CHAPTER TWO
DAMIAN
I WAS STILL DEBATING GIVING it to someone else, when Jay called me through to the front that afternoon, and the hottest, most perfect woman I’d ever seen was standing on the other side of the counter.
“Harry,” he said, using my Meat name. “This is Tabitha.”
It took me a second to place the name, and then it was like fucking angels were singing. This was the woman who’d booked me to go as her date to a family function. Fuck me!
“Hi,” she sounded nervous as she reached out to shake my hand. “Do you have a second?”
She was nibbling on her lower lip and it took everything in me not to groan.
“Sure,” I walked around the counter and led her to Jay’s office. Closing the door behind us and ignoring his smirk, I stood as close to her as I could. “How can I help?”
Twisting her hands around, she started nibbling again and my dick couldn’t take it. Surprising both of us, I reached up and pulled her lip from between her teeth with my thumb.
She sounded a bit choked when she spoke. “I…this…” taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, she did her best to calm herself. “This is important. I need us to be believable, badly.”
Leaning against the desk, I figured she was too nervous and that maybe going for a drink would help. I got off in twenty anyway so it was no big deal.
After we’d walked into the bar near work, I watched as she drank most of the girly cocktail she’d ordered, giving her the space and Dutch courage that she needed to tell me what I asked next. “Okay, why don’t you tell me what the event is and why.” I never expected her to tell me what she did.
“What a fucking prick!”
“That’s putting it mildly,” she said with a small smile.
“And I don’t like your family either.” Who the fuck did that to their kid? Oh wait, my family did too. “So, this is your brother’s wedding. I can work with that.”
“Thank you so much.” The grin on her face was huge and her tense body had relaxed immediately. “Okay, so we need to know some details about each other, right?”
That was how I spent the rest of my night with the hottest girl in the world…fucking talking. Half way through, her boss had walked into the bar and Tab had introduced me as her boyfriend. I can’t lie, I fucking loved it.
TABITHA
“He’s perfect, Lucy,” I said a couple of days later. Lucy had been away on business, reporting from Islamabad about some big business deal so she hadn’t known about my booking a guy from the place she’d given me the details of. She’d gotten home late the night before and had woken me up this morning with a birthday cake and presents. Happy twenty-fourth birthday to me. I hadn’t given her the chance to ask any questions before I’d told her all about the night before.
“Well, fuck me,” she drawled from her place amongst my pillows while I finished getting ready for work. I only had just over a year left, and our time was now spent working for a vet and doing classes. This morning it was work. “You have been busy, haven’t you? Do you think you’ll be able to pull it off?”
This was something that had been worrying me since I’d made the booking, but after last night I had no issues whatsoever believing that we could make it look believable. When my boss had come to the table the night before, it had just slipped out that Harry was my boyfriend and it had felt so natural. He hadn’t minded at all either. In fact, he’d pulled my chair closer and had shaken Rick’s hand, before pulling me closer and kissing me on the side of my head as we spoke to him.
“Absolutely,” I finished tying my sneakers and stood up. Looking at the time, I realized I was going to be late if I didn’t leave now. Bending over to hug the lazy bitch now spread eagled across my bed, I thanked her for making today special. “I’d be lost without you, Lucy. Thank you for spoiling me.”
“Shut up,” she mumbled, accidentally backhanding me across the face with her dismissive wave and not realizing because she was already out cold. Charming!
I loved my job. There were sad aspects of it obviously, but the rest of the time I loved the hell out of it. Today was no different. They had surprised me with a cake and gifts and had even put a birthday hat on my favorite long-term resident, Toby the Dachshund.
I’d just come out of an emergency C-section on a Shih Tzu and was walking toward where Toby was patiently waiting for me, still wearing his hat, when the noise that indicated that the door had been opened sounded. From where I was standing, I could see that Sarah wasn’t at the reception desk, so I wandered over to see if I could help. And came face-to-face with Harry.
DAMIAN
Day one of my vacation and I was out doing some shopping for my upcoming weekend with Tab. I could have worn some of the outfits that I already had that were appropriate for the occasion, but they were from that time and also it might have been a bit ostentatious turning up wearing a Gucci or Armani suit.
I’d just bought a suit for the wedding and some other things when I’d walked out of the shop and right into Tabby’s boss who had been getting some lunch from three doors down.
“Harry,” Rick greeted, wiping tomato sauce off his shirt and leaving a big smear behind. “You getting some stuff for your girl’s birthday?”
I took a second to think through the basic information that had been on the form, all of which I’d memorized, and realized that it was today. Not giving away anything to the man in front of me, I did what any guy in my shoes would do and bullshitted my way out of it.
“Nah, I’ve got that all covered. I’m surprising her later at work and then taking her out somewhere romantic,” I winked and then shrugged. “You know how it is.”
“Yup, yup. Good man,” he’d patted me on the shoulder, making me cringe in case he left behind a nice tomato handprint on my white t-shirt, made small talk for a couple minutes and then thankfully left.
Apparently, I had more shopping to do. Looking over the road, I caught sight of the perfect shop. I just needed to figure out what I was going to get her.
The annoying buzzer over the door sounded and I had to tamp down the irritation when I saw no one was at the reception desk. Thinking over my options, I almost didn’t notice when Tabitha appeared behind the desk, looking at me in shock, then confusion and then happiness.
“Hey,” she blushed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “What are you doing here?”
Seeing Rick and a couple others down the hallway that was visible behind her, I stuck to the story, what should have been the story anyway. “Well, it’s my baby’s birthday and what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t…is that a dog?” I saw a tiny little fur ball waddling around behind her as it looked for… “Is it wearing a hat?”
Blinking a couple of times and wondering if maybe I’d been out in the sun for too long, I shook my head and looked back at the dog.
“Yeah, that’s Toby,” she said affectionately, walking over and picking the little thing up.
It had to be the fattest dog I’d ever seen in my life. Not that I’d seen a lot of fat dogs, but I’m pretty certain that this one would have been the definition of canine obesity. For a small dog, she’d even grunted when she’d picked it up.
“He’s not fat, he’s just...generous with the amount of him that there is to love.”
The hat had caught on her arm as she picked it up and was now over its muzzle. The dog was either too fat, too lazy or both to try and move it, so it just lay there in her arms waiting for someone to do it for him. The sight was one of the most bizarre things I’d ever seen in my life with the bright birthday hat with balloons on it and a blue ruffly on it covering his nose and part of his eyes, and sparkly silver streamers hanging out of the top of it.
Noticing me staring in shock, Tab looked down and snorted as she moved it back into place. The dog continued to just lie there, looking around almost bored.
“Anyway,” I said slowly, my eyes flitting between the beauty that was Tabitha and the dog in her arms. “As I was saying, what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t come and take my girl out for her bir…”
Just as I got to the end, the most obnoxious and audacious fart I’d ever heard came out of Toby. The smell hit me instantly and almost knocked me off my feet. Gagging and trying to get away from the noxious green cloud of death, I tried to look at her through the tears in my eyes. She wasn’t in a much better state and had put him down and pulled her scrub top over her nose.
“What the fuck was that?” It came out as a gasp because of the lack of air in my lungs due to the heinous stench surrounding me.
“Toby has a nervous disposition,” she said, both of us looking down at the dog that was now out cold on the floor.
“Is it alive? I mean, there’s no way it could survive that!” I asked, just as it let out a rip-roaring snore, at least I hoped it was a snore. I wasn’t taking any chances that it was a follow up tremor to the earthquake that it had let out before. “Get your stuff. We’ve got to be somewhere.”
“But I don’t finish for half an hour.”
Rick came through then with his own scrubs covering his nose and assured her that it was fine.
I gave her two minutes to get her shit before I put her over my shoulder and ran us to safety. The smell had hit the rooms down the hall and the chorus of chokes and groans was audible where I stood next to the now open front door.
As soon as she got close enough, I grabbed her hand and yanked her into the open air, both of us stopping to fill our lungs and try and get rid of the toxic tar that was now lining our lungs and nasal passages.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see!”