The two other crew members watching us look mildly horrified.
“Sabrina,” Willa says. “You should’ve asked for help.”
Sabrina turns a grin on her as if she’s completely immune to being near me.
She probably is.
This is ameproblem.
“Wasn’t much time between falling and catching myself,” Sabrina says.
“To put the higher dishes away,” the woman chides.
“You shouldn’t be on kitchen duty at all,” Cedar says. He’s a tall, slender, younger man in a different Bean & Nugget apron, and I don’t miss the not-so-subtle side-eye aimed at me.
Like he thinks I’m the one who’s keeping her in here.
“I like kitchen duty,” she tells him. “Reminds me of when I was little and Grandma was running this place.Jitter.Sit.”
The dog leans sideways against me. He’s so big, his body rests against me mid-thigh, and he has no hesitation in pressing me away from Sabrina while he grins a happy doggy grin at me.
Being this near to a dog again is opening other old wounds.
I’m just off-balance enough now that being around another dog fuckinghurtstoday.
This dog?
He belongs to Sabrina, and therefore, he’s as off-limits as she is.
Self-preservation says he has to be.
It’s not safe to like people who’ve already let you down, and it’s even less safe to like people who have made it clear they want the opposite of what you do.
“The dog has to go,” I tell Sabrina. “We can’t have it in the kitchen.”
It. That might be too far even forSuper Vengeance Man.
But Sabrina doesn’t blink at my attitude or my order. “Great! You can tell Shirlene when she gets here. She’s the health inspector, by the way. You met her briefly yesterday, but you met so many people, I don’t know if you remember which one she was. She asked me to bring him in today because she misses him since she moved in with her boyfriend. You’re living in her old townhouse. First guest, actually, since she converted it into a vacation rental. I don’t think she mentioned that part.”
I’m momentarily speechless.
But only momentarily. “Don’t you all have work to do?”
Willa eyes me.
Cedar eyes me.
Zen mouths something that looks likethey know.
Know what?
That Sabrina and I slept together? That I can’t convince myself to not like her? That I adore her damn dog?
While I’m still puzzling that out, all three of them head back to the dining room.
“Get your dog off me,” I tell Sabrina.
She grins.
