Page 42 of The Inevitable Us

She holds out the plate of fried chicken to me, to pick which piece I want. “Who trained him?”

“My friend Ezra. He gets distracted by toys and can’t focus. Perfect pet, horrible search and rescue dog.”

She groans and hides her face in her hands. “Is this the same Ezra…”

I hide my smile with a napkin. “Yep, and Ranger’s the dog that found you.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Is he? I’d heard the other dogs were going the long way around to me, and that another went straight to me, but I didn’t realize it was him.”

“Yeah, I thought he’d be a good dog to have as a pet.”

We eat our supper in companionable silence. I walk to the bag with the hardware store logo when I’m done.

“I doubt you need those,” she says, gesturing to the bag with her head. “There’s no way he’s coming back in the house after how you acted.”

I reach in to take out one of the numeric keypad deadbolts I had her retrieve from the hardware store.Yeah, but there’s Rushton and Laighton and Peterson. I give her a sideways look and grab my drill, pressing down the trigger button to try it out.

I grab the first lock and the extra-long screws I’ve ordered and install the lock on each exterior door to the cabin. If someone wants to, they can kick it open, but they won’t be able to just walk in on us.

I give it a self-satisfied nod and go back to the kitchen to find Rosalie.

Chapter twenty-two

Rosalie

Endingthefirstdayof culinary school, I walk out of the building and feel my shoulders slump. The food production lab was exhausting and not at all fun. The front of my white chef’s jacket reeks of onion and garlic, and my fingertips are burned from rushing. The other students seem to have all worked in commercial kitchens and are used to a faster-paced speed than Serendipity—I’d had no idea what I was in for.

Sawyer’s parked at the curb waiting for me, Ranger’s big head sticking out of the window in the rear. I slide into the passenger’s seat, grateful to not have to walk home. I lean in and kiss him. “You are a lifesaver!”

He gives me a sliver of a smile before pulling off the curb. “Done for today?”

I groan and rub the back of my neck. “Yes, thank God. If I have to stand for one more moment…. With the kitchen lab, it made for a long day.”

He’d dropped me off that morning in front of my class building, waiting until I changed into the ugly black pants and white chef’s coat at my place that was the culinary school’s uniform.

“Are you? Done, I mean? You said you have a lot of paperwork to catch up on in your office,” I ask.

“Yep, all done. We can head back to the loft for the night if you want. I don’t cook, but I can order pizza for us later,” he answers.

“Who fed you before?” I ask with a laugh.

“You did! I always took the food home and froze the extra portions. It was too good toshare.Or I ate out. But, you fed me a lot of the time.”

This man! “You were supposed to leave it for the other guys!”

“It wasmine.The other bodyguards were always jealous that I got all the homemade food since you tended to bring food up when I was there so that we….”

So that we had an excuse to sneak a moment in together.We’d linger as I slowly served him a plate of food from large plastic containers. I’d take the time to reheat it for him just to linger another moment. I’d ask about his day, and he’d ask about mine. These tiny moments together, not even alone, meant the world to me.

This morning, after spending several days at his place, I’d thought he’d finally drop me back at my building, and I’d see him when he was off or when we both have time to spend together again.

Apparently,wedon’t sleep apart, ever. Or so Sawyer insists. And since he’s not working at Taylee’s, we’re staying at my loft for convenience.

“I need to go to the store,” I groan. “I’m out of toothpaste.”

His eyes don’t leave the road, his hands at nine and three o’clock on the steering wheel. “I already picked some up. I noticed yesterday you were low. I had to go to the store for a few things myself.”

He pulls into my building’s garage, using an access card I didn’t give him. When the arm of the access panel grants him entrance, I roll my eyes toward him with an annoyed tilt of the head. “Helped yourself to my second garage pass, did we?” I’d known my apartment came with a second pass and parking spot. I’d thought my parents had gone home with it.

---