Page 34 of Becoming Mila
At the foot of the yard, there’s a cabin. It’s natural-looking, rustic wood, complete with windows and a big set of glass doors.
Blake strides ahead, already at the door of the cabin. “Welcome to my bachelor pad,” he says with a grin, and I think how it’s the first real smile he’s given me today. He pulls a set of keys from his pocket. “You’re okay with dogs, right?”
“Dogs?”
Too late.
The cabin door swings open and a bundle of golden fur pounces from inside, hurtling across the grass toward me. Two heavy paws land on my stomach with so much force that I’m knocked completely off balance. I land on the grass, hard, and the beast jumps all over me, sniffing at my ears and licking my face.
Blake’s apologetic laughter rings out as he grabs hold of the dog’s collar and hauls it off me. I stare up at him, collapsed on my elbows on the warm grass while I catch my breath. Blake is holding back a bouncy Golden Retriever, its tongue hanging excitedly from its mouth as its curious black eyes remain fixated on me. Blake kneels down by its side, still holding tight onto the collar.
“Mila, this is Bailey,” he tells me. He scratches under Bailey’s chin, then leans in close to one of his furry ears. “And Bailey, this is Mila, okay?MissMila. Be nice to her.”
“You have a. . . a puppy?”
“Yup. My baby.” He stretches over to grab a fallen stick from the grass and then hurls it across the yard, releasing his grip on his dog’s collar. Bailey takes off after it. “Sorry, I should have warned you better. We’re still trying to nail the training,” Blake apologizes. He walks over and offers his hand to me.
“You’re in luck,” I say. “Ilovedogs.”
I slip my hand into Blake’s and he pulls me up, but with a little too much effort. I nearly fall straight into him. We stand in front of one another, barely a foot between us, our hands still interlocked. His skin is warm, his fingertips gently calloused. We mirror each other’s stare and there’s something in his eyes I don’t recognize, something sparky and vibrant. . . Something that sets free butterflies in my stomach.
Bailey comes pounding back over, stick between his teeth, and I pull my hand free from Blake’s.
“Hi, Bailey!” I say, kneeling down. I weave my hands through his soft, thick fur and then play a little round of tug of war with the stick.
My parents won’t let me get a dog back home, despite me begging every birthday and every Christmas, because they believe it would be unfair to bring a pet into such a hectic lifestyle. I get their point, but it sucks. There’s a lot of things we don’t have time for these days.
“He likes it best like this,” Blake says, playfully nudging me out of the way. He gets down on his haunches and grabs hold of the stick with both hands, wrestling to free it from Bailey’s death grip. Bailey growls and snarls, as viciously as a ridiculously cute puppy possibly can, until finally Blake wrestles the stick free and throws it across the yard again.
It’s hard not to watch, entranced. There’s something rather adorable about watching a guy play rough with his dog under the summer sun while still in his slacks and a dress shirt, fresh out of church.
“Enough, Bailey,” Blake says, breaking the spell. “Come on, Mila, let me show you inside.”
Straightening up, we walk over to the cabin, where he holds the door open and gestures for me to go on in. He looks a little nervous as I step past him and into the cabin, which is essentially a man cave.
There’s a TV mounted onto the wall in front of a couch that’s covered in blankets, a foosball table, and home gym kit that takes up most of the space in here, complete with a squat rack and one-hundred-pound weights. The walls are decorated with posters of musicians, and in the very center of the room, directly in front of me, is an acoustic guitar perched in a stand.
“I don’t live out here or anything,” Blake says as he closes the door behind us. Bailey has padded inside too and flops down into the dog bed beneath the TV, gnawing on his new favorite stick. “This is just where I relax.”
I sit down on the edge of the couch and play with the hem of one of the blankets. My eyes circle the cabin one more time, the sunlight streaming in through the windows and lighting up every item. “This is cool,” I say with an impressed nod.
“Yeah, I like it.” Blake sits down on the edge of the foosball table. Anxious now, he stares at the ground and swings his legs gently back and forth. “So, I believe you’re still waiting for an answer.”
Oh, yeah. That’s the reason I’m here in the first place, right? To get an answer out of Blake. Or at leastmostlythe reason. . .
I fold my hands together in my lap and straighten my shoulders, trying my best to look like I mean business so that he takes me seriously. I’m not in the mood for him to give me any joke answers.
“So, Blake Avery,” I start formally, clearing my throat as though I’m an attorney, ready to deliver my closing argument. “You are so,soconfusing. One minute, you’re telling me you like my piercing and introducing me to honky tonks and shoving food down your throat in front of me – which, for the record, is gross – but is all still pretty normal.”
Blake listens attentively, eyes glistening in the sunlight.
“But then out of nowhere,” I continue, unfazed, “you put all this pressure on me, like youenjoymaking me uncomfortable. So, Blake – are you a jerk, or are you just glad there’s finally someone else who can take the attention off of yourself?”
“Did you rehearse that?” Blake says.
My expression hardens. “Answer me.” (And yes, I did.)
“I’m not a jerk,” he says seriously, his intense eye contact unnerving. “And I’m sorry if I ever made you uncomfortable, because I didn’t mean to.” Blake sighs and slips off the edge of the table. “You’re right – usually the attention is on me.Blake,does the mayor know you’re drinking on school property?Blake, you better keep the music down before the mayorshows up.” He moves closer, his expression earnest and his eyes only on me. “And then you show up out of nowhere, and I think:Great, everyone will havesomething else to talk about for once.”
