by Parker, Ali
“You have to find some way to see him again,” Lizzie told me. “Think about everything that money could do for you.” Sometimes, Lizzie made her work as a corporate lawyer just a little too obvious.
“Not to mention the fact that he sounds like a pretty stand-up guy, money or no money,” my brother said.
I took a sip of my wine and considered what I had just heard.
All that money. All that power. All those women who likely would have bent over backward—literally—to be with him. And he had chosen to go out with me. He had even asked me out again when it was all over. He’d even called on me to help him pick out a dog for his niece. He had shown a real interest. And he could have had anyone he wanted.
I took a sip of my wine and smiled to myself as the information that I had been given began to sink in. This was, at the very least, a bit of an ego boost for me to enjoy. And at the very most? Well, I had yet to decide on that one yet. I just knew that the thought of him putting all this effort into me made me very happy.
And very much inclined to shoot my shot and see if he was still up for seeing my indecisive ass again.
Chapter 15
Harry
“Hey, boss, you got a minute?”
I looked up from what I was working on and found Henry, one of the accountants, standing in the doorway. I could hear the shuffle of more footsteps behind him, so I knew that it was more than just him out there.
“What’s up?” I asked. I had sent out a memo earlier in the day announcing that dogs would be welcome in the office every Friday, and I hadn’t heard much of a response about it so far. I assumed that everyone would be cool with the idea, but perhaps some people had allergies that I didn’t know about and were going to protest.
“We just wanted to say thanks for the memo,” he said, and he glanced around and jerked his head at the people behind him. A moment later, the door opened, and a stream of about a half dozen of my employees entered the room.
“You have no idea how much it means to us that you’re going to let dogs in here,” Mary, another head of department, told me with a huge smile. “My baby, she’s such a help with my anxiety. It’s going to be so much better with her around.”
“And we have this for you,” announced Ronald, one of the younger advertising executives. He held out a box, and I took it from him, opened it, and laughed when I saw what was on the inside.
“A bear claw?” I asked.
“Well, we thought it was the closest edible thing we could find to a dog’s paw,” Mary explained. “Hope you like them.”
“I love them,” I told her. “Thanks for this. I’m looking forward to meeting all your dogs this Friday.”
“All right, boss,” Ronald said, and they all left me alone in my office once more.
I looked down at the bear claw and shook my head. I hadn’t known until now just how important these people’s dogs were to their lives. Maybe I was just starting to get it now that I had one of my own. Those creatures really could change a life.
Speaking of which, I had to take Tink into the vet’s today. Well, I didn’t have to, but I had managed to find an excuse to get him to Raina once more, to double-check that he was all up on his shots. She might have thought that I was a hypochondriac, but as long as it got me through the door to see her again, then I was fine with it.
I was going to have to drop this charade soon enough, though. I knew that I couldn’t keep pushing for this. She wasn’t interested in me, and I had to accept that, no matter how much I wished the opposite was true. She had offered to let me come in whenever, though, as long as it had to do with Tink. So why shouldn’t I take the chance to see her again? Maybe practice my flirting a little?
I needed to get my head out of my ass when it came to stuff like that. Yes, I liked her, and yes, I wished I could take things to the next level, but that didn’t mean that I just got to snap my fingers and it would happen.
I picked up Winnie after school, swung by the house to grab Tink, and headed on down to the vet’s place so we could get him checked up.
“Great to see you guys again!” Raina greeted me happily as soon as I came through the door. Was she being serious? I honestly couldn’t tell.
I smiled at her, not sure what to make of any of this. She was likely just being polite because she was at work and she didn’t want to piss off a potential client.
“You too,” I said.
“So, you got the little fella here for me?” she asked, and Tink scampered out from behind my legs. He had been hiding before, but he seemed to be as delighted to hear Raina’s voice as I was.
“Looks like he’s ready to see you,” I said.
She chuckled and got down on her haunches in front of him. Holding out her hand, she let him sniff her, and he rubbed up against her happily.
“He seems in pretty good shape to me,” she said, straightening back up. “You’ve been doing a good job with him. That’s for sure. Sometimes, these dogs have a habit of shutting down when they get to their new owners, but this guy seems as happy as ever.”
“Well, we want to make sure he stays that way,” I said. “You said you had time to fit him in for an appointment?”
“Yeah, we’ll get him all checked out,” Raina said, and she smiled down at Winnie, who seemed to have gone a little quiet. “You all right there, Winnie?”
Winnie nodded. She looked more nervous than the dog had been. This was how she got when she was around someone she wanted to impress. It was pretty cute in its own way to see her so eager to impress this woman. I wanted to tell her that I knew just how she felt, but I bit back the smart-ass comment. Now wasn’t the time. In fact, never might have been a better time to shoot for.
“You want to come in with me?” Raina asked my niece. “You can keep Tink company while I give him the once over.”
Winnie nodded happily, apparently pleased to have a reason to stick around her dog. Raina glanced at me and jerked her head toward the door. She didn’t need to use words to say what she had to say with me. I could already read her mind.
I followed her into the room, and she talked through what she was doing with Winnie every step of the way. Winnie had been a little freaked out about handing over her new best buddy to someone that she hardly knew, but now that she was actually watching it unfold in front of her, she seemed to have calmed down a little bit.
I was pleased to see how well she was holding herself together. I had been worried that she would be too protective of her little furry friend to think straight, but she was doing a great job. And it helped that Raina was so patient with her, took her time so carefully to make sure she understood every little thing that was going on. By the time she was done with this, I would practically have been able to perform the operation myself.
“And it looks like everything is exactly where it needs to be,” Raina finished up. Her voice was so smooth and so confident that I had found myself tuning out of the actual details of what she was saying and focusing instead on the way the words sounded coming out of her mouth. Her tone was soothing. I could have listened to her talk all day long.
“So he’s going to be all right?” Winnie asked.
Raina nodded and began to clean off the surface Tink had been on. “Yes, he’s going to be just fine,” she promised. “Though I think he could probably do with a little fresh air, don’t you? We have some grass outside. Why don’t you take him out there to play?”
Winnie didn’t need telling twice, and she headed out with Tink on his leash. I watched as she left, and Raina continued clearing off her stuff.
“You’re really great with Winnie,” I told her. “Thank you for that. I know she can be a little much sometimes.”
“No, she’s more than fine,” Raina assured me. “Trust me. I’d much rather have a kid who was asking as many questions as she was than one who was totally checked out of the whole process. The ones who treat this whole thing as a learning experience, they’re the ones that I know are going to make great own
ers.”
“You think?”
“I know,” she replied with certainty. “When I was that age, I was just the same. I always wanted to know exactly how this stuff worked and why the dog did this or reacted like that.”
“So what you’re saying is that I’m going to have to pay for veterinary school for my niece?” I joked back.
She laughed. “Oh, no,” she replied. “I think you have to be a special kind of crazy to want to work with animals for the rest of your life. But just so you know, yeah, she’s going to make a great owner. You should be proud of her. Lots of kids her age can’t wrap their heads around the responsibility, but she’s different.”
“Guess she’s had to grow up real fast,” I remarked a little sadly. I didn’t want that to be the case. I wished I could have lifted that weight from my niece, but I knew that it didn’t work that way. I could only support her. And hopefully, this little dog would go some way toward filling in the cracks when I couldn’t.
“I guess we should get you all settled up,” Raina commented once she had finished washing off her hands.
“Guess so,” I agreed, and I started racking my brains. Was there some way that I could convince her to let me hang out here a little longer? I was running out of reasons to be around her, and I knew that I would have to come up with something sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to walk out of here without some kind of promise that I was going to see her again.
I followed her out to the front of the building, and she started tapping away on her computer and ringing me up for all the work she had done. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I had to say something before it was too late.
“So, what are you doing after this?” she asked brightly, her sweet voice cutting through the panic in my head.
“Probably just heading home,” I replied, wishing I had something more interesting to tell her.
“Another thrilling night, huh?” she teased.
“Guess they can’t all be dates with you,” I replied, and she glanced up at me. And I knew as soon as I looked into her eyes that she was thinking just the same thing I was. I couldn’t risk it or wait a moment longer.
I had to speak to her. I had to ask her out.
“Hey, I know this is a long shot, and tell me if I’m being an ass or anything,” I told her quickly. “But do you want to go out with me again sometime? If you’ve changed your mind or something...”
For a moment, I couldn’t read her reaction, and I was about to scramble to reel it all back in. But then slowly, a smile spread over her face, and I knew that I was about to get the answer I wanted. For a split second, nothing else in the world mattered, just the smile on her face and the look in her eyes and the way she parted her lips just before she spoke.
I didn’t have to worry about Winnie or Tink or anyone but me and her and this very moment. Man, it felt good to have that weight lifted, even if it was just for a moment. I had forgotten how much weight I had been carrying all this time. Because when I was around her, it didn’t seem to add up to anything.
Finally, she spoke again, and it was just what I had been hoping to hear.
“Yes,” she replied. “I’d love to.”
Chapter 16
Raina
As soon as I made it to the shelter once more, Frankie practically dived out of the staff area and accosted me with a giant hug.
“Hey, what’s all this about?” I asked, laughing as I pulled back from her. Any other day, I might have been a little put off by how forward she was being, but right then and there, I was in such a good mood I didn’t even mind.
“Come on, Marjorie will show you,” she replied, and she gestured for me to come on through to the staffroom.
I furrowed my brow, trying to figure out what the heck was going on here, but as soon as I stepped into the slightly rundown staff area, I knew it had to be something good.
“Marjorie, what’s up?” I asked the woman who ran the shelter. She had one hand clasped to her chest, and in the other, she was holding a phone that she was gazing down at with something like joy.
“What’s going on?” I pressed her again, not sure that she could hear me through the shock of whatever it was that she was taking in.
“We just got a huge donation,” Frankie blurted out at last. “From that Harry guy. You remember? The one who took Tink?”
“How big are we talking here?” I asked.
Marjorie handed me the phone silently, her eyes wide. I took it, looked down at the amount—and damn near dropped the thing in surprise.
“That much!” I exclaimed, totally astonished. I’d known he was rich, but that level? The fact that he could just toss that money in our direction like it was nothing?
“Yeah, that much,” Marjorie replied, and I could hear her voice trembling slightly. She had poured so much time and effort and passion into this place, I could only imagine what it felt like to have financial security like this.
“This’ll be enough to keep the shelter up and running for the next year at least,” she murmured, and she seemed to be talking as much to herself as anyone else. “And if we invest some of it in re-doing the back area, we might have room for more dogs.”
She wandered off, and she seemed to be in some kind of a daze. Frankie shook her head as she walked out of the room.
“She’s been like this ever since she got in this morning and saw how much he had given,” she explained. “It’s incredible. She might actually be able to hire some more staff to help run the place.”
“Hey, that would put me out of a job, wouldn’t it?” I pointed out as I poured myself a quick cup of cheap coffee from the pot that was sitting out on the slightly grimy counter.
“I just can’t believe anyone would give us that kind of cash,” she said. “I mean, I knew he was rich, but...”
I smiled and let her chat away to me for a little longer. Probably best not to mention the fact that this guy had asked me out again pretty recently and that I had actually said yes. Was this enormous donation to the shelter his way of telling me that he was thinking of me? The way some guys sent along a bouquet of flowers before the date? It was unconventional, sure, but I had to admit that I quite liked the way that he was going about it.
I spent the rest of that Saturday getting everything sorted at the shelter, checking out a few new arrivals and getting them all comfortable and settled in so that they would be at peace for the rest of the week. I was surprised at how quickly the day went. Sometimes, at the shelter, I was so busy it felt like the days must have been fifteen hours long. But this time, I had my mind on one person and one person alone, and that made it feel way more like a break than it normally did.
Before I knew it, the day was over, and I had no reason to be hanging out there any longer. I said goodbye to Marjorie, who seemed to have just about wrapped her head around the enormity of what had happened with the donation by then, and I made my way back to my apartment.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Harry the whole way home. Had he even intended for me to find out about the donation? Perhaps he had just done it out of the kindness of his heart. Not to mention the fact that donating to animal charities wasn’t going to make anyone look twice. Still, either way, if it was for selfish reasons or for personal ones, I was glad that we had a patron who could draw so much attention to the place. We needed all the support we could get, after all.
As though I had summoned him with my very thoughts, I was barely through the door when my phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out, expecting it to be Marjorie calling me back in for a last-minute intake, but instead, I heard Harry’s familiar voice down the line.
“Hey,” he greeted me, and I almost dropped my bag in surprise. I felt like I needed to build myself up to actually talking to him, lest I just stumble around making a prize fucking fool of myself.
“Hey,” I replied. “It’s, uh, it’s great to hear from you. Awesome.”
“Well, I was hoping you might actually be willing to step it up and
see me in person,” he replied playfully.
“You’re calling in that date?”
“I’m calling in that date,” he said. “On Wednesday night? I know it’s midweek, but it should keep me from getting too drunk, at least.”
I hesitated. Normally, I would never in a million years have agreed to a midweek date because I would always want to be on my game for work, but the thought of seeing him again was just far too tempting to pass up. Not to mention the fact that I wanted to thank him for his donation.
What he had done for us had changed the path of the shelter forever. I knew it might not seem like a huge amount of money to him, but to me, it was. He had no idea how many animals he had helped or even saved, handing over that amount of cash.
“I would love that,” I said. “Dinner? Maybe somewhere a little less formal this time.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t be trying to impress you this time around,” he joked. “I’ve already got the dog. I’ve got what I wanted out of all of this.”
I gasped in fake outrage. “I knew it, another man who was just after me for my dog-related connections.”
“You get a lot of guys hitting you up for the canine help?” he asked.
I laughed. “That suggests that I get a lot of guys hitting me up, full stop,” I replied. “And that’s not exactly happening.”
“I have a hard time believing that,” he said flirtatiously.
I sank back into my couch and closed my eyes for a moment. Damn. I had cut myself off from the very idea of having a crush for so long that I had forgotten how fun it could be to just flirt with someone, and have someone flirt with me.
It made me feel sexy in a way I just hadn’t for such a long time. Feeling wanted like this, feeling needed, there was more to it than I had ever really allowed myself to think about since I had cut myself off from the world of relationships. Not that I had ever really dived into it with much passion, but still.