He didn’t buy it. He gave her a look that, he hoped, broadcasted just that.
“There’s a King Soopers just around the corner.” Marlee moved to let Lothario back into the house. “We can hit that for supplies. And Iamover Scotty.” Her voice cracked a little at the end. She cleared her throat.
He leveled a you’re-full-of-it stare at her.
“Fine. It’s a work in progress.” She tilted her head to the side, daring him to question her any further.
He wouldn’t, because unlike her ex, he wasn’t a dick about things.
Lothario trotted beside her to the front door. “Are you driving or am I?”
“I’ll drive.” He already had the keys to his Jeep Cherokee in his hand.
“Perfect.” She turned the door handle and pulled it open. Lothario began to follow her outside.
Eli scratched at his ear in confusion. “Mar, you’re you, and I know you can convince people to look away from most anything”—it was part of that talent she held that drew people to her—“but evenyoucan’t bring a dog into the grocery store.”
He wasn’t besties with the health inspector, but he knew the rules—no pets.
Marlee rolled her eyes. “Lothario goes where I go.” She pulled a red vest from her purse and Velcro’d it around the mutt. “He’s my medical alert dog.”
Eli had seen a lot of things. He’d never in his life seen a medical alert vest on a chihuahua. He shook the dust bunnies that seemed to settle in his ears.
She wasn’t serious. No way was she serious.
“A medical alert dog?” he questioned.
“Well, he’s not just pretty.” She smiled down at the pup. “Although, he is definitely a pretty doggie.”
Lothario puffed up at the compliment.
“Are you just making this up?” he asked. Marlee was one of those people who could convince a man to pay an extra ten dollars for a bottle of water when he wasn’t even thirsty.
“Of course not. I have asthma, he lets me know if I’m about to have an attack.” She made kissy faces at Lothario. “Don’t you?”
Eli wasn’t buying it. She was screwing with him. “Does it work?”
“Yeah, he does his job really well.” Marlee clipped a leash onto Lothario’s collar and stood. “He’s trained to tell me if I start wheezing.”
Eli wasn’t mistaken. She was definitely screwing with him. “You don’t notice if you’re wheezing?”
“Not when I’m asleep.”
Then Scotty didn’t notice she was wheezing? The guy was losing punches left and right on his fiancé card.
One thing though. Eli held up an index finger. “So you can train the dog to alert you when you can’t breathe, but you can’t get him to stop defiling shoes?”
“It’s only your shoes,” Marlee said like it wasn’t a big deal. “He also likes Scotty’s shirts.” She took a deep breath. “And pretty much anything that moves. Especially bicycles… Hence the leg. That’s a touchy subject, though, so we don’t talk about it around him.”
Of course, because Lothario was a super smart wheezing-detection device. One wouldn’t want to offend him.
“A bicycle? And it was moving?” Eli raised his eyebrows in her direction. His own dick retreated into his boxers at the idea.
Not that he hadn’t noticed the cast on the little dude’s leg. He’d just assumed it had come from getting caught on the wrong side of a pair of Sketchers. Not the rubber on a bicycle tire.
“But he won’t do that when his vest is on. He knows he’s working now,” Marlee assured, setting Lothario beside her. He stood at attention as if illustrating her point.
Eli, and his shoes, didn’t buy the innocent act of the chihuahua.
