes to us.”
“Not everything. The clubs. My former drug dealers. The hangers-on. The models and parties, none of that would be here at Pawtown. There’d still be pups to water and feed and poop to pick up. Picking up poop is a humbling experience.”
“You got this?” Angie tilted her head. She didn’t even attempt to hide the doubt in her eyes.
I nodded. “I got this.”
“And if you don’t, you’ll let me know.”
I nodded again. “You’ll probably know before I do.”
Her lip curled into a smile. “True.”
Big sis always seemed to know when I was about to get my ass into a jam. Warnings? She’d doled out about a million before the car accident. I hadn’t listened. My gaze traveled over Angie�
�s nonfunctioning legs. Yeah, I hadn’t listened to Angie and look what had happened.
“Fine.” Angie turned her chair back toward the kitchen counters. “Then if Sophia Legend says yes to Pawtown, I’ll say yes to her.”
Done deal. As much as I liked to believe that I was in charge at Pawtown, I was smart enough to know I wasn’t. Saving pups was my original idea, but Angie was the driving force behind this place. Without her, everything, including me, would collapse into a horrible heap.
“Want me to make the garlic bread?” I walked to the sink, flipped on the water, and squirted soap into my palm.
“Yes, please.” Angie said. “About time you made yourself useful when it comes to this meal.” She rolled up behind me and reached out her hands for the soap. “You already told Choo yes, didn’t you?” The corner of Angie’s mouth pulled upward.
A half smile crossed my face and my head ducked.
“Unfuckingbelievable, it didn’t matter what I just said, did it?”
“Of course it matters.“ I reached for the loaf of bread and walked to the cutting board. “You do the bills and you know how much it takes to run this place, so I kind of figured that no matter how badly you wanted to say no, your ability to calculate operating expenses would override your inherent dislike for brunette models with self-entitlement issues.” I slipped a knife from the cutting block.
“You’re pretty much right. I’ll call Amanda after dinner. Maybe she can give me some insight on how to deal with her pain-in-the-ass half sister.” Angie sprinkled fresh parmesan over the salad. “I do not like anything about Sophia Legend. Do you know she called me a cripple.” Angie wheeled her chair toward the refrigerator and opened the door.
Burning thrummed through my chest. Sophia had called my sister a cripple? I might have to lock her in a pen with Rose.
“Under her breath, and to her sister. She didn’t think I could hear her. First she insults me and then she runs over a dog. That girl is a loser.” Angie opened the oven and checked the lasagna. She closed the door and looked up at me. “Why couldn’t it be her sister, Ellen, who needs to come to Pawtown? I liked her. We talked for a long time. She’s nice and genuine and wants to be a doctor.”