The dog jumps again. This time I crouch to meet it and realise it’s vibrating with excitement more than violence, though it still sounds like it wants to eat me.
“Rudy!” Hurried footsteps sound beyond the hole in the fence. “Rudy—Putain de merde. What the fuck happened here?”
I raise my gaze from the dog, startled by the deep voice that rakes the air in EnglishandFrench. By the biker boots that appear by the bag I’ve dropped, and the long, denim-clad legs they’re attached to.
Tattooed arms, one cradled to a strong chest. And a set of wide russet eyes that hold the same shock and awe I feel. “Fuck. It’s you.”
I rise, half convinced the night shift I’ve just worked is spilling over into a fatigue-laced hallucination. Mostly convinced, actually, as I can’t think of a rational explanation for the beautiful, injured man from last night to be standing in front of me in hispyjamas.
If you can call low-slung faded sweats, biker boots, and anopenzip-up hoodiepyjamas.
I’m clutching the dog. I hand it over. He takes it with hisuninjured arm and it’s the sight of his fractured wrist that drags words from my throat.
“You didn’t go back then?”
“Back where?”
“To A&E. For an X-Ray.”
The dog squirms. The man sets him down, watching him scamper through the fence before he looks at me again and profound confusion knits his brows. “Why are you here?”
A fair question. Doesn’t answer mine, but it’s a start. “I live here.” I incline my head to the keys dangling from a door I’ve yet to open. “Just moving in.”
Those pretty eyes widen again. “You’re Bhodi Jones?”
He knows my name. My heart skips a ridiculous beat, and I realise there’s a chance I might know his. “That’s me. Don’t suppose you’re Tam Dubois, are you? Because that would make you my landlord.”
I’m laughing as I say it.Not homeless then. But stunned silence answers me. Thoseeyes, and oh.Oh.No way. This stuff never happens to me. Closest I’ve ever come to a rom-com moment was that time Skylar asked me to be his fake boyfriend for a hot second, to stop a nurse in ICU sending him boob pics, and I didn’t see him for a month after that.
The dejection that brought me here smothers my amusement, and my companion—Tam, though he’s yet to confirm it—finally recovers. He shoves his hair out of his face with an inked hand and shakes his head, muttering in French before one phrase sneaks through. “Fucking hell.”
I agree. But I’m also hungry, tired, and so poleaxed by how gorgeous he is that I’m struggling to string a sentence together. I need to unlock this door and drag my corpse to bed before I’mcapable of the conversation this wild moment deserves. “I thought you were lying about the dog.”
“Nope.” Tam Dubois reanimates for real and swipes my bag from the ground as the menace in question reappears. “Morphing into a battering ram is a new one, though.”
He holds out the bag. It’s my cue to take it and unlock the door, but as his faculties return, mine abandon me. I’m rooted in place as he lets the bag slip to his elbow and reaches around me to open the door.
The dog darts inside.
Tamcurses and it brings me to my senses.
I rotate and catch my first glimpse of my new home. Blink and take another look, startled all over again by the rustic perfection that greets me. I mean, I read the letting agent’s description a month ago, but I’d been drinking,moping, and too caught up in what I was leaving behind to move forward with any tangible focus. Definitely do not remember shiny wooden floors. A log burner. Or a couch that takes up most of the living space in the open plan annex.
“Sorry it’s small,” Tam gruffs from somewhere behind me. “And that it’s already covered in dog hair.”
His dog zooms around the space, chasing a gold-flecked pipe cleaner. “Are you sure he’s not a cat? He’s acting like one.”
“He’s a little shit. Rudy. Come here.”
Rudy ignores him.
I venture further into my new house and whistle, but that does no good either and Tam sighs.
“Do you mind if I come in and get him?”
“Have at it. It’s your place.”
“Actually, it’s yours. I putno inspectionsin the contract so I have no right to come in while you’re living here.”
