Page 53 of Love in Training
I don’t know how much time passes under that half-dead couch. Too much. Eventually, I open my eyes and notice the light has completely shifted. It’s brighter. Quieter somehow.
I raise my head, and my neck is stiff, like it’s been weirdly positioned for hours. And when I peer at where my arm is slung over the blond fur next to me, there’s a large, warm hand resting over mine.
I blink. The hand is connected to a muscular arm and body, awkwardly sprawled unconscious on my floor, glasses askew. My heart thuds once in my chest because, asleep, Drew Forbes looks both moreandless like his brother, and noticing this makes weird things happen inside me. Carefully, I slide my fingers out from under his, pulling my hand toward me over the dog’s ribcage.
In response, Rufus raises his head and looks back at me, eyes shining with a light I didn’t even realize was missing last night, but I’m relieved to see. He comes to life, twisting ungracefully to extract himself from under my couch skeleton, and I follow suit. By the time the dog is standing in front of me, wagging his tail like absolutely nothing unusual has happened, Drew is also sitting up on my floor, looking like he wishes he were anywhere else.
The dog does one of those full-body shakes and starts pawing at his head. Drew refocuses on him, removing the coat and leg warmer things that are clearly annoying him now. I take the opportunity to slip behind the counter into my kitchen, noting the clock—6:04 a.m.,how?—and picking up the stainless steel food dish to prepare Rufus’s breakfast. As soon as he’s free of his accessories, he runs over, sitting obediently in front of me and licking his lips like he hasn’t eaten in days.
“You seem none the worse for wear,” I mutter, watching him inhale the food I just set down. I glance over at Drew, now standing in my living room, taking up more space than any man I can remember coming through my door. And looking entirely rumpled all the way from his hair down to his sneakers. “Um... do you... want some orange juice?” I ask, admittedly sounding like I don’t actually want to give it to him.
He looks up, like he just realized I wasn’t offering it to the dog. “No-no, thank you,” he says with those impeccable manners that made my mom sweet on Kyle, then looks quickly away to ziphis backpack. He watches Rufus licking his dish across the floor. “I... need to go.”
“Right. Yeah.”
We both move for the apartment door—me, remembering my own manners and trying to show him out at the same moment he apparently decides to make a break for it. We reach the handle together, then overcorrect in the small space, repelling each other like polarized magnets. It’s an uneasy two seconds before Rufus comes trotting over, spinning in circles between us and nudging his leash hanging on the wall.
“I bet he really needs to go,” I mutter, peeking in the mirror through the bathroom door and smoothing my slept-on-the-floor hair.
When I look back, Drew is running a hand through his too. Not making it neater at all, but somehow more appealingly disheveled. And in that moment, even though we literally spent the last eight hours under a couch with a traumatized animal, my cheeks warm like the night was something else.
“Thanks for your help,” I say lamely, kneeling to clip the leash to Rufus’s collar. I give his head a pat when he looks up with his tongue hanging out. “You can send me a bill... or whatever.”
“Sure.” His tone is clipped, and I immediately feel foolish, remembering who I’m talking to. Ihatethe way his looks, his voice, keep blurring in my head, echoing my heart’s permanent ache. “Look, um...”
I glance up, bracing myself for his standard scowl paired with whatever he’s about to say. Another demand to give him the dog, or some threat about taking proper care of him, no doubt. But he’s trailed off, gaze fixed on the framed photo on the little table by my door. He picks up the picture taken a million years ago, in which I’m lifted off my feet, swept up in his brother’s arms.
I raise my eyes to Drew’s, challenging him to do or say anything—try to touch that memory. Except he already has.You’re the reason my brother killed himself.
But when he drags his gaze to mine, his expression seems... surprised? Confused?
He hesitates, clears his throat. Rufus comes over and licks his hand, which apparently startles him because the frame slips and falls to the floor with a crack.
“Oh—” I swat him out of my way, lunging to pick it up. The frame itself isn’t damaged, but when I turn the picture over, there’s a thin crack through the glass, running right down the center, visually separating Kyle and me.
I run my fingers along the line like I could wipe it away, put us back together—and then all at once, every feeling and memory I’d managed to hold at bay the last twenty-four hours seems to flood through this hairline crack. The visit home, the school, the familiar faces. The scholarship “honoring” Kyle. Having to see his mother and father, who clearly don’t get him any more now than when he was alive. Tense hours of rain and thunder, ruminating on how I’d failed him and would also fail his dog.
I open the apartment door wide, glaring at Drew through a sheen of tears.
He makes a sound like he wants to say something, but nothing follows. Instead, he sets the gray coat and leg warmers on the little table where the photograph used to sit, runs a hand over Rufus’s ears. And then he’s gone.
I close the door, leaning back against the wood as my vision blurs. Then I sink to the floor and put my arms around Kyle’s dog.
DREW
He lethimself in the door quietly, guiltily, as if he was slinking home after a one-night stand.
Diesel raised his head from where he lay on the couch, too old and stiff to hop up and give him the third degree. He delegated that work to his underlings. Pudding was already at Drew’s heels, running circles, and Blitz would have been if Drew hadn’t placed him in his crate with music playing before leaving the previous night. The border collie was also not a fan of thunder, though he didn’t melt down the way Rufus did. Still, Drew had no intention of being gone all night.
Once the dogs had forgiven him, which took all of sixty seconds, he offered them breakfast topped with half a sardine each as an apology, made a cup of coffee, and took the trio into the yard. His manager ran K9 Academy for him every other Sunday, thank God. Dealing with people was hard enough when Drew was relaxed and well-rested. Today, the entire left side of his neck and shoulders was stiff and sore from falling asleep on Caprice Phipps’s floor, and his mood had been completely trampled on top of that. He would do well to stick to dogs and avoid humans the rest of the weekend.
But conflicted as he felt, he didn’t regret going over there. He’d worked through storm anxiety with all kinds of animals, and Rufus’s case was severe. Caprice obviously didn’t know what she was doing. He hadn’t been surprised by her call—actually, he’d gone over there thinking it was his big chance. She didn’t care about the dog. She was just petty and didn’t want Drew to have him. But he was confident she was already so close to the edge that however Rufus reacted during the storm would have her begging Drew to take him off her hands.
Except that’s not what happened at all.
She’d spent the entire night on the floor alongside him, soothing the dog. Stroking and comforting him through the worst of the storm. It was clear she had no idea what techniques would work or why. She was only emulating Drew’s actions. But by morning, one thing was indisputable—Caprice Phippscaredabout Rufus.
And Drew no longer knew what to think.
