“Great, Dom it is, then.” She smiles. “Again, I’msosorry. Cocoa just gets really excited when he sees something that isn’t a potted succulent … I haven’t quite figured out how to fix it.”
“Basic obedience would be a good place to start.” I head to the kitchen sink and toss my shoes in, grabbing the sponge.
She gives me a look, eyes flickering from my shoes to my face. “Cocoa only turned four last month. He’s just a baby, you know.”
“Four years old isnota baby. In dog years, that’s a full-blown adult.”
“Mmm…” She purses her lips, looking back at me with ocean-blue eyes. “But isn’t thirty the new twenty? So, if we translate this to dog years … deduct tentechnical years… he’s only eighteen. No one has their life together at that age anymore.”
“Not an excuse,” I drawl, scrubbing at the shoes, trying to ignore the smell. “Just …pleasekeep your dog on a leash from now on. Even when you’re inside the building. I would appreciate it.”
She presses a hand to her chest, feigning offense. “Cocoa is a free spirit. He rejects your indoor patriarchal leash system.”
“I’m pretty sure what he rejects is boundaries,” I mutter. “Just like his owner.”
Nicole just shrugs, and it’s infuriating how nonchalant she is, standing in my apartment as if this is all perfectly normal.
I jiggle the trainers in front of her, wringing out a little extra fluid for effect. “Keep. Your. Dog. On. A. Leash.”
Nicole salutes me. “Sir, yes, sir!”
I shake my head as Nicolefinallyexits my apartment. “This is bad. So, so bad.” I stare out the window at the LA skyline as I continue scrubbing. It’s all palm trees and pastel smog in this city … and everything about this place feels suffocating.
It feels like I’m living on a foreign planet.
I miss small-town streets. The kind where the loudest thing outside your window is a cicada or a pickup rumbling past.
And Braum’s French fries.
Even Alabama felt calmer than this. Not home—never Texas—but quieter. Slower. A college town vibe where people nodded at you and then went on with their day.
I eye the time and pick up my pace, digging the blue sponge into the material of my shoes. I work hard and fast, and then do my best to dry them off, catching another whiff of dog urine.Is it still coming from my shoes? Or is the smell just stuck in my nose?
Maybe the dry air will fix it.
I grit my teeth as I throw them back into my bag and head out to the elevator.
When I make it to the bottom, the elevator doors open, and I stride out, only to almost flatten a group of giggling kids and their parents. “Sorry,” I mutter, jerking my practice bag upward so I don’t take out any small children.
That would just make thismorningsomuch worse.
One of the littlest kids points at me and whispers, way louder than necessary, “Mama, he smells like the dog park!”
Thanks, kid.
I hang my head, my face feeling like it’s on fire.
Please don’t recognize me as the new pick from Alabama. Please.
The last thing I need is a reputation for smelling like a dog.
I break into a jog as I make it to the parking garage. If any of my friends back home could see me now, they’d be laughing their heads off. Maybe I would be laughing, too.
But right now? This feels like my worst nightmare.
My truck is wedged between a Porsche Macan and some custom-wrapped Range Rover. I squeeze out of my parking space with millimeters to spare, accidentally laying on the horn as the Porsche beside me threatens to amputate my fender. I barely make it out of the parking garage without having a mini heart attack.
I glance down at my white knuckles.
