Chapter 1
Rya~
I had the best job in the world, and I’d challenge anyone to argue that.
College had never been in the cards for me, but I’d still been lucky enough to find a job that I loved.
I worked at Precious Pets, and I was surrounded by animals all freakin’ day long.
Yeah, a lot of people wouldn’t look at me and call me a success, but I didn’t feel that way.
Even though I wasn’t a high-powered career woman that was pulling down six figures, I was happy with my life, and that was a lot more than most people could say about their lives.
Growing up, my father, Norman Harlow, had instilled the importance of happiness in me, something that was still very important to me.
My mother, Collette, had left her family before my third birthday, so Dad had done his best to make up for her abandonment.
He’d done his best to raise me right, but he’d also been an autobody shop owner raising a little girl.
So, while I didn’t know how to curl my hair just right, I knew how to change the oil in my car.
With my paternal grandparents traveling the country, enjoying their retirement, it’d been just me and my dad, and it hadn’t been often that we hadn’t been together.
He had overcompensated for Collette by always having me with him, and I had spent a lot of my childhood at the shop while he’d been working.
As I’d gotten older, I’d taken on the cooking, cleaning, and laundry at home, easing life’s burdens for him, and he’d done his utmost to support me the best way that he could.
Nevertheless, as great as a father as he’d been and still was, I had missed out on what it would have been like to have a woman in the house.
As a result, I always had my dark auburn hair thrown back in a ponytail, my face was always clean of makeup, and I was most comfortable in a simple t-shirt, jeans, and some sneakers.
As long as I was showered, my hair was combed, and my teeth were brushed, I was good to go.
Now, that wasn’t to say that I hadn’t ever dressed up, because I’d had.
However, my dressing up had been and still was limited to special occasions like weddings or graduations.
At any rate, even if I’d wanted to dress up or be girly, I was five-foot-three and a good twenty pounds overweight, if not more.
That being said, it was hard to find cute outfits that I felt comfortable in.
While I was only twenty-six, my metabolism had always been an issue for me, no matter how much I worked out or how healthy I ate.
Dad had also always apologized for me taking after his side of the family, but with a father as great as mine, he hadn’t ever needed to apologize for anything.
In fact, I was happy that I looked like him with my auburn hair, green eyes, and chubby body.
If I’d taken after Collette, her abandonment might have done more damage every time that I’d had to look in the mirror during my impressionable years.
All in all, I had a great family, and I’d had a happy childhood.
Even when things had gotten touchy during my teenage years, I’d still been able to find happiness in the small things.
Yeah, at first, the name calling, the teasing, and the insults had hurt.
Kids could be cruel as hell, and it’d been hard to rise above it all when I’d been trying to find my way.
Now, while I hadn’t exactly turned into an introvert, I liked animals way more than I liked people.
As I’d grown older, I had na?vely believed that the cruelty would stop, but there was no shortage of miserable people in the world, and they really did love to bring other people down.
When I’d been young, the insults had been simple; fat, ugly, whale, dummy, etc.
As an adult, the insults had grown with me; butterface, taking one for the team, eat a salad, protect your food, etc.
If there was an insult out there that I hadn’t heard yet, I’d be surprised.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t big on playing the victim.
No matter my appearance, I knew that I had positive qualities that made me a decent person.
I had a great job, good friends, a wonderful relationship with my dad, I paid all my bills, treated animals with respect, and was kind to people.
I wasn’t a loser, no matter how many people had tried to make me feel like one.
I was also a realist, and I didn’t think that made me a victim.
I knew that I wasn’t attractive to most people, and that was just a fact; it was nothing personal, so I didn’t take it personally.
I was also realistic enough to understand that attraction wasn’t personal, either.
If a guy found himself attracted to a skinny girl, instead of a thicker girl, why should he be crucified for that?
Why should he have to feel bad about what he found sexy?
Why did he have to prove that he was a good guy by ‘taking one for the team’ with an overweight girl?
There were so many posts and crusades about changing society’s standards on female beauty, but I didn’t see anyone pushing for beautiful women to start dating average-looking guys. It made no freakin’ sense to me.
So, yeah, I didn’t take people’s opinions of my appearance personally.
“So, are we on for tonight?”
I turned to see my best friend, Dalton Summit, walking up to the wash station, an adorable Corgi puppy in his arms. I was lucky enough that Dalton also worked at Precious Pets, and if that weren’t enough, our mutual friend, Leandra Rollins also worked here.
While our schedules varied, we worked together often enough.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I answered as I cleaned up the basin that I’d been using.
“Is Leandra going?”
I shot him a look, and though he tried his best to look innocent, I knew better.
If it weren’t for me, Dalton and Leandra wouldn’t be friends.
Dalton had a problem with her outgoing personality, and no matter how many times I’d done my best to explain that Leandra was just being Leandra, Dalton didn’t trust her.
He didn’t think that she was a genuine person, but he was wrong.
He just needed to give her a real chance and not just tolerate her for my sake.
“Be nice,” I chided.
“Look, I don’t get many Friday nights off,” he replied. “I’d rather not spend it dodging her ego.”
In addition to working at Precious Pets, Dalton worked at Blood & Ink, a very popular tattoo shop on the other side of town, and like most towns, you had your rich side, poor side, and the in-between.
Blood & Ink was located on the poor side of town, and Dalton was very adamant that I never visited him there after dark.
Even though it was perfectly safe for all of their customers to make appointments at Blood & Ink after the sun went down, it still wasn’t safe for me.
“Don’t be like that,” I said as I wrung out the wet terry cloths. “It’ll be fun. Besides, you have no right to judge how she occupies her time when we’re ignoring her by playing pool because she has no idea how to play.”
Those dark, sultry, bedroom eyes of his just shot me a look.
In a perfect world, I’d be attracted to Dalton, he’d be attracted to me, then we’d live happily ever after.
However, three years after first meeting him, I still felt nothing but platonic love for the guy, and I was probably the only woman on the planet to feel that way. Well, me and Leandra.
When Dalton had walked into Precious Pets on his first day of work, every female in the building had immediately panted over him, and not just the animals.
At six-foot-one, Dalton Summit had dark brown hair, matching brown eyes, a ripped body that belonged on a Mafia book cover, and a face that reminded me of that internet kid Nilskue, only older.
He was also covered from neck to ankles in tattoos, and who in their right mind didn’t find that sexy as hell?
Nevertheless, Dalton and I had been destined to be friends only, and I was okay with that because Dalton’s friendship was invaluable to me. The guy didn’t hang out with many people, and that made him loyal as hell. In return, he had my loyalty, and I did my best not to nag him too much.
Getting off the subject of his mild dislike of Leandra, he asked, ‘What time do you want me to meet you there? Or do you want me to drive?”
“You can meet us there,” I answered, and that whiskey gaze just shot me another look. “What?”
“You know what,” he drawled out disapprovingly.
“I’m going home alone tonight,” I replied. “I promise.”
Dalton didn’t approve of my extracurricular activities, but he was also wise enough not to give me too much shit over it.
After all, I didn’t lecture him on some of the women that I’d seen him with over the years.
Granted, Dalton was a commitment-phobe, so they’d all mostly been one-night stands, but still.
If he could get his dick wet with the bare minimum, then he had no say in my sex life.
“I’ll meet you at nine,” he said, agreeing to disagree about our love lives.
“Perfect,” I replied cheekily, grinning up at him.
“I don’t know why God chose you to become my best friend, but I’ll never forgive Him,” he grumbled as he finally set the Corgi down for a bath. “It’s like He hates me or something.”
“You wouldn’t know what to do without me,” I quipped.
“Sadly, you’re right,” he smirked, shooting me a wink.
The rest of the day was spent doing our jobs, and no more was said about Leandra’s need for attention or Dalton’s need to protect me from the world. The rest of the day had been spent doing our jobs and loving on all the animals that had appointments today.
When I finally got home to my little one-bedroom loft apartment, I ate, took a shower, then got dressed. Even though it was a Friday night, I opted for my customary jeans and t-shirt, proving to Dalton that I really did plan on going home alone tonight.