12. Dog Years
DOG YEARS
Miles
Don’t look at her.
Do not look at her.
Do not fucking look at her.
That’s what I tell myself all morning as I pull weeds and plant pea shoots for The Garden Society at an abandoned lot turned community garden on the edge of the Mission District.
I’m here with a bunch of guys from the team and a few from the Renegades football team too.
Everly set this up, and I know it’s part of her efforts to give our goalie, Max, a makeover.
He’s grumpy as hell and needs an image boost, so she’s been tasked with that, and it looks like she hired Leighton to snap promo pics for this community outreach event.
I really should just focus on these clowns I play hockey with and not on the beautiful brunette. “Hey, Callahan, you thinking of planting some lucky coins here?” I tease, giving Asher a hard time. The winger is the walking definition of superstition.
“Maybe you should. Might help your prospects,” Max tosses back.
Ouch. He can’t know it hits below the belt. “Nothing wrong with luck,” I say. The older I get, the more I learn to happily take the days when fortune is on my side.
As Wesley digs a small hole for a plant, he tosses a wry look my way. “True, true. And since you’re older, Falcon, we should listen when you speak from the fountain of old-dude wisdom.”
I thump him on the side of the head. “Did that hurt?”
“That hurt,” he whines.
“Good, it was supposed to.”
“Old dudes know how to hit,” Max deadpans.
I narrow my eyes at our goalie. “I’m only a few years older than you, asshole.”
Max shrugs. “But you know how it is for hockey players. Years are like dog years. So you’re…” He pauses, thinking.
“Twenty-one years older than you,” Asher supplies to Max, who’s thirty.
I point at Asher, who’s supposed to be the nice guy. “And you’re thirty-two, asshole. You’re closer in age to me.”
“Still seven years younger in dog years,” he says.
“That’s it. We’ll have a bench-press contest tomorrow,” I say, egging them on.
“So you can get enough sleep first, right?” Wesley asks, smirking.
I have no choice. I punch his arm, but then I hear the click of a camera. It’s Leighton, and she’s smiling serenely.
“Are you publishing that?” I ask, but my voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming from me.
It sounds like I’m trying too hard to talk normally.
Or maybe more like I’m trying too hard to keep it even, to talk to her like anyone else would.
But how the fuck would my teammates talk to her?
How the hell do they talk to the coach’s daughter?
I’ve got to get out of my head around her.
Especially since she’s here in a work capacity, and if she’s here now, she might be around again.
She tilts her head, an amused look turning her lips.
“Don’t worry, I don’t publish everything I shoot.
But it’s cute to get pictures of you guys clowning around.
How would you feel about this?” She bends to show us a picture of us goofing off.
“I’ll need Everly’s approval, of course, but I think it’s fun. ”
She’s not looking at me as she says this, and I stay quiet too, because I don’t want to let on what I’m thinking about.
My mind has wandered to the pictures she took of us.
The ones she was supposed to send me. I can’t think of anything but the one time I stood right next to her, looking at pictures on the back of her camera.
Those images are lodged in my head the rest of the morning as we plant peas and other veggies. They won’t leave, and the more I think about them, the more I have to know. What did she do with those pictures?
Later, when the event wraps up, she’s packing up her gear. I walk past, then stop, unable to resist. “Do you need a ride?” I ask, my voice low but my eyes locked on hers so she can read my face if she needs to.
She looks around. Everly’s deep in conversation with a reporter, and Max is with her. “I can take the bus or ask Everly to drive me home,” she says, glancing back at them.
“But I’m offering.” I try to keep my tone casual. “It’s no big deal to give you a ride.”
She nods. “You’re right.”
A minute later, she’s sliding into my car, and we’re leaving the parking lot like we’re escaping. Something in me relaxes as soon as we’re out of there, on the streets of San Francisco with my team far behind, and I can’t hold back. “What happened to the pictures?”
She glances at me, as if she’s feigning confusion. “Which ones?”
“You know which ones,” I say, feeling an uncharacteristic edge in my tone.
There’s a part of me that thinks she might have deleted them, erased that day like it didn’t happen.
The possibility’s been gnawing at me all morning.
Even though we can’t be together, it’s like I need to know that we might have tried.
That even in spite of both our relationship baggage—because I know I have plenty of checked luggage, and based on what she said the day we were together, I’ve got a hunch she has a carry-on too—we’d still have tried.
The thought that I could be wrong about that is a bruise I can’t stop touching.
“Don’t make me spell it out.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” she says, arching a brow. “I take a lot of photos.”
At the red light, I turn to her, my irritation slipping through in my tone. “The ones from that day.”
She looks at me, her gaze calm, steady. “And I’m asking you—which ones?”
Like she’s forcing me to admit I can’t stop thinking about all of them. Well, easy enough. “Every shot. What happened to them?”
A small, devilish smile plays on her lips, and it’s clear she has the upper hand and knows it, maybe even likes it. “I kept them.”
She has them, and I don’t. That’s not fair. She gets to revisit that day whenever she wants, and I’m left with nothing. I’m irrationally annoyed. “Why didn’t you send them to me?”
“You said we weren’t going to talk.”
Technically, we said date, but pointing that out would be a dick move. Especially since I never responded to her thank you text. And yet, I’m kind of a dick, when I add, “You said that too.”
“Yes, we both said that,” she corrects me softly.
And she honored that, and I have mad respect for her self-control.
But still, I’m so tightly wound right now.
Since the second I saw her peering at the back of her camera, it’s all I’ve been able to think about—the pictures.
Except, no. It’s not even the pictures that are driving me wild.
It’s what she might have done with them.
That’s what I need to know. If she’s as affected by that day as I am.
The light flips to green, and I press down on the gas a little harder than before. “Do you look at them?” I ask, barely above a whisper but loud enough, I hope, for her to hear.
“What do you think?” Her voice is light but tinged with something more.
“Why aren’t you answering me?”
“Why are you dying to know?”
The answer bursts out of me. “Because I’d look at them if I had them. I wouldn’t stop looking at them,” I say, not bothering to play it cool.
Her gaze softens, but there’s something bittersweet in her tone as she says, “That’s why I held on to them. To look at them.”
The light ahead changes to red, and I slow down, the weight of her words sinking in. “I want them.”
She raises a brow. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Why? Are they bad photos?”
Her lips twitch into a smile. “No, they’re good.”
“So I’ll like them,” I say, feeling…relief, but a wild excitement too.
“Maybe too much,” she adds.
I’ll consider myself warned.
* * *
That night, I’m dog-sitting for my mom and Harvey, so I’m walking their four rescue Chihuahuas—Bippity, Boppity, Boo, and Cindy—along Marina Green when my phone pings.
It’s a message from Leighton. I know I should focus on these tiny terrors, let them get their walk, but every fiber in me wants to check.
With each ounce of self-control, I ignore it while they finish up.
The second I get home, I unclip their leashes, send them off to their heated dog beds—because of course they have heated dog beds—and finally open the message.
I was not prepared.
Holy shit, I was not prepared for this. And I need to enjoy the fuck out of it.
I head over to a dark oak cabinet next to the TV I rarely watch, grab a bottle of scotch from my collection of the finest vintages, and pour two fingers.
With the amber liquid in the tumbler, I return to the couch and take a long pull that I savor, feeling the good burn.
Then, I open the pictures again, ready to savor them.
As I look, my breath catches, a fire starting, then blazing in my chest as I scroll through the shots, each one more intense than the last.
One by one, I study every frame: the way I looked at her, the way I wanted her, the way I moved behind her, my hands brushing her arms. Then, there it is—the moment I kissed her, my hand on her throat, the trust in her gaze, and her whispered desires captured in every pixel.
I can’t take it much longer. I’m rock hard and far too aroused while my mom’s dogs watch me staring greedily at the photos. Setting down the glass on the coffee table, I replay my memories of the day, then…fuck it.
It won’t be the first time I’ve done this to thoughts of Leighton. Probably won’t be the last. I unzip my jeans, take out my aching shaft, and tug.
It’s a relief, but only for a few seconds. I breathe out hard, giving in to the lust that grips me, the want I feel for her…my coach’s daughter.
For a few seconds, I freeze over those words—coach’s daughter.
Don’t go there again. Get it together. Stop fucking thinking of her.
But the dick is sometimes stronger than the will.