by Misti Murphy
Barclay lumbers into the room at some point while I lay on my back and stare at the ceiling. He plops himself down beside my head and licks the side of my face.
“She’s scared of me.” I grip his collar and rub my head against his. “Not scared that I’m dangerous.”
He lets out a long breath that makes his sides heave and rolls onto his back, all four paws up in the air.
“Yeah, we’re about as dangerous as each other, aren’t we? I meant she’s scared of getting close to anyone. Don’t you think?”
“Ruf.”
“I have no idea what that means, Barclay.” I climb to my feet. “Come on, we better call Dee. I’ve got a few choice words for her.”
“I was wondering how long it would take you to call.” Dee sounds a lot more relaxed than I expected. “Oh that’s purrrfect, Leo. Right there. That’s the spot.”
“I hope you’re getting a massage and I’m not listening to you and your cabana boy get it on, Dee.”
“Some of us are more decorous than that, brother. We don’t try to get it on in the middle of taping while there are investors about.”
“There were investors? I didn’t see anyone.”
“Nelson Kane was ice skating with his daughter. To say he wasn’t impressed with where you’re taking our marketing dollars would be an understatement. And what were you thinking, pretending to be a dog walker for the show anyway? My brother as a dog walker? Thank God I can work from anywhere in the world since it seems you can’t.”
“Have you tried Antarctica?”
“I mean it, Maxwell. This thing you have for my neighbour. Your little obsession. It needs to stop. Go out and hook up with some co-ed or whatever you need to do to forget about her.”
“Evie.”
“What?”
“Her name’s Evie, Dee.”
“It doesn’t matter. Get back in the office tomorrow. This campaign is testing really well with beta audiences. Please don’t mess this up for us. The last thing I want to do is file suit against her for breach of contract.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I snap.
“If you push my hand I’ll have no choice. Our investors are more important than your need to sleep with anything that walks. This girl is only interesting to you because you can’t have...” The line fills with static and cuts off what she’s saying.
“I fucked her on your rug in the foyer. You know the one you brought home from your trip to Turkey after you made your first hundred grand? Yes, that one. I had your neighbor naked and screaming on your favorite rug and I am still not over her.”
“Sorry, what was that? You were breaking up. Did you say something about a rug?”
“Barclay fucked up your rug. He must have eaten something that didn’t agree with him. Doggy vomit all over it.”
“The one in the foyer?”
“That’s the one. I’m going to see if I can get a cleaner to come over here. Hate to cut and run, Dee, but it’s a bit of an emergency.”
“Maybe you should take Barclay to the vet. Look after my baby.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.” I scratch the big mutt behind the ear. “He’s growing on me.”
“Okay, I better go too. Just don’t mess this up, Maxwell. Stay away from the girl for her sake as well as your own. The last thing we need is some girl ruining Puppy Love because you’ve slighted her.”
“Talk soon.” I hang up on her. Kelly could have warned me my sister was on the warpath instead of threatening Evie. No wonder she doesn’t want anything more to do with me. Damn it.
***
I cover the length of my office for the sixth time in ten minutes. Outside the windows, snow is turning everything white. Avoiding Evie should be easy. But burying myself in work all morning hasn’t kept her out of my head. Trying to kid myself that last night was enough is impossible.
Kelly is probably downstairs in the lobby right now, waiting to take Evie to the next location. An actual dog walker will be waiting with her doggy date.
There’s a tap on my office door and I growl, “Come in.”
“We have a slight problem.” Kelly steps inside and shuts the door behind her.
“What would that be?” I busy myself with straightening the stapler on my desk, since I’m still annoyed at her for not warning me about Deanna’s ultimatum.
“The guy we hired this morning to fill in as dog walker got hit by a car on his way here.”
“Was he hurt?”
“A couple broken bones. He’ll be out of commission for a few weeks.”
“Does he have family? Anyone to take care of him? Perhaps we should hire him some help for a couple weeks.”
“I will get right on that. We’re also in need of a dog walker.”
I pause at the mischievous glint in my assistant’s eyes. “What are you suggesting?”
“You might want to hurry up if we’re to stay on schedule.”
“You do realize my sister will not be happy.”
“Right now, you’re my concern. And the show,” Kelly says. “Besides, we don’t really have a choice.”
I straighten my shirt collar and cuffs, my shoulders pulled back. I’m suddenly lighter than I have been since Evie left last night. Picking up the company jacket I used the last time, I shrug into it. “I heard what you said to Evie, you know. You warned her to stay away from me.”
“Absolutely.” She checks her tablet. “And I would do it again.”
“Because I’m a terrible human being, right? One who only uses women for pleasure?”
“No.” She glances up at me, holding my gaze. “I think she might actually be able to hold her own.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, but she might also cost you more than you’re bargaining on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, walking out of my office ahead of her. “And I’m not sure I care.”
Kelly hurries a few feet behind me. “You might if this doesn’t end well.”
“I’ll behave,” I tell her while we ride the elevator. “During taping. There are two weeks left. I’m not going to cause her problems with Deanna. I have some ability to control the things that happen around me, even if my sister doesn’t believe so.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she says as she steps into the lobby.
Evie is standing right inside the front doors and I’m supposed to be at the meeting point with the dogs, so I don’t question Kelly. “I’ll go straight down to the parking garage and get the dogs.”
“Great. We’ll meet you there,” she says as I step back and the doors close.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Evie
“Aren’t you the cutest thing?” I scratch the Pomeranian’s fuzzy orange head before taking him out of Max’s arms.
“Thanks.” He grins widely.
“Not you,” I whisper. I was prepared for this moment where I’d be face to face with Max again. Or more like face to groin, I realize as I start to stand back up from putting the pup on the ground. Damn if remembering him naked doesn’t shake me up a bit. I spent all night practicing how I would be so cool when I saw him, and how I wouldn’t let him affect my pulse or my temperature one degree. “I was talking about King here.”
“Sure. But I think he and I would both agree, in the cute stakes there’s only one winner.”
“Can you please not do that?” Thankfully my cheeks are radiating warmth from the bitter wind because otherwise the crew could probably tell this is embarrassing.
“You’re right,” he says. “We need to tape. I’m counting down the days until we’re finished here.”
He is? One quickie and he’s over it? Wait. Where’s my feeling of relief? The moment of giddy joy at not having to worry about him ruining this for me? Or... trying to get close with me. It’s kind of a letdown, actually. Can’t say I’m surprised though. Guys like him are all talk and no substance. What else did I expect him to do? “Then we should probably get on with it.”
; “Agreed.” He holds out a piece of paper, and I try to take it without touching him. It’s an epic fail. My skin sizzles as his fingers linger on my wrist, and is that my heartbeat in my panties?
Then he’s drawing away, and I’m opening doggy date two’s note. “King and I like to chill and give back to the community. So today King wants to take you to a special to us place where we spend a lot of time. You’ll find King has quite the voice and sings along at the Montgomery Retirement Community.”
A short while later I’m situated behind a piano, stroking the ivory keys and trying to remember if I can recall the finger placements for Hot Cross Buns or Chopsticks. “If I’d known dating dogs was going to take so much more effort than dealing with human beings I might have thought twice.”
“Don’t know how to play?” Kelly asks, making notes on her tablet. Max is nowhere near me, but I can still feel his gaze on my skin. Everyone else stands around talking, and the dog. King. Well, he was snatched up by an old woman in a pink quilted dressing gown who has rollers in her hair and no teeth. Currently they’re sitting in a rocking chair across the room.
“It’s been a long time. No one told me I would need to know how.”
“You don’t really.” She looks up at me, placing the tablet on the piano’s top. “Just a few bars. Then we can sub in the music.” She claps her hands to draw the crew’s attention. “Who here knows how to play Moon River?”
The entire crew goes silent.
“From Breakfast at Tiffany’s?” Her voice lilts in exasperation.
“I do,” Max says.
“Right, of course,” I mutter as I rest my head in my palms.
A few seconds later Max slides onto the stool beside me. “Are you ready, or do you want to regret this for a little bit longer?”
“What am I regretting?” I glare at him. “Trying to find a nice date? Or...”
“Shh.” He presses his finger to my lips. “You can’t fib in front of old people.”
“Who says?”
“It’s a universal law.” He grins as his elbow bumps against my ribs. “Now copy my hands.”
I don’t know how many times we run those first couple minutes of song. Over and over until my fingers start to cramp, with Max bumping my ribs until I’m almost certain I’ll bruise, but I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face at the way he gets into the music, makes it fun. The little observations he makes about everyone in the room. And when he sings it’s something else.
“Okay. That’s enough,” Kelly says, bringing King back to us. “We really should finish this taping.”
As Max gets up and moves out of the shot, Kelly drops King in my lap. He’s a fluff ball of energy, shaking with excitement.
“Rolling,” someone calls out.
I press down on those first few keys, on the verge of cringing. Please don’t let me screw this up. Something hot spreads across my lap as King starts barking like crazy. At the other end of the room one of the old men clamps his hands over his ears and starts hollering about the noise. “Who let that fucking dog in here? People these days have no decency. Back in my day that mutt would have been kept outside in the snow.”
King escapes me, tearing across the room and leaving a trail of pee from my knee across the floor to the old man. All of us stare as the little dog stops, sniffs at the man, and then as though he hasn’t just emptied his bladder, cocks his leg and finishes on the guy’s shoe.
***
“I’ve never seen anyone move so fast,” I whisper. Talk about traumatic. The moment King finished whizzing on the poor guy, he’d scampered through the open doors. Max and a couple of the crew had taken chase after the tiny dog. It would have been funny watching three grown men chase a fluff ball through the snow, if Kelly hadn’t been ushering the rest of us out into the cold while apologizing profusely to the nurses. “Let alone a group of people. The entire place was in disarray.”
“It was pretty damn funny,” Max says, speeding through traffic.
I check my seat belt again, still not sure how I ended up in his car with the dogs in the back, but I have to assume it’s on account of the fact that I smell like pee. “Well, his owner is definitely not getting my date.”
Max chuckles discreetly, but I catch him and hope he withers under my glare.
“Come on, Evie. It’s not that bad. King had a little accident, that’s all.”
“I know that.” I drop my gaze to my still damp lap. “And I’ll be able to laugh about it once I’m changed.”
“I wasn’t laughing at you,” he says, pulling into an underground parking structure and finding a space next to the elevator.
“You weren’t?” I side eye him, not sure he’s entirely credible. “Where are we? Why are we stopping?”
He hops out and a few seconds later opens my door. “My apartment.”
“Why?” I allow him to guide me into the elevator, watch the numbers go up and up and up.
“I have to take the dogs back to their owners and I can’t take you with me because you’re not allowed to meet the guys.”
“Okay, but why not drop me at Puppy Love then? So I could go home?”
“Do you want to go home?” He’s right beside me, hands in pockets. No part of him is touching any part of me, and yet my skin feels covered in static, the fine hairs standing up in anticipation.
I flick a glance at his face to find him watching me. “How do you know Moon River?”
“Have you ever seen the movie?” he asks. “Audrey Hepburn, Mickey Rooney.”
“No.”
“It’s great. I used to watch it all the time with my sister after we first lost our parents. We’d pretend to have these extravagant parties in our little flat on the south side. Dee used to dump the nightshade on her head like a fancy hat. Do you want to watch it with me?”
“Maybe, but...” I point to the splotch on my jeans as the elevator comes to a halt.
Max steps out, leading the way. Those same women from the first time I came to his apartment are in the hallway again. The one with the glasses adjusts them as I pass. “Look, Gladys, it’s the same girl from last time. What do you suppose happened to her crotch?”
“Well, I never.” Maureen hits the back of her frail, sun spotted hand against Delores’s arm. “There’s a first time for everything apparently. Even philandering fuckboys dating the same girl twice in a row. Think he’s in love with her?”
“Did you just say fuck, Maureen? How unladylike,” Delores chirps. “She’s a bit skinny, don’t you think? Those hips aren’t made for child bearing. And it looks like the poor dear has a worse bladder control problem than you do.”
“Come now, ladies. It’s clearly de rigueur to not wear any panties so that a fellow’s white stuff leaks out all over the place.”
“Hush your mouth, Gladys,” Maureen exclaims.
“Hey, handsome,” Gladys calls out, and Max turns to acknowledge her. “If you ever consider giving an old lady the time of her life, you call me. You hear?”
“Of course.” He winks at her before opening the door to his apartment and ushering me inside.
“They are some dirty old ladies.”
“They’re sweethearts,” he says, walking through his apartment and grabbing a towel as he leads me to the bathroom. “Completely harmless. How about you give me your jeans and I’ll toss them in the washing machine, then take the dogs back while you wash up?”
“Okay.” I partly close the bathroom door between us and then sit on the edge of the tub to strip out of my boots. “So your neighbors adore you, and your sister loves you. Even that assistant who is running the show at Puppy Love can’t hide the fact she respects you. You’re like the nicest playboy I’ve ever met.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says. “But I’m not sure I am a playboy.”
“No?” I undo the zip on my jeans and then work them down my hips. “What would you call it then?”
“Reformed maybe. Or a one woman kind of guy in need of h
ands on experience.”
“Pull my other leg.” I bundle up my jeans and hand them to him through the door. I’ve come across my fair share of guys who ping my radar. They’re usually the ones I end up sleeping with and wondering why I was so stupid to do so. Max shouldn’t be an exception, but he is, because I’ve slept with him and yet we’re still doing this dance. It’s worse in a way. I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
“You’ll see,” he says. “I’ll leave a pair of my sweats out here for when you get out of the shower. Be back shortly.”
***
“Are you crying?” he asks, tapping the sole of my foot with his finger.
“Nope.” I wipe under my eyes and try not to sniffle. This scene with the cat is so sad. How Holly can dump Cat in the pouring rain as though she doesn’t care is heartbreaking, and then she realizes that being alone and only having yourself to look after isn’t better. That they need each other. So she jumps out of the cab, desperately calling for the ginger tabby. It’s so touching.
“You look like you’re crying.” He tickles my foot again from where he’s resting against the headboard of his bed, which is where we ended up when we realized there was no hope for the Barclay chew toy he once called a couch. Halfway through the movie I got engrossed and ended up stretched out with my head propped in my hands at the foot of the bed.
“Nope. I don’t cry.” I don’t relate to the woman who thinks it’s better to be alone at all. My life is filled with people and pets; my bosses, Abby, Spot, Ducky, even Garrett’s brother’s cat. And I have friends. I just don’t have time to see them, so how could I possibly connect with Holly Golightly?
“I did. The first time I watched this movie. And the second. Possibly the third time as well.”
“Really?” I shift onto my side and rest my head on my elbow. I can’t imagine him getting teary at all. Mainly because it’s really weird to imagine a guy who is built like him crying. Those weeks when I was first hired to be Abby’s nanny, and Garrett stomped around completely miserable without Erin were strange enough. And secondly, Max is always joking, rarely serious, let alone emotional.