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Chapter 10

Jason

♪Soul Meets Body | Death Cab for Cutie

Sloan sent me a link to a YouTube video. I sat on the edge of my bed and watched it, maximizing the screen.

Someone held up a piece of paper in front of the camera that read, My vacation with Sloan. Then it began to show clips of Tucker. Tucker on hikes, Tucker swimming in a swimming pool. Tucker at Starbucks licking whipped cream out of a paper cup, and him at PetSmart with a blue plush doll in his mouth. Then he was in a bathtub getting a bath with his hair spiked into a Mohawk. Tucker chasing a green tennis ball on the grass and playing with other dogs at a dog park.

If I hadn’t already liked Sloan, this would have done it. Tucker was my currency. It might as well have been me she was spoiling, it had the same effect.

I smiled down at my screen as I watched a clip of Tucker on his back, getting a belly rub. Then the frame changed, and he sat on a couch next to a woman. I bolted to attention and pulled the phone closer.

The woman smiled at him, and he licked her face. I could see the tattoos on her arm. She looked directly at the camera and reached up off-screen, and the video ended.

My heart thudded against my rib cage. This was Sloan. This was the woman I’d been talking to.

And she was fucking beautiful.

I played the video back. Then I played it back again. I paused it and took screenshots of her so I could look at them. I zoomed in and studied her. She had one of those broad smiles that radiated. Full lips, large brown doe eyes, long golden-blond hair. Jesus, she was gorgeous.

I was still watching the video when I got into my Uber. I called her.

Voicemail.

* * *

I texted Sloan last night, telling her how beautiful I thought she was, but all I got was a smiley face and didn’t know how to interpret that. I think the stress of our meeting each other was getting to her.

It was getting to me too.

Even before I’d seen what she looked like, I’d liked her more than anyone else I’d met in a very long time. I went to sleep and woke up thinking about her. I fucking dreamed about her. I hadn’t even looked at another woman sideways pretty much since the moment we started talking. And all that for a woman I hadn’t even laid eyes on yet.

Now I worried that I would somehow not measure up—which was crazy. She’d seen enough pictures of me to know what to expect, and I was not an unconfident person by any stretch of the imagination. It was just that meeting her felt too important.

My flight had been smooth, and I’d gotten as much sleep as I could so I’d be fresh for our “appointment.”

After I dropped off my luggage at home, I took a shower, threw on a T-shirt and jeans, and took longer than I care to admit trimming my beard and messing with my hair. Then I made my way to the Starbucks on Topanga Canyon.

I waited on the patio, bouncing my knee, opening and closing my hand the way I always did right before I played in front of a big crowd. I’d gotten there half an hour early and I sat there scanning the parking lot and sidewalks, completely nervous and laughing to myself because I never got like this—for anything or anyone.

I didn’t know what it meant that I felt like this already. All I knew was that I did.

She was eight minutes late when she called.

“Hey,” I said, picking up on the first ring. “You said Topanga Canyon, ri—”

“Jason, I can’t come, my kitchen is flooded!”

Chaos came through the line. Tucker barked in the background, and I could hear the sound of spraying water. “The pipe under your sink?”

“Yes! Oh my God, it’s a disaster!”

I was already running to my truck. “Give me your address.”

There was a pause.

“I…but…”