Page 51 of Hound Dog
It also didn’t hurt that I was prepping hotdogs all morning and my hands smelled like cured meat.
Haylee rolled her eyes and scoffed, setting Freckles down. “Yeah, I’ve heard. So tell me…” She paused and glanced down the hallway before lowering her voice. “Am I literally theonlywoman to come onto you that you rejected in your whole life? Because Addy and Enzo made it sound like I was some sort of hero for not sleeping with you.”
In a rare moment of fearlessness, I asked, “Jealous?”
I took a step forward but didn’t touch her. I knew better than that.
She was taken. And I was a scoundrel in a lot of ways, but I wasn’t a cheater. I wasn’t even cheater-adjacent. Not even willing to be party to an affair.
However, the fact that she was taken didn’t mean that I couldn’t do my best to convince her that sheshouldn’tbe with that lawyer from Rochester.
Admittedly, I didn’t know him. And to be fair, I barely knew Haylee. But I knew Meryl… and Meryl hated this guy.
That said more thananything.
Freckles gave a small, gruff bark from her heels, and I smirked down at the dog. “Hardly,” Haylee said with a lift of her brows.
“Then what do you care?” I asked. “Why do you care that I have this reputation for never kicking a woman out of bed?” Even if that reputation wasn’t exactly true.
Sure, I’d been with my share of women. And I wasn’t exactly known for having relationships. But it wasn’t that I would sleep with anyone standing on two legs. I was discerning. I needed a connection, even if it was brief. And I couldn’t stand a woman who didn’t have a brain.
But, of course, Addy and Enzo didn’t talk about that. It didn’t make for juicy gossip.
“Idon’tcare.”
Uh-huh.
“It’s more that I’m… curious. What the hell was so wrong with me that you didn’t want to sleep with me back then? I know I wasn’t exactly sexy—”
“Wrongwith you?” She couldn’t be serious. “Haylee, you were the sexiest girl I’d ever seen. You were beautiful. And sweet. And trust me, that virgin thing was… look, I know it’s barbaric, but the idea of being your first was hot. But you said it yourself. I’m an asshole. You claimed you wanted to lose your virginity to me, but wouldn’t you have been pissed if you’d learned I had this reputation as a playboy? And that I’d already slept with four girls that summer before I met you?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “Maybe.”
“You deserved better than me. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. Either way, I was pretty sure you’d end up hating me. But at least with the choice I made,Ididn’t end up hating myself.”
The pause between us was intense. She had me locked into an unflinching stare down.
The silence was killing me. “So, now what do we do?” I asked.
Truly, if she wanted me to leave, I would. If she believed that we couldn’t get past this history from six years ago, I’d walk out of here and find a way to help her get homes for these dogs from afar.
“Now we make guacamole,” she said quietly.
A swell of relief filled my chest. Even if I couldn’t have her, I wanted to be near her.
She was like the sun. And me, the moon. Just like the moon, I spent most of my days in various phases of emptiness.
But in the few moments I’d spent with Haylee, I’d felt full.
Full… and terrified.
Chapter Fifteen
Haylee
I eyedFinn with a raised eyebrow from across the counter as he minced an entire onion into his guacamole. “That’s too many onions.” I hummed the words playfully to soften the fact that I was so clearly right.
He snorted. “You can never have enough onions.”
