Page 4 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

This is only a Tuesday, dammit!

“Thanks,” she said, forcing a tight smile and swallowing past the lump in her throat. “I’m okay. Holidays just…”

“Suck,” he said flatly.

She rolled her lips together and nodded. “Sometimes, yeah.”

“And I lied,” he said. “My uncle and his husband, who I’d normally spend Christmas with, are on a cruise. My parents aren’t. Well, I guess they could be. I’d never know. We don’t talk anymore.”

She straightened, surprised by his candor. “Oh.”

When she was about to ask a follow-up question, he lifted his hand, cutting her off. “And no, I don’t want to talk about it. I can see that therapist look in your eye.” He gave her a disarming smile, taking some of the sting out of the words. “But you were honest with me, so I figured I’d join you on the TMI train. We can be on Team Christmas Sucks together.”

“Right.” She stared at him a long moment, recognizing in him the same look she’d seen in her mirror this morning, one that said she wasn’t the only one dealing with pain today. He may be playing it off as not a big deal, but whatever the story was with his parents carried a heavy weight. Had he wanted to cry today, too? Was his stomach in knots right now like hers? A weird urge came over her. Before she could stop it, she blurted out, “Do you want to get a puppy with me?”

Beckham blinked like she’d snapped a camera flash in his face. “What?”

What. The. Hell?Her mouth was in full-scale rebellion. A puppy?Hey, stranger who usually ignores me, do you want to get a puppy with me?What was wrong with her? “I–I meant…”

A slow smirk rose at the corner of his mouth as she tripped over her words. “We barely know each other, Eliza. Maybe we should start with a plant, possibly a fish—but even those take some work. Who would get it on the weekends? Would we bring it to the office? Who gets to name it?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, counted to three in her head, and then lowered her arm to her side. The bemused look he was giving her made her cheeks burn. “I meant,” she said in her calm, I’m-a-therapist-and-totally-have-my-shit-together voice, “I’ve decided I might like to adopt a dog. I was considering going to the shelter today. Since we have established that Christmas sucks this year, I thought maybe you would like to come along and look at cute animals with me.”

He leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowed like he was trying to figure her out. “You want me to help you pick out a dog?”

She huffed out a breath. “Sorry, never mind. It’s stupid. I just thought maybe since you—”

He rocked forward, bracing his arms on his thighs, his Doc Martens landing heavily against the floor. “You know what? Screw it. I’m in.”

She gasped softly, shock echoing through her. “Wait, seriously?”

He stood, rising to his full six feet of lanky height, and it took literally every ounce of willpower she possessed not to let her eyes slide down to take in the full view. The guy looked like he should be in an indie rock band instead of tapping code into a keyboard, which shouldn’t work for her but…

He shrugged. “Yeah, why not? I like dogs. And I’m not getting anywhere with this project right now anyway. I could use a break.”

He turned and bent over to turn off his computer, his T-shirt riding up a little in the back and showing an expanse of smooth skin and the edge of black boxer briefs.

She gave up trying not to check him out. She had no idea why she was getting so warm everywhere. Beckham was definitely not her type. He probably wasn’t a day over twenty-four, for one, and the difference between a guy in his midtwenties and a woman in her early thirties wasreal.Plus, that whole tattooed, always slightly mussed vibe had never been her scene. She liked responsible grown-ups. Men who’d lived some life. Men who owned suits.

But here she was, planning to go puppy shopping with Beckham.

She had no idea how this was happening. How she’d gotten herself here in this moment. And her filter was still on the fritz. “I don’t get it. Normally, you barely say a word to me. Why are you saying yes to this?”

“I don’t say words to a lot of people. It’s nothing personal.” He peeked back over his shoulder, his gaze unreadable. “And I’m saying yes because it’s the more interesting answer.”

“The more interesting answer?”

He turned around, hooking his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans and shrugging. “Yeah. You play video games?”

“I used to play sometimes when I was a kid but not lately.”

“Well, I’m designing one as a side project, and one of the most important parts of game design is offering the player meaningful choices. They’re faced with a dilemma, and there are safe choices and risky ones. Sometimes it’s obvious, but my favorites are the ones where you can’t determine if it’s a good idea or bad idea—those are the interesting ones. Picking out a dog with you on Christmas sounds like it could make for an interesting story.”

She laughed. “And you don’t know if it’s a safe move or a risky one?”

His mouth curved. “Of course not. I don’t know you. You could be a cold-blooded killer ready to harvest my organs or put me through some demented psychological experiment.”

She snorted softly. “You sound like my friend Andi. She’s a horror writer and assumes everyone is a murderer until proven otherwise. Rest assured, I’m not in the market for organs or test subjects. Just a second opinion on a dog and”—she let the brightness in her voice fade, too tired for pretense—“maybe a little company on a kind of crappy day.”

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