Pawsitively in Love (8 page)

“Are you looking forward to summer, Evan?” Peggy asked.

“Sure, it’s always nice to have some time off.”

Evan didn’t have any plans for his break. Not anymore at least. And he still barely knew anyone in the city, but he wouldn’t mind sleeping in and working on his yard. It wasn’t the best, since the house had been a rental before he bought it, but Evan still loved having something that was his own. He’d always rented before he came to Washington. It was a big step for him to buy a house and declare something as permanent. Dexter had been an even bigger step.

“That’s good. Aren’t you going on a trip?”

Awkward. “Oh, actually no. I was going with…. Well, I was seeing someone, and it didn’t work out, so the trip is cancelled.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m sure you won’t have any trouble finding someone else.”

“I think I’m going to take a break from the dating scene,” Evan said. “It’s fine. I just need some time on my own, I think.”

What he didn’t say was that most of his time was on his own. He had guys every once in a while, when he needed to blow off some steam. But Derek was the first guy he’d tried dating since he’d moved to Washington. First guy since college actually, since the dating pool had been pitiful at home and everyone knew everyone’s business. Including unstable sisters and mothers with slot-machine addictions. Right. It was time to go back to his way of doing things. Alone.

“That’ll be nice. Get some reading done. Work in your yard.” Which was probably going to be the sum total of his social life that summer—unless he counted dinners at Jeff and Peggy’s.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought too.” He’d been meaning to repaint his bedroom anyway. The color he’d picked when he first moved in wasn’t what it looked like on the strip. He’d been wanting to redo it for months. Not that painting his room was what he’d call thrilling summer plans. Or plans for more than a day or two.

But it was a start.

Evan had made a lot of starts in the past year.

AUSTIN HAD
a headache. It seemed like he’d had a near permanent one since his first encounter with Evan, and it had only grown since.

“Hey, Bro, how are the dogs and cats?” Mary Beth asked as soon as he walked in the door. They had a standing date once a week at the coffee shop between their houses. Only an emergency was a good enough excuse. The shop was nearly empty, so he and Mary Beth only shared their space with a few bored baristas.

Austin groaned. “I’m so screwed.” He thought about Evan and his shaved puppy and his huge dark eyes, and he groaned again. He’d managed to keep the pictures out of his head for an entire five minutes. But no such luck.

“Why? What happened?” Mary Beth took a sip of her latte. They might not be very much alike in most ways, but their taste in coffee so sweet it might as well be hot cocoa was exactly the same. She pushed his across the table along with a toasted bagel and some cream cheese.

“Have you ever had the hots for one of your patients?” he asked as soon as she swallowed.

Mary Beth sputtered out a laugh. “I mean, there have been a couple attractive ones in the past couple years, but not, like,
really
.” She tossed him a look. “Do you have something to tell me about you and that basset hound with the sad eyes? I knew you loved animals, but don’t you think that’s taking it a little too far?”

“Gross. Shut up.” Austin tried to laugh and scoff at the same time. It didn’t work out well. Mostly, he ended up snorting coffee up his nose and halfway choking on it.

“Graceful, Bro.”

It took Austin a minute to catch his breath. “You’re the one accusing me of, like, whatever that’s called in the middle of a café.”

“I believe that would be called bestiality.” Mary Beth smirked.

“Again, gross.” Austin made a face. “And no. When I said that, I meant a client, like the human owner… not the dog. Although I do adore Dex. He’s the sweetest baby pug ever. He’ll just fall asleep in my arms if I sit still for a few minutes and—”

“Enough with the dogs, Jesus, Austin. Tell me about the
boy
. I feel like it’s been forever since we talked about boys, and I seriously can’t handle hearing about one more fur person. Let’s get some actual
gossip
.”

“We can talk about Chad, then. I have quite a few things to say about him.” Austin was dumb enough to bring up Evan, but all of a sudden he didn’t want to rehash his humiliations with his perfect sister.

“Let’s not and pretend you spent hours nitpicking his faults and I agreed with every little thing you said. I don’t want to get in an argument today. I’d rather have a nice coffee and a relaxing walk home.”

Austin didn’t have the energy to argue either. His sister had a point. “Fine.”

“So….”

“So what?” he asked. He took a long, restorative sip of his coffee. Austin had spent years perfecting his stalling tactics. They had the added bonus of driving his sister up the wall.

“So tell me about the boy. I know you can’t be that oblivious.” She already sounded a little annoyed that he hadn’t spilled yet.
Score
.

Austin chuckled. “Okay. But he’s a man. Definitely not a boy.”

“And?”

“His name’s Evan. He’s super gorgeous, but not like random guy hot, like
professional
hot. Grown-up, sexy, tall, dark, and handsome hot. And I’m about a hundred percent sure that he hates me.”

How could he not after Austin’s shop shaved off his dog’s soft, silky puppy fur?

“Why? Everyone loves you. You’re adorable, and you have that fresh-faced, good-guy thing going on, you know with the animals and the”—she waved her hand—“cargo shorts.”

“You’re a good guy if you wear cargo shorts?”

“Well, you’re not vain if you do, so that probably means you’re a good guy.” She made a face. Mary Beth’s opinion of Austin’s cargo shorts was probably right up there with Austin’s opinion of The Chad.

“I
like
my cargo shorts.”

“Exactly my point. Definitely not vain. So tell me more about tall, dark, and sexy hot guy. I’m definitely into it. Why do you think he wouldn’t want you?”

“Other than the fact that he’s older, mega hot, and probably has one of those perfect lives that I’d totally disrupt?”

“Perfect is overrated. I’m still not convinced.”

And they’d gotten to the part that Austin didn’t want to say out loud. “We didn’t get off to the best start.”

“How?” Mary Beth always wanted details. And she usually got them.

“I, um, may have called him a dog neglector, stalked him at the grocery store, and then I might have accidentally shaved his puppy?” It was Mary Beth’s turn to nearly spit coffee out of her nose. “Although in my defense that wasn’t me. It was Russ who mixed up the pugs, and I finally fired him. I figured you’d be at least happy about that part of it.”

Mary Beth had been on his ass to fire Russ for months. Austin
hated
dealing with that kind of stuff. He desperately wanted a manager who’d do it for him. Of course then he’d have to pay a manager and his lovely profits would go down the drain.

“I am glad. Finally.” She held up her hand for a high five. “But let’s get back to the story. So you insulted the hot guy, acted creepy, and then mutilated his dog’s fur?”

“Basically.” Austin was still
so
mortified by the events of the past week or so. He could tell his sister was trying her best not to laugh. Which helped everything immensely, of course. Sometimes Austin wished he were an only child. With no friends. So when he screwed up everything, the only one he had to confess to was himself.

Mary Beth plunked her coffee down on the table. “Well, Brother, when you put it that way, he definitely wants to do you.”

“Fuck off.”

“Language, Brother. I can’t take you anywhere.” Of course there wasn’t a single person in the coffee shop to look at them.

Austin reached across the table and swatted at Mary Beth. “You love it.”

“Why don’t you call him, though? Like, how long has it been since you couldn’t stop thinking about a guy?”

“A really long time.” Austin considered it. Of course there was one more glaring thing. “You know, I don’t even know if he’s into guys. Like even if he could get past, well, everything, he might actually be straight.”

Mary Beth cocked her eyebrow. “There’s only one way to find out. I believe you have his number.”

“I’m not going to use his client info card to ask him out on a date.”

“Why not?” And his sister had always been the conservative one out of the two of them.

“I don’t know. That has to be unethical somehow.” Unethical? Terrifying? Same difference if you asked him.

“You groom his dog.” His sister gave him one of her signature dry stares. “It’s not like you’re examining his private parts or something.”

“I don’t know… it doesn’t seem right.” Still, she had a point. And if he didn’t think Evan would be more annoyed than happy to hear from him, Austin might decide to take a chance. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about Evan’s big brown eyes and his glamorous smile—that Austin had seen very little of. Maybe he had an excuse if he called to check up on Dexter. It was the right thing to do. Wasn’t it?

He was distracted from his thoughts when Mary Beth huffed out an annoyed sigh. “I just want you to be happy, and if this guy is on your mind, maybe getting to know him would make you happy.”

“You think an inappropriate phone call to a hot guy who probably finds me more annoying than anything else is the way to happiness?” He couldn’t let his sister know that he’d actually been considering it a few short moments before.

“It could be. You’ll never know if you don’t try.” Mary Beth, the logical one.

“I’ve got to get home, Sis.” Austin stood, then leaned over and kissed his sister’s cheek. He couldn’t deal with their conversation anymore. “I have to make sure all my invoices are paid and my accounting books are up to date.”

“That sounds like a barrel of laughs.” Mary Beth didn’t have to do any of that stuff. She was one of the lucky ones who worked in another dentist’s practice. At the end of the week she got to go home and forget about work for two blissful days. Austin thought again that he needed to hire an accountant. The most he could afford when he was starting up was one who came in quarterly to help him with his taxes. It might be time to upgrade.

He supposed he was happy to be escaping the sister inquisition, even if it was for paperwork. There was only so much well-meaning meddling he could take.

“LET’S STALK
him online,” Cole said.

“Oh my
God
, I’m not going to do that.” Austin should’ve known better than to tell Cole about how he managed to think of Evan every few minutes of every day. After, what, three encounters? It was getting sad. Online stalking wouldn’t make that sadness any less so.

“Why not?” Cole got that wicked grin that he sometimes got when he was trying to talk one of them into something. Of course he nearly always got his way. That was how Cole operated.

They were cozied up on a rainy Wednesday evening. Austin had come there straight from work for dinner, which turned into gossiping about their mutual friends, which turned into him being a moron for confessing that he still thought about his gorgeous but completely not up for grabs customer. Of course getting involved with something like that was everything Cole lived for—well, except for Peter, traveling, and making ridiculous amounts of money for his abstract paintings that Austin would never understand.

“Babe. You probably shouldn’t do that. It’s a little invasive.” Sometimes when Peter went into super goody two-shoes mode, it got on Austin’s nerves, but he had a point. Cole made a pissy face. Maybe it was the same for him.

“Everyone does it. That’s how we find things out about potential dates these days.” He pulled his laptop closer.

“He’s not a potential—” Austin started to protest.

“Why can’t you just talk to him?” Peter asked. He’d left the living room and was in their open kitchen pouring a glass of juice. He could obviously still hear them. And was also obviously still invested. Austin was in favor of ignoring anyone who agreed with his sister about actually calling the guy. The thought of that gave him heart palpitations.

“Hush, darling.” Cole waved him off. “We’re busy being spies. So you said his last name is Partridge?”

“Yeah.” Austin got all nervous in his belly, like he was about to head out on a first date. Or like Evan could
see
them stalking him through the computer, which was ridiculous obviously. But still.

“Let’s try Facebook first. It’s the most obvious.” He clicked for a few moments. “This him?” Cole pointed at a picture on the screen.

“Y-yeah.” Definitely him. Gorgeous as hell and a Facebook wall littered with pictures of a tiny pug. Austin would recognize either one of them anywhere. “How’d you find him so fast?”

Cole shrugged. “Lucky I guess. Not a common name combination? There weren’t very many of them, and he’s the only one listed in Tacoma.”

“Well, that’s definitely him.” There was even a recent picture of Dexter posted without any hair. Evan Partridge needed to learn how to make his Facebook page private.

“I didn’t believe you when you said he was super hot.
Damn
.” Cole looked at Peter. “Not as hot as you, baby,” he said quickly.

“Of course.” Peter rolled his eyes. “You’re allowed to look. We both are. Just no touching.”

A flash of concern moved across Cole’s face. Austin always forgot that beneath all that sass and confidence, Cole was a little insecure. And he knew Peter was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

“What’s that say he does for his job?” Austin asked to distract Cole from his flash of insecurity. He pointed at the screen.

“University of Puget Sound. Anthropology professor.” Cole’s eyebrows shot skyward.

“Um, damn. Okay.”

“A professor?” Cole chuckled. “I can’t believe you have a thing for the hot professor. I bet his students drool over him.”

“I didn’t know that was his job until just now.” It was a little funny to think about. Austin, the least academic guy ever in the whole world, with a professor. Hypothetically, at least. Too bad he couldn’t stop thinking about it.