How’s Shaun doing?” Rachel’s mom asked.
Rachel stopped stirring the canned soup she was heating on the stove while Adonis stared a hole into the side of her head. “I fed you. Go eat,” she told him. He looked forlornly at the dish of kibble, then back at the stove.
“Dear, who are you talking to? I hope not Shaun,” Keri Foster said with real concern.
Rachel froze mid-stir, phone to her ear, and realized she was going to have to take Oliver’s advice and tell her parents what was going on. They didn’t know that (a) Rachel no longer was dating Shaun, (b) Rachel was no longer working in the marketing department at Global Coast, and (c) that Rachel was temporarily living with a dog roughly the size of a mule.
“Uh…” She stalled, trying to think of what to say. “I’m dog sitting, actually.”
“You are? How fun! Is it Shaun’s sister with the schnauzer puppy? What was her name? The puppy, not the sister.”
“Yes. Her name is uh…” What was that dog’s damn name? “Adonis.” No sense in snaring herself in another lie. The Dane’s head tipped in interest and he licked his chops. He chuffed, and Rachel shushed him. Her mother couldn’t see him, but if she heard him, she’d know Rachel was not sharing a house with a small dog.
“Adonis. Not very feminine.” Clattering came from the background as her mother dug out what sounded like a metal pot. It was rare Rachel had a day off to make calls at dinnertime, but she’d made an effort to keep up the ruse that she worked nine to five. “Did Shaun get the promotion he was angling for?”
Her mom had been asking for a few months. Rachel had put her off by saying things were “on hold for another month.” Then another.
“Weren’t the two of you going to look for a new apartment soon? Your lease is up next month, isn’t it?” Another clang and bang sounded as her mom went for more cooking implements. “I ask”—a chopping sound followed by Keri crunching a bite of whatever she’d chopped—“because I heard in Chicago, the best view is—”
“Mom, stop.” She couldn’t do this. Not any longer. It’d been crushing her to keep the lies spinning like plates on poles. Rachel was an adult, and it was past time to take her medicine.
“What is it, dear?”
The line fell silent and the words clogged Rachel’s throat. Well. Take part of her medicine. She wasn’t quite ready to tell her mom the whole truth.
“Shaun and I…split up.”
A gasp.
“It’s fine. It was amicable,” Rachel was quick to add to keep her mother from worrying unnecessarily. The truth was it wasn’t fine, nor was it amicable, but Rachel had the benefit of eight weeks to absorb it and her mother had only had about eight seconds.
“What happened?” Her mother’s tone was alarmed. “I thought you two were so happy.”
We were until he betrayed me like the punk ass he turned out to be.
“Sometimes…things don’t work out,” she hedged, pulling the soup off the burner to cool.
“Is there someone else?”
For Rachel there wasn’t. She hadn’t been ready to jump into the dating pool after things went south with Shaun. Not after said pool tested positive for pond scum.
“Two years is such an investment. I can’t imagine,” her mother was muttering.
It was an investment. A big one for Rachel. She’d loved him and had assumed they’d get married. Until Shaun’s familiar nighttime ritual “love you, Rach,” stopped and “G’night” replaced it.
She wondered when he’d stopped loving her. Had someone else grabbed his attention, or was it because of the guilt that he’d accepted the boss’s praise/promotion combo? A preemptive strike before Rachel found out he’d betrayed her?
After moving in with Bree and seeing firsthand what she and Dean had, Rachel started wondering if Shaun had ever loved her at all.
“…thought the two of you might even get married.”
She tuned in her mom mid-litany about how sad it was to lose a future son-in-law.
“I’m sorry,” her mom cut herself off to say. “I did not mean to say that. Honey, I’m so sorry. Where are you living? Is working with him every day weird?”
“I’m dog sitting for a…friend who’s letting me stay in hi—uh, her place.” Yeah, saying she was living in another man’s house would not sound innocent, even though it was. “I’ll be here for the month and find my own place after.”
Surely she’d make enough money on this gig to put down the first month’s rent and deposit elsewhere. From there, she would have to secure a job that paid more than cash tips in exchange for working until three in the morning.
“And work?”
“Work’s good, Mom.” Finally, the truth. “Busy.” Also true. “I have to go. Adonis needs to go out.”
He woofed.
“Goodness, she sounds like a large schnauzer.”
“He’s a Great Dane. Like Marmaduke. Except prettier.” She scrubbed Adonis’s head, admiring his white-with-black splotched coat. He smiled, tongue lolling. “We’re bonding.”
“Well, sounds like he’s a great fill-in while nursing your broken heart.”
At her mother’s statement a pang speared the center of her chest. Rachel had been brokenhearted and had gone through it alone. Rather than share too much with Bree, Rachel had stayed busy. With work, moving, and getting used to her new bartending gig, it wasn’t hard to distract herself. Now, in Oliver’s silent apartment with only Adonis for company, she was feeling that uncertainty and pain from the breakup anew.
“You call me every evening, okay? I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“Mom. No.” She was not doing the check-in thing.
“I’ll worry.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I will.”
“I love you,” Rachel said.
“I could worry myself literally sick and then how bad would you feel?” asked Keri Foster, master of manipulation.
“Tell Dad hi.”
“Love you too,” her mother said, giving up. “Can I downgrade my call to a text?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Fine.” A sigh.
“Good night.”
Rachel pocketed her phone with a smile. She loved her parents. They were the reason she was doing what she was doing. Her mom bragged to everyone who would listen about her daughter who was “making it” in the big city. In the small Ohio town where Rachel grew up, Chicago was big time. So big, her parents had only ventured out her way twice in the two and a half years since she’d moved here.
She didn’t want to disappoint them, and while they may not be disappointed in her job as a bartender, they would definitely be more concerned and possibly offer to send her money, which she would flat-out refuse to take.
If only they knew what her life was really like.
Two days ago she’d put on a ridiculously tight dress and boots, hell-bent on teaching her upstairs neighbor a lesson. Tag had seen right through her, and after she’d clopped back into Oliver’s apartment, she realized she was not surprised.
She’d felt more self-conscious than sexy wearing that getup, and she’d witnessed how confounded Tag had been. He’d backed away as she stepped forward. Not exactly the actions of a man who was interested. Not that she was interested, she thought, chewing on the side of her cheek.
Maybe her mother had uncovered the crux of Rachel’s bizarre behavior when she mentioned Shaun and heartbreak. Rachel didn’t feel like herself and had never, ever done something as bold as slink into a man’s apartment wearing six-inch-heeled boots.
It was nice of Tag to buy Adonis all of those toys, though. She took her mug of soup and a sleeve of crackers into the living room and placed them on the coffee table. She reached into the shopping bag, pulled out the stuffed squirrel, and squeaked it. Adonis’s head cocked to one side and she threw the toy down the hallway.
Adonis turned his head but refocused his attention on the crackers.
“These taste about the same as what’s in your bowl,” she said, giving up and handing over a Ritz. Then she ate one. Heaven. Buttery, salty heaven. “Well, maybe not.”
She finished her soup, sharing more crackers with Adonis, her mind on Tag and the way he’d looked at her when she suggested that women liked to brush his hair. It made her laugh when she remembered it right afterward, and it made her laugh now as she washed the mug and spoon and put them into the dishwasher.
Tag was ridiculously outside of her playing field, though, right? He was massive, both wide and tall, had a thick but well-groomed beard, and longer hair than she’d ever seen on anyone—male or female. She hadn’t been far off with the Tarzan zinger, either. He looked like a trail guide in a jungle, or maybe a wrestler on television, grimacing and flexing until the veins in his neck popped out.
She laughed aloud but it paired with her fanning her face. Because imagining Tag oiled up and shirtless…or sweat-covered in a safari outfit… Those were warming thoughts indeed.
Two months wasn’t that long to be without someone, but it was longer if she counted back to the last time she and Shaun had sex. She had done the math once, and the halting of “love you, Rach” and the death of their sex life coincided. They also coincided with the hiring of a cute girl in the design department who had purple streaks in her hair.
That chest-crushing feeling returned. Rachel had trusted him. With her heart, and as a friend. Shaun taking credit for her hard work was reason enough for her to end things. But there was a sting of embarrassment when she thought about how clueless she’d been for so long. How much she’d trusted him—how well she thought she knew him.
Never could she have guessed underneath that neatly buttoned shirt and penchant for double espressos was a man who would step on her head as he climbed the ladder instead of lifting her alongside him.
Adonis chuffed, snapping her out of her reverie.
“What’s it matter, right, boy?” she asked his gray eyes. He chuffed again. “Want to go for a walk?”
He danced in a circle and she smiled.
The apartment and dog were more than a step toward independence; they were a step in helping her deal with unresolved feelings over Shaun.
This time, for good.
* * *
Biceps straining, Tag blew out a breath from his mouth and pushed the bar up to his best friend’s smiling face. He made it, and then because he knew Lucas was waiting to catch him quitting early, lowered it to do another.
Lucas laughed. “Oh man. He’s doing it.” He looked to his right, talking to someone Tag couldn’t see. “He hates to lose money.” Then he bent over Tag’s face—Tag’s sweaty, red face by the feel of it—and readied his hands. “Just say when, you pussy. I’ll take it off your hands.”
Smug bastard.
With a grunt of achievement, and a hell of a lot of effort, Tag pushed the bar to the brackets and dropped it with a heavy clang! A few of the guys in the gym clapped their hands, and Lucas swore under his breath. By the time Tag sat up and rested his spent arms on his knees, a folded twenty-dollar bill landed on the bench between his legs.
“I have to quit giving you my money.” Lucas sat on the leg machine across from Tag. He tipped a water bottle to his mouth and drank. “You probably keep the cash you win from me in a big bin and swim in it like Scrooge McDuck.”
Tag laughed and reached for his towel, wiping his brow. He’d been friends with Luc for going on a dozen years. They’d met in high school when Lucas moved here in his junior year, and learned they’d had the same thing on their minds then and now.
Girls.
Even when Luc went to college, they still met and picked up girls—competing to collect the most phone numbers. Then Lucas won the lottery. He won Gena, sassy black-haired bombshell, now wife and mother of two to Lucas’s rug rats. Gena took no shit and was as cool as they came.
The competition for phone numbers stopped for both of them then. Luc because he was gone for Gena, and Tag because there was no game if he was playing alone. Tag settled for the more sophisticated, but no less rewarding, picking up a girl for dinner and sex—one or both. Usually both.
“Been a while.” Lucas tugged his earbuds from his ears and looped them around his neck. He was rarely without them. As a music producer, he was often listening to either his musicians’ latest albums or potential new clients.
“Since I took your money?” Tag asked, shoving the twenty into the pocket of his shorts.
“Since I saw you. Is it because of work, or because you can’t be around my smoking hot wife without dying of envy?” Lucas grinned, an idiot in love. His dark hair was short and spiky, but he used to wear it longer and shaggier. The tattoo of a dragon on his leg hadn’t gone anywhere since college. He may be a husband and dad, but Luc was also a badass. It was admirable.
“The last one.” Tag stood, his arms feeling like limp noodles, and did a few windmills. While he was teasing his buddy, it hadn’t been a line. A part of him was envious of Luc, who’d managed to have a beautiful family and thriving career and keep his fun-guy personality. “Well, that and I’m tired of turning down Gena’s advances. She loves me.”
Lucas chuckled, taking the ribbing good-naturedly. They both knew Gena too well to believe that lie for a second. She was one of Tag’s favorite people, but probably because she gave him more shit than Lucas, and that was saying something.
“Beer?” Luc asked.
“You don’t have to be home for bedtime tonight?”
Luc loved to read to his kids. His family was his lifeline. What a great dad he’d turned out to be. Tag thought of his own father and how dedicated he’d been. Even after his mother died in the car wreck, his dad had been there for his boys. Some of the shine had gone, though. The life that only Lunette Crane seemed to bring to his father’s eyes. That must be the trick to landing a good woman—getting her to stay—and if she didn’t, not losing that light.
“No curfew for me.” Luc slapped Tag hard on the shoulder and headed for the showers. “Tonight is boys’ night.”
“You pick the place,” Tag said, following. “But if you score a phone number, I’m ratting.”
A little later, Tag was clad in jeans and a sweater and brushing the snow out of his slightly damp hair. “The Andromeda Club,” he read off the sign. “Sounds like an old folks’ home.”
Lucas popped open the door. “It’s a cool place. Great food.”
Inside, Tag looked around. C-shaped booths in the corners, exposed brick walls, and rich, warm woods throughout. There was an adjoining room with a pool table, and the bar was at the back of the room, a pretty brunette at the helm. A few servers milled around, but the place wasn’t formal, as hinted by the “seat yourself” sign.
They headed for the bar and bellied up.
“What can I get you?” The brunette bartender tossed a few coasters in front of them.
“I’m Lucas.”
Oh, shit.
“This is my friend, Tag.”
“Luc, shut up.” This was an old wingman bit, and not one Tag was looking forward to resurrecting. He hadn’t needed help picking up women for a long time.
Lucas gripped Tag’s shoulder and squeezed, giving him a good shake. “Tag here is in the hotel business. He runs Guest and Restaurant Services.”
“Oh really? Sounds exciting.” The brunette was smiling and friendly, and then she started playing with the stack of coasters in a really obvious way. Tag noticed the engagement ring. So did Lucas.
“I’m married, father of two. Have you been married long…” He drew out the pause to get her name.
“Breanna, and no. I’m engaged, not married.”
“Do it if he’s not a prick,” Lucas said smoothly.
“He’ll be in here later, and he’s definitely not a prick.” She was still smiling, but not flirting, which Tag respected.
Lucas ordered beers for both of them, sending Tag a shoulder shrug that said, Welp, I tried.
“You are rusty on the wingman game,” Tag said after Breanna had delivered both beers and went to help another customer. He took a drink from the tall mug. “You, the married guy, should know to check the left hand first.”
“I admit, that was a rookie move,” Lucas said. “But we’d better get to it since you’re probably behind.”
Tag swallowed another mouthful of beer. “Behind on what?”
“I figured you and Reese split Chicago singles right down the middle, but with him engaged”—Luc dipped his voice to add the word again—“that puts you in charge of sexually pleasing the remainder of Chicago’s females.”
Tag couldn’t help laughing. “You’re an ass.”
“With great power comes great responsibility, my friend.”
Again, the oddest twinge of envy pricked him. He’d never marinated long on settling down, never pictured himself married with kids and the whole picket fence thing. Especially in the midst of boys’ night over beers. Tag’s sights should be set on the single women in the room. That thought brought forth the vision of one woman, and one woman only.
Guess who that was?
“Menus, guys,” Breanna said. “Are you eating?”
“Always. Look at these guns. We need protein,” Lucas said. “Breanna, tell me something.”
She leaned an elbow on the bar to listen. As was always the way chicks behaved around Lucas. He drew them in with his charm. If Tag didn’t like Gena so damn much, he may have had a moment of mourning for Lucas’s dormant pickup skills. It was hard to watch one of the greats hang up his gloves.
“Do you think my game is rusty or out of fashion?” Luc asked. “I admit, I’m deliriously happy with my wife and have no desire to return to the singles scene, but it’d be nice to know if I still had it.”
“Hmm.” Breanna pretended to size him up, which was perfect. Tag would have to tip her extra for egging on his friend, who needed to be checked for his sheer cockiness. “Your approach would work on me if I were single, but I’m not sure you’re everyone’s cup of tea.”
“I will take that as a win.” Lucas lifted his beer.
“What about you?” Breanna tipped her chin at Tag. “Do you think your friend still has it?”
“Well, I’d take him home,” Tag said with a smile, and Breanna held his eyes a little longer than she’d held Lucas’s. Engaged or not, he noted a passing appreciation. Luc picked up on it, too.
“Fuck,” he muttered when she walked away. “What is it? The long hair?”
“Chicks dig the hair.” Tag shrugged one shoulder.
“Better watch it because her fiancé will be in here later. He might kick your ass.”
“I’m not getting into a fight over a taken woman. There are plenty of available ones around.” Like his neighbor. Rachel Foster with her blond curls and tight dress, or her tangly locks and polar-bear pajamas. He hadn’t figured her out yet. He liked how she was a mystery.
“I haven’t told you about my hot new neighbor,” Tag started.
Lucas elevated his beer, a look of interest on his face.
“And my brief but memorable foray as a dog walker…”