Chapter 11
LAWSON
Sunshine:
I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been replaced as Shadow’s favorite.
I turn off the car and open my phone just as a photo comes through. Beckham and Cooper are cuddled up on a makeshift bed in my living room with blankets and pillows piled around them.
And there’s my boy. The intimidating, midnight black, full grown German shepherd… sprawled out on his back between them with his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth.
I squint at the screen, zooming in on his paws.
Me:
Did you paint our dog’s nails?
Sunshine:
Who? Me? I wouldn’t do that.
Me:
So his nails just magically turned pink in the last few hours I’ve been out?
Sunshine:
Crazy right?
Maybe he has those color changing nails. Like a mood ring but for dogs.
Me:
And the bedazzled collar?
Sunshine:
That was 100% Kinsley and the boys. They saw it in the window at that little pet store next door to the café when they were there this morning.
Me:
You’re spoiling him.
Sunshine:
Do you blame me?! Look at this face and tell me you wouldn’t do the same.
My screen fills with a selfie of the two of them. Sydney has her arm wrapped around his neck, pressing their faces together.
How she got him to look at the camera, I’ll never know. Why it looks like he’s even smiling? Now that, I understand. Because I can’t help but do the same whenever she’s around.
She’s right, I’d give them everything and anything they wanted.
Me:
Awe, look. Your mood changing nails match his.
Sunshine:
Fine. Fine. You caught me.
We may have had a little spa day.
I’ve just been seeing so many on my instagram feed and I thought he’d enjoy a little pampering.
Which he absolutely did.
She sends a few pictures of him to prove her point.
In the first one, he’s laying on his back with his head in her lap. There’s a white sheet of some kind covering the top portion of his face and two cucumbers over his eyes.
The second shows both of the boys brushing his thick black hair. Beckham’s face twisted away in laughter as Shadow tries to lick him.
The third is of Sydney sitting on the floor with Shadow in front of her. She holds one of his paws in her hand while the other is poised with the pink nail polish. She’s beaming up at the camera while Shadow is looking right at her. Same, bud, same.
Sunshine:
Don’t worry. He’s still your big bad menacing machine.
Me:
Yes. I’m sure the criminals breaking into my house will run screaming at the sight of his flashy collar and manicure.
Sunshine:
We can paint them a more “manly” color next time.
And I really think the tiny spikes on his collar adds to the whole “I’m prickly on the inside and outside” vibe that you share.
I shake my head with a smirk. The front door to the Miller Racing headquarters opens and Jace waves at me. With a final text to Sydney warning her that he better not have highlights when I get home, I climb out of the car and meet my teammate at the door.
“Long time, no see.”
“We were literally just together for our medicals thirty minutes ago.”
He shrugs. “You know I have separation issues.”
“You’re worse than Shadow. You know, who is a literal dog.”
“I’m just as adorable though, right?”
I don’t answer him as we walk down the hallway leading to the conference rooms. There’s low chatter coming from the open door of the meeting area where everyone else is already waiting.
“Right?” Jace asks again and I look at him with a raised brow.
He pouts as I continue to stay silent and walk into the room. A room that was once filled with voices and is now deafeningly quiet.
I glance around, taking in their various expressions. Empathy. Understanding. Warm. Intrigue. There’s even a few who can’t bear to look my way, doubt keeping them from meeting my eye.
My jaw clenches and I walk over to my chair at the main table. Jace sits down next to me, nodding to some of the engineers as he does.
A few seconds later, Mitch strides into the room and everyone straightens. “Good. Everyone’s here.” He sets some folders down on the table and leans forward. “There’s only a few weeks left until preseason. Let’s see where everyone is at.”
We spend the next hour going through the plans leading up to the first race.
Updates from the engineers let us know that the cars are in their final testing and we won’t be disappointed.
Jace shares his paint and design ideas with the creative team to which all the new kids take notes eagerly while Mitch shakes his head at the head designer.
Each sector of this well-oiled machine shares where they’re at and what’s coming next. By the time the last person speaks, Mitch is pleased with where everything currently is. He dismisses everyone with the exception of some of the PR team. And me.
Jace raises his eyebrows in a silent question and I shake my head. “Kinsley and the boys are at mine.”
He scoffs. “I’m not surprised. It’s been nonstop questions of ‘when are we going over to Uncle Lawson’s house’ since you got Shadow.”
“Yeah. Sydney said the boys have had a blast with him today.”
“Oh no. It’s not them who’s been doing the majority of the begging. Then again, she does it so nicely. I may have to hold out a little longer.” He winks and walks out of the room.
My chuckle dies when I turn back to the room. My jaw ticks and I lean back in my chair as the head of our public relations, Patty, sits forward, propping his forearms on the table. “I have to say, Moore, you have impressed the shite out of me.”
“Okay?” I draw out the word and glance at Mitch.
He steps forward and braces his hands on the table. “We wanted to check in with you on how everything is going.”
Patty nods. “You’ve made great strides these past couple weeks. The fans are absolutely gushing over the snippets of your real life that you’ve been sharing and I can already tell they are hungry for more.”
Oh, I bet they are, the little vultures.
“I can’t take all the credit,” I tell him honestly. “A lot of this praise should be given to Sydney Collins. She’s the one who’s been helping me out with all of this.”
His face lights up. “Ah, yes, the Collins girl. I read over her initial proposal for this project. She’s got a lot of ideas.”
I clench my jaw at the way he refers to me as a project.
Are we currently talking about the plan to improve my image? Yes, we are.
But I’m not something that can or will be ‘fixed.’ I’m not a spot on a shirt that can be washed away using your trusty stain stick, Patrick.
I hum my agreement, tamping down the urge that would inevitably not help my cause, as he shuffles around some papers in front of him.
“Everyone seems to be responding well to what you’ve done so far, so I would definitely recommend you to keep posting like you have been. Or even increase the frequency if you’re willing. Especially with us being in the off-season. People want to know more about the man outside of the car.”
“Understood. More posts.”
He bobs his head. “Perfect. I also see here that you have a couple of interviews already lined up for preseason?”
“Just a few, yeah. Granted Jace is also included in those, but I will be there.”
“As long as we can get more than three words out of you during them.” He raises an eyebrow and I hold back my growl, nodding once.
A smothered chuckle comes from the side and I glare at Mitch. He wipes his hand over his mouth and holds them up in surrender.
“There is one thing that I want to talk to you about, though. An opportunity, if you will.”
My head swivels back to Patty and I watch him with a guarded expression. He flips through a few documents before finding what he needs. Standing, he leans over the table and displays multiple printouts in front of me.
I eye them and my chest grows tight with each one. They’re all pictures of me and Sydney. And almost all of them are from fan pages or gossip sites.
There’s one from the day I adopted Shadow that the shelter had tagged me in. Sydney and I are crouched down next to him with a sign that reads ‘Going to my Furever Home.’
A couple are from when we met up to have lunch with Jace, Kinsley, and the kids. But these are cropped, only showing the two of us when she tried to convince me to try her dessert. It was a week ago, but I swear I can still taste the sweet toffee cream when I look at the picture.
The others are from various times when all of us were hanging out, but somehow only captured the moments when it was just me and her.
They’re all taken completely out of context. Hell, some are from last year even. But the only ones who would really know that is me, Syd, and the others who were actually there in those moments.
“Look at these comments,” Patty says, excitement lacing his words as he points.
I gloss over a few of them, most typed in all caps about how much they ‘ship us as a couple.’ Whatever the hell that means.
There’s a few saying how they saw this coming, only knew it was a matter of time. Others are accompanied by multiple crying emojis because they ‘love what is happening so much but realize it means I’m off the market.’
Off the market.
Slowly, I begin to connect the dots until everything clicks and my head shoots up. I glare at the man in front of me, my eyes hard as I grit out a single word. “No.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” Patty defends.
“I know exactly what you’re going to say. You want me and Sydney to date, fake date, or whatever it takes to convince the public that we are together because this is exactly what they want. It’s what you and whoever signs your paychecks thinks will skyrocket my image.”
He blanches slightly and I shake my head as more of what he’s seeing starts making sense.
Even if I don’t want to believe this is actually happening.
“The storyline practically writes itself, doesn’t it?
The reformed bad boy being brought to the good side by his best friend’s little sister. Am I right?”