Page 14 of Bad Boys Don’t Date Clumsy Girls

Chapter Six

I hate that I’m hesitant to go into the shelter. It’s supposed to be one of my sanctuaries. A safe escape, where I know I’m doing something good in the world. But knowing I have to face Dylan, who will probably tease me about last night, makes my stomach knot.

“Want me to pick you up?” Sam asks.

“No, thanks. I brought my stuff. I’ll just walk home after.” Staring at the entry, I wonder if Dylan is here yet. His motorcycle is nowhere to be seen. That spurs me on. If I can get in there and already be busy when he shows up, maybe it will prevent him from making fun of me. “Thanks for the great weekend. See you guys tomorrow.”

I push out of the car, slam the door, and jog into the shelter. No one is at the front desk yet, so I speed walk to the employees only door, eager to store my stuff and dash out to the kennels. Plans of what chores will keep me separate from the bad boy of Oak Grove High swirl in my mind as I push through the door. But when I find myself face-to-face with Dylan, I stumble over my own feet.

He smirks as I recover my balance. “So, you can’t help the klutziness?”

“I’m not klutzy.” Stomping across the room to the lockers, I shove my duffle inside.

“Are you moving in? That seems like a large bag for a day job.”

“I volunteer, you know.” When he looks at me like I’m the moron, I huff and say through clenched teeth, “I spent the weekend at Sam’s. I’m going home from here, so I have my stuff with me.” I toss the lunch Sam packed for me into the fridge and turn to Dylan and bow. “Is that acceptable, your highness?”

His head jerks back. “Your highness? Where did that come from?”

When I play the conversation back in my head, I see that he wasn’t actually acting superior. “Let’s just get to work.”

We tackle dog duty first. Again, each dog seems especially focused on Dylan, with Popeye being the happiest to see him. It irks me that the dogs I’ve been caring for, some for months, are more loyal to a guy who only shows up because a judge told him to.

When we enter the cat enclosure, I’m glad to see there hasn’t been a unanimous decision overnight by all the cats to suddenly love Dylan too. Out of spite, I have him scoop poop out of the litter boxes while I love and cuddle the cats that will let me. I watch him work. Again, he’s keeping mostly to himself. I’m surprised he hasn’t brought up the restaurant incident yet. Maybe Bek is right, and he isn’t horrible.

At lunchtime, we head to the employee breakroom. Dylan stops in the lobby to get a soda from the vending machine while I retrieve my lunch from the fridge. Uncurling the brown paper bag, I take each item out, one at a time, and read the notes Sam left for me. On the sandwich bag, she wrote, “Say cheese, you ham.” Clearly, a ham and cheese sandwich. On the mermaid splashes themed pudding cup, she wrote, “The only fish Bek will eat.” I laugh out loud. On the baggie of crackers, she penned, “It’s okay, these have thin in their name. Eat all you want.” I chuckle.

Dylan flips the chair across from me around and sits on it backward, like he did last night. “Does your mom write you notes?”

His incredulous tone raises my hackles. I want to defend Sam. Instead, I keep my answer simple, because my life isn’t any of his business. “No.”

“I saw you reading stuff yesterday, too. I can’t let it go two days in a row.”

I look at the now-empty sandwich bag with its note scrawled in black marker. I really don’t want to share the information, but I also can’t not respond. That would be rude. It might make him mad and start a fight. “When I stay at Sam’s, she likes to pack me a lunch and she writes these little sayings on them.”

“Is Sam the girl who gave me her fries?”

“No, that’s Bek. Sam is the blonde who was sitting on my other side.”

Dylan shakes his head, and I’m shocked to realize he doesn’t know who she is, nor did he notice her. Usually, Sam is the first girl a guy notices. Especially one with the reputation Dylan has. I kind of want to mark this moment in history but have no one to share it with.

“Is Bek your friend, too?” Dylan sips his soda, watching me nod even as he tips the can back. “She’s sweet.”

I scoff. “She said the same thing about you.”

Dylan cocks his half-smile. “Really.”

“Oh, ugh! Don’t get all excited. She thinks everybody is redeemable. I was sure to set her straight as far as you’re concerned.”

Dylan squints. “You really don’t like me.”

I shrug, not comfortable with being that direct.

“Are you going to dump your drink on me like you did to that baseball player last night?” There it is. “Or did you do that so you could cop a feel? I thought that was rather sneaky of you. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

I feel my cheeks flame as my temper rises. I knew it was too good to be true to think he wouldn’t hold that incident over my head.

“You’re not going to defend yourself?” Dylan asks.

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