“Are you tired? Do you want to lie down?”
“No. My mind is a hot-ass mess.” She groaned and fidgeted with everything. The napkin holder, the phone cord, the stack of sticky notes on the counter. “How do I calm down?”
“I can think of a few ways,” I said, not meaning to lower my voice. It just happened and she raised an eyebrow. “Wow, didn’t meanthat.”
“Why not?”
Interesting.“It’s your world, baby. I’m just living in it. You tell me what you want.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Maybe a bath.”
“That’s a good idea. Want me to start one for you?”
“I want you to take one with me.” She walked into the master room, started the water and stripped down, all within a minute. Seeing her naked still did things to me, like make my mind go fuzzy, my dick go hard and my brain come up with all the ways I could try to keep her in my life. “You in?”
I bit my knuckle. “Duh.”
That made her laugh and I stripped down, too, waiting for the bath to fill before we slid into the hot water together. “My dick’s not hurting your back, is it?”
“Nope.” She lay completely against my chest, and while I was hard, I had no urgency to make this moment sexual. I kissed her temple and played with the ends of her hair before her muscles loosened. “What if no one comes and adopts the pets that need homes? I think that’s my fear. The shelter getting excited to find forever homes for these dogs and no one comes.”
“Okay, if that’s true, which it’s not”—I kissed her again—“you already raised money that you could donate to them. You could also buy food and toys for them.”
“True. Very true.”
“We are going to blast this out from our social media, baby, and while I know the sports world isn’t your thing, it is a lot of people’s thing. We’ll get people there. I know it, okay?”
“This is my first event, ever. After this, there is no going back. I think that’s part of my fear too. My business was always an idea, but this makes it real.” She wiggled against me and I hissed, forcing myself not to react. “The possibility of me failing is real too.”
“You’re right, but this is your dream. Mine was playing baseball. What if I didn’t try out or go to the minors out of fear of not making it? You have to try. If it doesn’t work out, you’ll know and figure out the next steps. But you gotta try, Blue. Your eyes get this spark when you talk about it and your voice gets all high and excited.”
She took a deep breath and relaxed more, her voice getting a little lower with sleep. “Will you sleep here tonight with me?”
“Anything you want.” I wrapped my arms around her again, the light feeling in my chest growing and growing, and I nuzzled her neck. She could ask me to move in with her and I would.
And that should’ve scared the shit out of me. But it didn’t.
Chapter Nineteen
Sarah
Showtime.
Megan handed me my third cup of coffee as the final touches for the event took place. Ethan manned the tent where donations could be dropped off in person or electronically, Megan would float between taking pictures of the event and running the photobooth, and I would go between Paws Inc’s tent and Los Soles, talking to people and encouraging them to visit the dogs. Paws Inc had brought twenty rescues that were ready to be adopted that day. And I couldn’t stop staring at the twenty little faces looking up at me from their fenced-in areas. “God, he’s cute,” I said, bending down to see a part-chihuahua mix. “Walden is his name?”
“Yup. Been here with us for a year.”
“What a rascal,” I said, watching him try to play with another small dog in the pen. “How do you not take all of them home?” I asked Clara, the woman I had been communicating with.
“Ha, yeah, I have four dogs. My husband would leave me if I brought one more. That keeps me at bay for a while.” She organized the clipboards with information for people to fill out if they wanted to take a dog home. “This event is wonderful, Sarah. Thank you so much for thinking of us. It really gets me emotional, seeing this much attention to the adopt-not-shop campaign.”
“You’re welcome. This is a huge passion of mine and I’m happy to help. I’m wondering if you and I, maybe another shelter, could do a once-a-year event like this? Like, every summer or fall, we team up, make a big event of it.”
“I like your thinking. Yes. Let’s not lose touch after this.”
I nodded and adjusted the radio on my hip. Megan’d had the brilliant idea of purchasing them, mapping out how we could use them here and at the business. “Ethan, you ready to go?” I asked.
“Eagle. My radio name is Eagle. And yes.”
