Chapter 2
TWO
At the bewilderment on Zoie’s features, I racked my brain for the right words to assure her that with time and positive reinforcement, she too, could train her dog to listen and obey. “The beginning is a right pain in the arse, but it does get easier. Follow-through and consistency are pertinent.”
I slowed my petting and looked at Zoie over the top of the wiggly mutt, mesmerized at the way she dug her teeth into her plump lower lip. I could kick myself for forgetting her name. It’s just we’d met on a day that’d been an utter load of donkey’s bollocks, and she’d spoken so quickly as she’d guided me to the cluster of mailboxes around the back of the community that I’d only caught every other word at best.
Not to mention my distraction over Nova and how much her tan coat and droopy black snoot reminded me of my two-year old bullmastiff. Virginia Woof and I were both Londoners, well accustomed to walks in the drizzling rain that smeared the city lights into blurs of color that bled into the drab gray skyline. For the next three months, however, I’d be in southern California, adapting to sandy beaches and a sun that literally shone all day, so my dog had been relegated to the suburbs with my sister and her brood. Given she’d have plenty of attention and ample space to play, Virginia Woof was undoubtedly happy and growing plump from snagging table scraps and shadowing the kids.
Still, she was as ferocious a critic as her namesake, something I admired and related to. But even at three feet tall, with a deep resounding bark that’d scared many a sparrow, when it came to who was afraid of Virginia Woof, the answer was nobody. Not once she went belly up at their feet, similar to how Nova had done.
“Follow through. Got it.” The furrows creasing Zoie’s brow suggested otherwise. “We’re still working on word definitions and minding.” The stacked bangles on her wrist jingled as she twisted a section of pink and blond hair around her finger, the move allowing me to see another couple centimeters of the delicate tattoo trialing up the underside of her forearm. “And by that I mean he and I are both new to doggie rules and need to figure them out, lickety-split.”
“Ugh, can we forget that I used ‘lickety-split?” Zoie crinkled her nose, the gold hoop in her nostril winking in the sun and highlighting the other reason I’d failed to commit her name to memory: she was fit, with the sort of style that suggested she hung backstage with rockstars.
Whereas I, rather obviously, wouldn’t get into the music venue. “Only if you strike my ‘pertinent’ from the record. I’ve been told I sound like a stuffy, pretentious arse.” Most commonly by my sister, but I’d overheard enough chitchat at the office to know it didn’t stop there.
“What?” She added a melodramatic gasp that clued me into the sarcasm dripping from the question. “You? Nooo .”
“See here, now you’re making me rethink how willing I am to forget your use of ‘lickety-split.”
Zoie’s laugh filled the air, and my gut tumbled in a not-altogether-unpleasant way. “Fair point. Moving on, then…” She leaned over her dog and brushed her fingertips down my forearm. My heart went on a high-speed pursuit, zipping around my chest like it’d entered the British Grand Prix, and my thoughts sped by equally fast.
What was going on here?
In no way was I delusional regarding my nerd status. I spoke in code and got on better with computers, tablets, and mobiles. My work consumed and replenished me on a daily basis, and because of that, I’d spent the last decade laying the foundation of the tech empire I planned to build. Due to the rapid pace my company continued to grow, it’d been more difficult as of late to keep up. Still, once a control freak, always a control freak.
It's why I’d insisted on coming to America to personally oversee the last steps of the merger myself. It meant assisting with budget cuts, sacking underperforming employees, and training upper management to teach and enforce my methods for long after my return to London.
What I didn’t account for was how difficult it’d be to wrestle the chaos into submission without my hound and best mate by my side. Virginia Woof nudged me toward the kitchen for meals so she could lick my plate clean afterward; she kept me company into the wee hours of the night, until I’d written code for so long the lack of numerals in the 4D world seemed odd.
Her big, wrinkly, brown and black mug would creep into my line of vision, obscuring more and more of my computer screen until I had a lapdog instead of a laptop. Trance broken, we’d head to the kitchen for food or head to bed to get a bit of sleep before we arose with the sun and did it all again.
“Don’t you dare,” Zoie said, and I stiffened and replayed back the last minute, searching for where I’d accidentally caused offense, which oftentimes came down to my blunt manner of speaking. I wanted nothing more than a codebook for life, so people’s actions, words, and inactions wouldn’t be so confusing and frustrating to manage.
But her attention wasn’t on me, and as I turned to see what’d snagged it, I caught a blur of dark brown and a wagging tail. Nova.
The mongrel’d used our distraction to army crawl to my takeaway dinner and help himself.
Fortunately, Zoie beat him to the containers within by fractions of a second. She scooped up the bag, lifting it higher as Nova made a wild jumping attempt to intercept.
Time slowed as the cardboard cartons inside the thin plastic tipped and overturned.
Sauce spilled freely, splatting Zoie’s collarbone and sliding in the direction of her cleavage, same way my gaze automatically did. It took every ounce of my willpower to jerk my chin level instead of following the sticky sweat sauce all the way down.
Or worse, offer to lick it off.
Unexpected bonus—forcing my eyes to Zoie’s meant studying the almond shape, her long lashes, and blue-gray eyes the color as the River Thames. Eyes that widened at me, as if screaming for help.
“Right.” I quickly relieved her of the bag, upending the contents. Well, I tried.
“Sorry about that,” Zoie said, taking up the lead and charging toward the Spanish cottage nearly identical to mine. “I’ll let you get to your deconstructed dinner—it’s all the rage these days, even though I don’t get it.”
In an uncharacteristic move, I snagged her arm as she started past. “One moment.”
Zoie blinked up at me, her face so much closer to mine than it’d ever been, and come to think of it, I should’ve thought through what I was going to say before halting her progress.
“No worries, and I mean it. My food’ll taste the same from the bottom of a bag as the bottom of a cardboard container.”
“Lucky you, you get to see if that’s true.” A tiny grunt escaped as she forcibly turned Nova back in the direction of her house, keeping her shins pressed up against his rump to prevent him from turning around and snatching my dinner. “If I don’t get him inside, I’m afraid you’ll be eating your meal off the sidewalk. Although if the bag splits, he’ll definitely beat you to it.”
A grin tugged at the corner of my mouth, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smiled, full-out. “Of that, I have no doubt. Speaking of my chow mein, you’ve got some of the sauce…” I gestured to the smear on her collarbone, figuring that’d be enough, and her forehead nearly collided with my chin, she looked down so quickly.
She swiped at the substance with her thumb, stuck the digit in her mouth, and sucked off the sauce with a light pop .
I gaped. I couldn’t help it. My dick pulsed as if coming out of hibernation. It’d been a long time since I’d allowed myself to so much as consider taking a step in any direction that wouldn’t bring me closer to my long-term goal. My mum and my sister would be hearing the Halleluiah chorus about now, but no heavenly canaries could persuade me from my course. I was a man of facts and figures, and the fact of the matter was, I didn’t have time for an entanglement of any sort whilst in America.
Especially involving a woman who lived next door. That upped the risk factor, considerably.
No more distractions, remember?
Zoie swiped her tongue across her upper lip and— God help me —hummed. “Mmmm. Guess I’ll be diving through your trash for leftovers along with Nova tonight.” She winced, adorably disheveled as she traced the line of her dog’s lead from collar to handhold. “Anyway, bye.”
Despite her farewell declaration, Nova remained planted in place, chocolate brown eyes begging for a taste of my supper. But once Zoie reached the cement steps, the lead snapping tight, the puppy rushed along after, ears flopping and tail madly wagging.
Their abrupt departure was a good thing, I decided, as I couldn’t withstand the puppy dog eyes much longer—not from Nova or from Zoie. So, this time, I stifled the impulse to stop the duo from leaving and watched them disappear inside.
That odd twinge of longing in my chest was merely because I missed my faithful hound.
Not sure how that explained why, when I went inside and caught sight of Zoie’s outline through our aligned living room windows, I completely froze.
Through the cracked shades of her blinds and mine, I couldn’t catch much.
Just her short, curvy profile.
Nova leaping for a treat.
If I didn’t pull myself away now, I might forget I should. I set my belongings in their proper places and headed into the kitchen for a plate. I poured my messy dinner from the bag, carried my plate of food to the sofa, and punched on the telly to unwind.
But my thoughts wouldn’t settle.
An idea beckoned, and excitement I didn’t dare allow to fully take root tingled through my veins.
There was nothing wrong with being neighborly, or with proposing an arrangement that’d be beneficial for everyone.
Nodding to myself over my sound logic, I fetched pen and paper and wrote a letter. Then, since I’d seen Zoie drive away in her car, I strode over to her front door and taped it there so it’d be sure to be found by my intriguing neighbor with the blond and pink hair.