Page 32 of Love in Training
I look up at the voice. The familiar face. The scowl burned into my brain.
No. I don’t deserve this.
Rufus chooses this moment to fling himself to the end of the leash. And because I’m still wearing the dumb heels I’d put on for my interview and not my practical Hokas, I lose my balance when he yanks me forward—face-planting straight into Drew Forbes’s rock-solid chest. I get a whiff of something like sandalwood as he catches me. Before he wrenches all three of us through the low gate and back into the waiting area.
“I’ve got him. You can leave now,” he snaps, letting go of my arms.
It takes a second to collect myself once the noise dies down, and when I do, I realize he’s holding Rufus’s leash like he owns him. “Wait, what?”
He glances at his watch. “You lasted about thirty-six hours. Longer than I expected.”
I look around the space, still completely disoriented. “This is where youwork?”
“This is my business,” he says sharply.
“Uh, Drew?” A woman with blue hair in her twenties, wearing a shirt that saysK9 Academy—just like the one Drewis wearing—breaks away from the group of dogs and owners. “Should I take over the class?”
His expression darkens, and he shakes his head. “I’m done here.”
The next thing I know, he’s turning his back, leading Rufus away from me.
“Hold up. Where are you going?”
He stops at the low gate and just looks at me like he can’t figure out why I’m still here. “Are you waiting for a thank you? For disrupting my class?”
My hands curl into fists. “No. I want to know what you’re doing with him.”
Rufus looks back at me and emits a low whine.
Drew rolls his eyes, then points over my shoulder, speaking to me like I’m a preschooler. “The exit is that way.”
My mouth drops open. “You think I came here togivehim to you?”
“Why else would you be here?” he sneers.
I glance at Rufus, still at the end of the leash in Drew’s hands, and admittedly much calmer now. He’s watching me closely, but I can’t argue—he already seems like a different animal than he was a second ago. What did Lydia call Drew? A dog guru?
Clearly he’s better with dogs than he is with people.
I think of the scene I came home to yesterday. My ruined apartment. My couch. It’s hard to think after spending most of the night worrying about poop. And I still haven’t figured out work tomorrow. If I just let Drew have the dog, all of my problems would be solved.
Except something about that bothers me.
Why didn’t Kyle want his dog-whispering brother to have Rufus? Wouldn’t it have made a thousand times more sense for him to choose Drew over me?
“Were you and Kyle even speaking before he died?”
Drew’s perpetual scowl intensifies. “Excuse me?”
“You heard what I said.”
He turns his head and barks an order at the woman wearing the K9 Academy shirt. She looks mildly terrified, but scurries off to take over the class.
“My relationship with my brother is none of your business,” Drew says, so low I almost can’t hear.
I fold my arms. Kyle and Drew had been close when they were kids—that much I knew. But Kyle hardly mentioned his brother when we were in high school. And the fact that Drew declined our wedding invite and then showed up anyway tells me he’s as manipulative as their parents.
“There’s a notarized document with Kyle's signature stating he didn’t want you to have this dog,” I say. “Why?”
