Chapter Sixteen Remi
Chapter Sixteen
Remi
Ness pounced on me the moment I left my office.
“I’m going to find a new best friend,” I told her.
“No, you’re not.”
“I was in a meeting, Vanessa. You can’t come to my office door and do your little excited dance and wave your arms around when I’m trying to secure a grant for the shelter.”
She kept tugging on my arm. “They couldn’t see me.”
“I could.” I snatched my arm back. “What are you doing? Quit manhandling me.”
“You have got to see this.”
We came around the corner to the meeting room, and I skidded to a halt.
Four giant, beautiful men were sitting on the floor, playing with Scout and Daisy.
“What is happening right now?” I whispered.
She leaned in. “Archer brought friends. Aren’t they pretty?”
“I’m not sure pretty is the right word,” I answered absently, tilting my head as Archer rolled to the side of one hip to snatch a toy and toss it across the room for Scout. Those jeans, and what they did to his ass, should have been illegal. “When did they come in?”
“About an hour ago, hence the dancing in front of your window during a donor meeting.”
“Ah.”
“One guy was here and adopted Razor. He’s already gone. But these guys have taken their sweet time. They played with a few others, took some videos and stuff on their phones, but Scout and Daisy seem to be the winners of the dog lottery today.” She lifted her chin. “Look at them.”
Daisy was in her element, prancing around with her fluffy tail in the air.
They were tossing a ball across the room and playing tug with a frayed rope toy she always kept in her kennel.
Scout, sweetheart though he was, was a bit more reserved with strangers.
He was often overlooked because he was missing a leg and didn’t give out affection quite as easily.
I was completely convinced he had a doggy eight-date rule, too, which was probably why we got along so well.
“This is amazing.”
“I know,” Ness replied. “I guess Archer was talking to them at practice, and a couple of them said they were interested in adopting a dog, and he convinced them to come here today so they didn’t turn an adoption day into a circus.
” She gave me a sidelong look. “I still think it’s a circus we could handle, but you cannot fault that man’s listening skills. ”
There was a knot buried under my sternum, and my hand rubbed uselessly at my chest to see if it would disappear.
The other guys were just as big as Archer, and even if they all looked different—different eyes and smiles and skin color and hair, some with ink, some without, some laughing and smiling, one a little bit quieter, like Archer—it was overwhelming to see them as a group.
To be perfectly clear, I was not the kind of woman who got weak-kneed by a group of celebrities, but it was entirely possible that seeing him play gently with Scout for the first time, then scratch behind Daisy’s ears and smile at the play bow she gave in return, made my knees a teeny bit wobbly.
Worse, it wasn’t just my knees. My entire body—head, heart, and all my instincts—was freaking Jell-O at seeing him finally let his guard down with the dogs.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted quietly. “I don’t even know him all that well, Ness. And I feel . . .”
“Seen? Pursued?”
My eyes fell closed. “Maybe.”
Her shoulder nudged mine. “Good. You should be seen and pursued.”
“I don’t have time. It’s a horrible idea.”
“Bullshit,” she said lightly. “I call complete and utter bullshit.”
I rolled my eyes. “Easy for you to say. Muriel didn’t leave you in charge.”
She ignored that. Ness didn’t like for things like logic to get in her way.
“Would you allow me to prove a point? Even if nothing comes from it.”
“What’s that?”
“Try—just for one day—to give the man the benefit of the doubt.” She said it so gently, which was a word I’d never used to describe her, and it was enough to pull my attention from the scene in front of us.
Ness smiled. “You give everyone the benefit of the doubt, Remi, but not him. It’s not like my friend to do that. ”
Even if a harsh truth is wrapped up in the softest package, it still stings when it lands.
“I’m trying,” I told her. “It’s hard to let myself look at him and think . . . what if.”
“I know, babe.”
“I don’t want to get hurt,” I whispered. “And I don’t want Gavin to get hurt either.”
Ness set her head on my shoulder.
One of Archer’s teammates was sprawled out on the floor, and Scout stood above him, wagging his tail.
Ness and I paused our conversation, watching to see what would happen.
The dog dropped his big head and nestled it into the guy’s neck, flopping onto his side for a full-body cuddle.
The burly football player smiled, turning over to wrap his arm around Scout’s middle.
“I think this is my boy,” he said loudly. “You wanna go home with me, Scout?”
Scout’s tail smacked wildly on the floor, and he angled his head to lick him along his chin.
My eyes watered instantly. Ness sniffled.
I reached over to rub her back. “It never gets less cool, does it?”
“Nope.” She sighed, swiping at her cheeks. “Now you just need to convince Archer to adopt.”
I snorted. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen him touch one of the dogs. I’m not sure he wants a pet.”
Archer lifted his head as if he sensed me watching him, and through the glass window separating us, our gazes locked for a few breathless seconds.
“No, I’m not sure that’s what he wants either,” Ness added airily.
The tension in my body knotted around itself, over and over until an unbearable weight filled my stomach, but when Archer broke our eye contact to answer something one of his friends said, I could actually breathe again.
“Want to come in?” she asked.
I shook my head, glancing at the clock on the wall. “I have one more meeting. You can handle it.”
Ness nodded, reaching down to squeeze my hand before she pushed open the door into the larger room.
“Okay, boys, how many adoption applications should I bring in?”
Two hands shot into the air. Archer laughed, a dimple appearing in his cheek, and when that squirmy sensation shot from head to toe, a restless bolt of energy coursing through my body that could’ve powered the entire greater Buffalo area, I tucked my chin down to my chest and walked back into my office and tried to will it away.
An hour later, I was able to escape for a quick pee break.
The meet and greet room was quiet, and disappointment swelled before I could stop it.
I thought about doing my morning rounds through the kennel without Scout’s patient gaze and Daisy’s happy dance, and my throat felt tight at the fact that I didn’t get to say goodbye.
Rescue work was like this—a yo-yo of emotions you never quite got used to. Watching them go to their new homes was good, the outcome we’d been working toward for so long. But there was always, always a pinch when thinking about never seeing them again, and I didn’t want to lose that.
My entire body sagged, my forehead resting against the cool glass while I waited for the thick squeeze of tears to disappear. Before any could fall, the front door opened. I straightened, blowing out a quick breath.
I turned with a polite smile. “Can I help—”
It was Archer.
“Oh.” Mentally, I cursed the breathy sound of my voice. Get a grip, Remi. “I thought you’d have left by now.”
His chest expanded on a deep inhale. “I asked the guys to wait around until your meetings were done so you could say goodbye.”
My heart stopped, then kicked violently against my sternum when it jolted back into rhythm.
“Really?”
In an endearingly bashful display, he ducked his head down and pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I know Scout’s your favorite, even if you wouldn’t admit it. You always give him extra treats when you walk through the kennels.”
I breathed out a shocked gust of air but recovered quickly, fixing my expression into a mock glare. “Don’t you dare tell the others.”
He mimed pulling a zipper across his mouth, then tilted his head toward the parking lot. “Brooks is already planning to add a doggy suite so that Daisy can have her own bedroom.”
My laugh was watery, and I didn’t even try to stop it. “Thank you. For bringing them in.”
“You’re welcome.”
The harsh fluorescent lighting of the lobby did nothing to dim the wild blue of his eyes. It made me look like I’d walked out of a crypt, but he stood there, tall and impossibly strong, one of the most handsome men I’d ever seen. That was bad enough, wreaking havoc on my slowly weakening defenses.
But this . . . this thoughtfulness was more than I could handle.
Archer stepped to the side, letting me through the lobby door first, and the feel of him walking closely behind almost caused me to stumble. He settled a big hand on the small of my back.
“Okay?” he asked in a low voice.
I nodded, unable to speak.
This was bad. Bad bad.
Was I so hard up for affection that a little lower-back action felt better than my last round with a vibrator? God bless it, who came up with this stupid eight-date rule and unwavering sense of professionalism? I wanted to slap my past self.
The shelter’s parking lot had been turned into a car show for the rich and famous. They’d all driven separately, and while Archer’s truck was clean today, it looked damn-near shabby compared to his three teammates’.
Two huge, tricked-out SUVs with gleaming rims and custom paint jobs—one a deep hunter green and the other a charcoal gray so dark that it was almost black, but when the sun hit it, it gleamed iridescent. I’d never seen anything like them.
And a low-slung sports car in a pearlescent white with black rims. The happy dogs were leashed and sniffing around the vehicles while the three men talked about each other’s cars and pointed out things they’d done to them.