The question was why I wanted to. If Sebastian changed course and delivered what Modern Man needed, would Vance rescind my offer? Why should I consider Sebastian’s feelings at all? My first day, it’d taken a lot of guts to show up and present to his team, and his support would’ve smoothed the way immeasurably. Instead, he’d gone out of his way to make it hard on me. He’d thought I was a joke. For all Vance’s faults, at least he’d always taken me seriously.
Sebastian squinted and let out a whistle. Bruno lifted his head as Opal jumped up, her entire body wiggling as she found her way between Sebastian’s legs. She launched her front paws into his lap to lick his face.
I never would’ve pictured the debonair man I’d met at the coffee shop laughing through kisses from a mutt. Then again, he’d just started to reveal another layer, one that showed he wasn’t necessarily the person he projected.
That was why, as much as I wanted my own success, I wanted his too. I’d brought fresh perspective and ideas like I’d been hired to, but Sebastian had put in the work, however grudgingly. He was still the right man for the job, and unlike me, he actually enjoyed it.
“Steer the magazine in the direction it needs to go,” I said, picking at a notch in Bruno’s leather leash. “If you take over, I become obsolete. Walk in with me as a united front tomorrow morning.”
“Bringing you in made everyone think I failed to save the magazine,” he said, smoothing both hands over Opal’s head as she panted at him. “Once I submit, they’ll know I did. I don’t want to lose the respect of my team.”
I was all too familiar with that fear. I became a different version of myself each morning to secure respect. Even now, I was afraid to open up to Sebastian about why Neal had left, and why I warred with myself every day, due to the possibility that he might see me as weaker. “We don’t have to fight each other at every turn. We can work together. It’s not too late.”
“Too late for what?”
Shit. I hesitated. If I decided to risk my assignment, and this new opportunity, by telling Sebastian about my meeting with Vance, it would also end the date immediately. And I didn’t want that. What I wanted was to see if there might be anything more worth exploring between us.
“Not too late to dispel the rumors,” I said. “Fix your rep. Admit you were wrong. You and I have made a lot of progress, and my assignment’s almost over. It’s time for me to take a back seat and let you run the show. There’ll be no question of respect.”
“What do you think, Opal?” he asked, playing with her ears.
“She likes you,” I said when he didn’t respond, wondering if the topic was closed to further discussion.
“I like her. I don’t know if I want to return her.” He glanced at me. “Maybe I ought to adopt.”
It was, perhaps, the sexiest thing he’d ever said. He was already verging on the perfect date—chivalrous, vulnerable, handsome . . . but adding dog dad to the list? That was next level.
Still, I knew firsthand that owning a pet wasn’t without its rough spots. It hadn’t been convenient for Neal. “It’s a lot of responsibility,” I warned. “With a dog at home, you can’t stay out all night. They need potty breaks and training and lots of exercise. They’re expensive. And you can’t pick up and leave town whenever the urge strikes.”
“A year ago, I would’ve said I liked my freedom.” He tilted his head at Opal, and she cocked her head back. “Lately, I’ve been questioning whether having some attachments would be so bad.”
Despite the fact that the two of them seemed to be having their own conversation, I got the feeling we were no longer talking about adopting a dog. “What happened a year ago?”
“Hmm?” He didn’t look as if he planned to answer, but he never got the chance to anyway. His phone chimed, and he got up to check the screen. “He’s here.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Get your things. We’re on to the next stop.”
“I thought this was the date,” I said, standing to bundle up the throw.
“I told you, you’re stuck with me until dinner. Unless things go south, in which case I have Justin on standby to call me with an emergency.”
If I hadn’t been tossing the water bowl in a nearby trashcan, I would’ve smacked his arm. “You’re not supposed to tell your date that. What if there really is an emergency? I’ll think you don’t like me.”
“You already think I don’t like you.”
He had a point there. With both leashes in hand, Sebastian started back the way we’d come. When we reached the street, a car with dog ears on the roof honked from the curb, and a young guy waved at us over the hood. “I’m Kenny, your Ruff Ride driver.”
“Our what?” I asked.
“Your wagging wagon,” Kenny continued, “your pet-ty cab, crate on wheels, driving miss doggy, muttmobile.” He took a breath. “I’ll be your chauffur this afternoon, your pupp daddy, David Barkham—”
“We get the idea,” Sebastian said.
“You ordered this?” I asked him.
“While waiting for our drinks.” Sebastian opened the car door for Opal and Bruno. “After you, Lindsay Lohound and Shia LaBowow.”
The dogs just looked at him.
“Who wants to go for a ride?” I asked. Bruno perked up. He knew what it meant considering we regularly took a Zipcar out of town to see my parents, but if I’d asked if he wanted a colonoscopy in the same tone, he would’ve been equally as excited. Bruno and Opal hopped in and each one took a seat by the window.
I bent at the waist to look inside. “Where do the humans go?”
Kenny opened the driver’s side door. “Usually backseat with the pups, or you can sit up front if you like.”
Sebastian stuck his head through the other window to look past the dogs at me. “We could always do the lap thing.”
I scoffed. “I’m not sitting on your lap.”
Sebastian grinned. “I meant the dogs go on our laps.”
I tried to look indignant as I squeezed in, forcing Bruno to give up the seat he’d already claimed. He stepped on my thighs, and I gnashed my teeth under his weight to keep from howling. Opal was small enough to curl up on Sebastian’s lap, but Bruno sat his haunches on mine and stretched his front legs toward Sebastian.
Sebastian leaned through the gap between the front seats. “We’re a little behind schedule.”
“Say no more.” The tires screeched as Kenny put the pedal to the metal.
Sebastian reached toward me. Startled, I jerked back. “What—”
He pulled my seatbelt across my body and snapped the buckle. “Safety first, Keller. Wouldn’t look good for my date to end up in urgent care.”
“I suppose not,” I said wryly.
He stayed where he was, a glimmer in his eyes. “You know, if I were François, this would be the awkward point in the date where I’d try to kiss you.”
“Ha.”
“You don’t think I would?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Easy,” I answered, gripping the seat in front of me as we barely made a yellow light. “You don’t want to.”
“Are you only saying that so I’ll prove you wrong?”
Not even the blast of his cool-fresh-spice scent could pierce my frustration. First, he’d played with my hair at the game. Now, he was getting up close and personal. His nearness stole my sense, and I needed my wits about me. I tried rolling up my window, but it wouldn’t budge. Kenny must’ve turned on the puppy lock.
“Are you just flirting to see if I’ll take the bait and reciprocate?” I asked.
“You got me,” Sebastian said. “But then again, you’ve just described every incidence of a man flirting with a woman ever.”
“I meant that you’re trying to trick me into reciprocating,” I clarified.
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know—so you can hold it against me at the office? I wouldn’t put it past you to announce it at Monday morning
’s meeting. ‘Georgina wants me and I can prove it.’”
“So you want me?”
“About as much as I want Montezuma’s Revenge.”
“Traffic is light,” Kenny called back as we passed under the Brooklyn Bridge. “We’re making great time.”
Sebastian scowled, ignoring Kenny. “I’ve been nothing but chivalrous to you all day, and you’re comparing me to diarrhea.”
It’d been an automatic response. It would be mortifying for Sebastian to take me on a fake date and find out I wished it was real. I shrugged, looking out the window. “If the shit fits.”
Kenny took a corner so fast, Bruno and I went flying across the seat toward Sebastian. He shifted to look around Bruno, who panted in his face. “So, if I were to point out that we’ve been having a pretty great second date—”
“Second?”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “You had more fun with me at the game than with François—I call that a date.”
I rolled my eyes. Typical of Sebastian to believe he’d scooped another man’s date out from under him. “When you say things like that, you only encourage Justin. You know what he said to me at the game?”
Sebastian searched my face. “Whatever it was, he probably read it on the back of a cereal box . . . and still confused the details.”
“It was more of an observation,” I said.
Well, well. It’s a fine line, isn’t it? According to Justin, Sebastian and I hadn’t just been fighting since day one. We’d been fighting something between us.
“Do you agree with his observation?” Sebastian asked.
I needed to move back to my side of the seat, but I didn’t want to. Sebastian wasn’t pulling away, either. I couldn’t forget why we were really here, though. The moment I started seeing Sebastian as anything other than a colleague was the moment I could no longer trust my judgment around him.
I slid away from him. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“Oh, Keller.” He sighed. “For someone so smart, you can really be clueless on some things, can’t you?”
“I am not clueless.” Justin had clearly shared his thoughts with Sebastian, so I could only assume by his reaction that he agreed. Or was it that he’d finally figured out there was more advantage to making a friend than an enemy of me?
I hoped it was the former, and that scared me. As did my hope that it wasn’t the latter. Could I trust myself to keep a clear head and not fall for someone who had no plans to cross the line from hate to love?
Kenny screeched to a stop. “Nine-and-a-half minutes. That’s got to be a record.” He turned in his seat to look back at us, panting as if he’d run a marathon. “Maybe don’t mention this in my review. My boss won’t appreciate the rush order, if you know what I mean.”
“Thanks, man.” Sebastian stopped me as I went for my door. “Come out my side. Yours opens into traffic.”
I slid out after Sebastian as he jogged off with the dogs. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder. “It already started.”
As eager as I was to find out what it was, I rarely jogged for anything that wasn’t a traveling ice cream cart. I followed them into McCarren Park, where a large group of people—and their dogs—took various positions on rubber mats. A couple instructors walked through and arranged the dogs in what looked like stretches.
“When I asked about what to wear,” I said as I approached Sebastian, “you might’ve mentioned this.”
He arranged four mats in the back row, squatting to unroll them. “Why the hell would I?” he asked, glancing up to scan my bare legs from the hem of my dress to my ankles.
Piano played in the background. I helped Sebastian position each dog between us using treats from my Bruno bag to get them to stay. Bruno sat on his haunches, panting as he looked around, probably trying to determine the nearest source of food.
An instructor came by and set bowls of water in front of Opal and Bruno. “Welcome to the class,” she said. “I’m Michelle.”
“How does this work?” I asked, removing my booties.
“We’re here promoting the new doggy gym and daycare facility we’re opening in Union Square,” she said with a smile. “Today, we’re just having fun. Dogs get exercise, treats, and some special attention from me and my partner. Humans get a free class.”
“Don’t tell her it’s free,” Sebastian said, trying and failing to touch his toes. “I don’t want her to think I’m a cheap date.”
“Sorry about that,” Michelle said, positioning herself behind Bruno. “Set an intention for the day, then get into the downward-facing dog position like my colleague at the front.”
“Since I’m in a dress, I think I’ll stick with upward-facing dog,” I said, lying on my stomach so I wouldn’t give the crowd of onlookers a show.
Sebastian leaned forward on his outstretched arms, extending his legs behind him. “But I’ve been dying to see what kind of panties Georgina Keller wears—if any.”
“You should’ve asked. George wears boxer briefs like most guys.”
Sebastian scowled, obviously uncomfortable in his position. “Very funny.”
The teacher got Bruno to roll onto his back, then took his paws and stretched him. I looked past her. “Here’s something you can use in the article. The right girl won’t care if you spend money on her,” I told Sebastian. “That’s the point of planning around her interests. That’s what’ll impress her—not how much you paid for Pilates.”
“Puplates,” Sebastian corrected me.
“We just call it yoga for dogs,” Michelle said.
“Really?” Sebastian frowned. “Not even doga?”
“No.”
He tsked. “Missed opportunity.”
I arched my back, lifting my head to the sky.
“Nice form,” Michelle said before returning to the front.
“Very nice,” Sebastian agreed.
“Thank you.” Feeling Sebastian’s stare on me, I fixed my dress and pushed my hips back over my heels for child’s pose. “For the record,” I said, “I’d prefer a fun, ‘cheap’ date to a boring, expensive one any day.”
“Yeah?”
“Earlier, when you said that stuff about having an enviable lifestyle . . . do you only see it as a way to advance your career? Or do you also use it to impress women?”
“Of course I do. Mostly because I didn’t have much growing up. At least in a material sense.”
With my arms stretched to the top of the mat, I peered at him from under my bicep. He’d alluded to that last time we’d been at a park. Though my curiosity grew, it didn’t seem like the right conversation while he had his ass in the air.
“It won’t matter to the right girl,” I said.
“Salary doesn’t matter to you?”
“When dating someone?” I made a slightly above average income and had still been taken advantage of. I’d never mooch the way Neal had done to me. “Nope.”
“No—your salary. You asked if having money and status is important to me. Is it to you?”
The moment Vance had brought money into our meeting, my outlook had shifted. It wasn’t the number itself that tempted me, but the security of it. “I’m not trying to prove you wrong,” I said. “Do you want to meet a girl whose interest in you correlates to what you spend on her?”
Watching the instructor at the front of the lawn, Sebastian kept his palms on the mat as he attempted to walk his feet to meet them. He gave up and skipped ahead, standing with his hands turned out at his sides. “In my experience, it’s not a good sign.”
Instead of feeling superior that I’d made my point, I just hated that Sebastian had experienced that at all. Maybe the women he’d dated were used to a certain lifestyle and had made him feel he had to support that. “I’m sorry I assumed you were something you’re not,” I said as I touched my palms in front of my heart.
He didn’t respond right away, mirroring my hands. “I’m sorry I dismissed you before I’d even officially met you.”
&
nbsp; I pressed the flat of my right foot against the inside of my left knee. “I’m sorry you’re putting yourself through puplates for me.”
“I’ve gone through worse to get laid,” he said in a wobbly tree pose, and my balance faltered.
I knew Sebastian well enough at this point to recognize the teasing in his voice, but it seemed the wall between us could be coming down. The question was what we’d find on the other side—and what we’d be to each other without a line to separate us.
18
GEORGINA
Following an afternoon of playing in portable sprinklers, mastering the dog gym’s mini obstacle course, and giving Bruno more treats than he normally got in a week, I parked on a bench to clean up and feed the dogs. Bruno took his pills with a little peanut butter, too exhausted to fight with me.
Sebastian had excused himself twenty minutes earlier, and when he finally returned, I almost didn’t recognize him in a crisp, black button-down, jeans, and his hair styled off his face. Only the beginning of his five o’clock shadow gave him away as the same Sebastian I’d started the morning with. He carried a wicker picnic basket and what looked like Pendleton blankets rolled under one arm.
Sitting on the bench with Opal between my legs, I curled my toes in my boots. He looked so handsome. “What’s going on?” I asked.
He held up the basket. “I promised you supper.”
Sebastian looked like the kind of date I’d expect to find at my front door. “Did you say supper?”
“Yea, sometimes the Boston in me surfaces. First-date jitters.” He held out his hand. “Come on. This is the last night of the outdoor film series.”
I glanced past him to see people setting out blankets under a screen at the opposite end of the lawn. I’d been to my fair share of movies in the park, but never on a date, which was arguably the height of romance in the city. Sebastian had really pulled out all the stops to change my opinion of him. Was it just for the article, or was there more to it than that?
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