Chapter Sixteen Remi #2
I thought about my paid-off Toyota with a few rust spots and a back door that opened with a loud creak, and couldn’t help but smile. Maybe I’d pull her around from the back and show off the new brake pads that had about sent me over my budget two months ago.
When the youngest of them pressed a button and the doors of his white sports car lifted straight up, the other two hooted and hollered, shoving him in the back as he grinned.
The tallest one noticed my approach, elbowing the guy next to him.
His eyes widened, and he smacked the youngest one in the stomach.
He turned, eyeing me with undisguised interest.
“Hey,” I said. “Thank you for waiting so I could say goodbye. I’m Remi Sinclair, the interim director of the shelter. I’m so grateful to both of you for giving them such good homes.”
“Remi,” one of them said knowingly, trading a quick look with the others. “Yeah, we figured.”
My brow furrowed. “Okay.”
Behind me, Archer cleared his throat. All three of their faces smoothed out.
“What’s your sign, Remi?” the youngest one asked.
I blinked. “Um, Virgo. Why?”
He nodded. “That makes sense.”
Archer cleared his throat again, more pointedly this time.
Still very confused, I crouched down and called for the dogs.
Daisy got to me first, almost knocking me over with an enthusiastic kiss to the face.
I laughed, bracing my hand back on the asphalt.
“Hey, sweetheart. You’re going to have a lot of new people to meet.
” I scratched behind her ears and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
I glanced up at her new dad. “She loves chew toys, but she needs the extra-strength kind,” I said, my voice already thick with tears.
“And during thunderstorms, she’ll want to hide in the bathroom. She doesn’t like the lightning.”
He smiled kindly. “You got it. I’ll give her her own bathroom without windows, then.”
A tear slid down my cheek, and I brushed it away quickly. “Perfect.”
I clicked my tongue and Scout lumbered over, pressing his face into my chest.
“I’m gonna miss him,” I said in a shaky voice. “He’s been here for a year.”
“I’ll give him the best life, I promise. Spoiled rotten, all day, every day,” the other guy said, and the genuine look in his eyes was my absolute undoing.
As if he could sense my impending emotional breakdown, Scout pressed harder, and I gave up, my ass hitting the asphalt under the big dog’s attention.
I wrapped my arms around Scout with a soft laugh, hiding the tears that flowed harder now. “You’re the best boy, aren’t you?” I whispered, nuzzling into his neck. “You’re going to have such a good life, I know it.”
I tried wiping my cheeks when I pulled back, because good Lord, I’d gone past humbling and into embarrassing as I sat in the parking lot, with four professional athletes watching me weep over these dogs. To be sure, this was not on my to-do list today.
Before I could try to stand with some semblance of grace, a large hand moved into my peripheral vision. Archer’s hand.
It would’ve been easy to wave him off. Say that I was fine.
Could I stand up on my own? Of course.
For this moment, though, I wanted to let him help me. It didn’t mean anything, even though finding my balance around him seemed to be a continual work in progress.
Give him the benefit of the doubt.
I let out a shaky sigh and slipped my fingers along the rough skin of his palm as his closed around mine, my stomach swooping when he tugged me to standing like I weighed nothing.
News flash: I didn’t weigh nothing.
Even worse, he didn’t let go of my hand right away. His thumb dragged along my knuckles while his gaze bored into mine. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, giving the other three a tiny smile. “This is the bittersweet part of rescue work.”
While no one spoke, they all glanced at Archer, and I rolled my lips between my teeth when he seemed unsure of what to say.
Brooks, I’d heard them call him, elbowed the younger guy, who gave him a helpless look.
“So, um, Remi, what are you looking for in a partner?”
“What?”
His cheeks were flame red, and the other two guys stared down at the ground, mouths covered by their hands. Archer sighed.
“I mean, in a boyfriend. Or husband or whatever.”
“Shut up, rookie,” Archer growled.
He shrugged. “I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re not.”
“Don’t you want to know this stuff?” he asked.
“Who does?” I asked.
“Fuck’s sake,” Archer muttered.
Brooks lost his battle, wheezing immediately. The third guy covered his face with both hands. “This is so fucking bad. No wonder your ass is single.”
“Do you want to know?” I asked. What was going on? I’d exchanged less than five words with this guy.
It seemed unlikely—highly, highly unlikely—that I’d gone from zero male attention to having multiple athletes flirt with me in strange, unorthodox ways.
His eyes widened. “No. No, I don’t care.”
Smith groaned.
I folded my arms over my stomach.
“Listen, you’re . . . really hot, it’s not that I don’t find you attractive. I do, actually. The red hair is really working for you.”
“If you do not shut the fuck up, Williams . . .” Archer warned in a gruff voice. “Not a single pass. All year.”
Williams swallowed audibly. “Right. I think I’m just gonna go.”
“Is someone going to explain what the hell is going on?” I asked.
“No,” they said in unison.
I glanced at Archer, who couldn’t meet my eyes. All our interactions flipped through my head like a Rolodex.
Not like I had much experience with guys like him—a celebrity in his own right. Maybe all the little things he’d done weren’t real, or they weren’t indicative of some unspoken attraction. Maybe it was a giant fucking joke.
It was too easy to imagine them huddled around in some fancy locker room, or on the practice field, joking about the desperate single mom who’d practically screwed him on the dance floor.
The knots in my stomach iced over, dropping like blocks of concrete, and I kept staring until he finally looked over.
“Did you . . . did you tell them?”
His face bent in anguish. “No. No, I swear.”
The other guys all stepped forward, talking over each other.
“That’s not it, we promise.”
“Not at all!”
“We’d never do you like that.”
I let out a slow breath. “Fine, whatever. I, um, I have to get back to work.” I gave the other guys a smile that felt tight at the edges. “Take good care of them, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We will.”
Now it was my turn to avoid eye contact with Archer as I turned to walk back to the shelter as fast as humanly possible.
“I wanted to ask you out and didn’t know how!” he shouted.
I froze.
“Oh shit,” one of the guys whispered. “That was stupid, bro.”
It took an entire year to turn around and gape at Archer. “Excuse me?” My voice was hardly a whisper, but my heart . . . it was thrashing somewhere in the vicinity of my throat.
His eyes fell closed. “Fuck. That’s not what I meant to say.”
“I don’t have time for your games,” I said firmly. “Go home, Archer.”