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“Right,” I said to him and myself, and hoped that, one day, I’d either stop talking to my cat or stop feeling so ridiculous about it.
I shut the car door with a slam and walked up to the building, the bell over the door ringing as I stepped inside.
The receptionist looked up from her paperwork with a smile, ready to greet me, but when she saw who it was, the smile melted right off of her face.
“Walter’s in the car. With the windows rolled down,” I said, not wasting any time setting everyone’s mind at ease. The tension in her shoulders relaxed immediately, answering the question of whether she had a neck or not affirmatively. “I called and talked to Julie, and she said there’d been no one looking to claim Stan.”
Julie stepped through the door from the back. She smiled freely, but she’d had fair warning of my arrival—and the chance to remind me that Walter was strictly prohibited from entering the building.
“Hey, Mr. Brooks. Come on back. I’m pretty sure Stan is going to be happy to see you.”
With a nod to Receptionist Melanie, I stepped through the door as Julie held it open. Barking filled my ears, but it wasn’t Stan. The fucking enormous Great Dane puppy lay sleeping in the center of his cage, curled up into the tightest coil he could manage.
“All he’s really been doing since you guys left is sleeping,” Julie explained. “I think he’s been depressed.”
He did seem to frown in his sleep, and I was happy Georgie wasn’t seeing him like this.
“I can open the cage for you,” Julie offered, pulling my eyes to her. “He’s really big, but super gentle. Walter seemed to be the violent one of the two.”
That much I could believe.
I nodded my agreement, and she pulled up the latch and swung open the door.
“Hey, Stan,” I whispered to warn him I was there. He opened his big black eyes just as I reached out to touch him, leaned into my hand, and blew out a big doggie breath. “You ready to come home?”
Phoenix, Friday, May 12th, Very Late Night
Five days away from Kline had been five too many. Phone calls, text messages, video chats, emails, none of them lived up to the real thing. Which was why I was sitting on a red-eye flight from Phoenix to New York. My work travel had only just begun, but I could already tell it’d never be the highlight of my job.
When I’d told Wes I wasn’t flying home with the team, he had laughed at the hilarity of me missing my husband after only five days. Thankfully, he’d ended his laughter by being surprisingly supportive, even though he let me know how ridiculous he thought it was.
But I didn’t care that I was sitting in a cramped coach seat versus the luxury leather recliners on the team’s jet. I didn’t care that I was dead on my feet and about one blink away from falling into a coma. I just wanted to get home to my husband.
I slid my earbuds in and reclined my chair back the measly two inches it was willing to go. I was ready for the time to pass at full speed so I could be in my bed, all wrapped up in Kline. Never Been Kissed was the courtesy movie for my flight home, and I couldn’t deny my excitement.
Even though that movie came out forever ago, it will always have one of my favorite endings. Sam Coulson running down the stadium steps.
“Don’t Worry Baby” by The Beach Boys playing in the background.
The crowd cheering.
Josie Gellar watching him stride toward her.
And then, that kiss. How he just grabs her and kisses the fuck out of her.
Yeah. Talk about cinematic perfection.
I could remember watching that movie when I was young and just wishing, hoping, fucking praying I’d get my Josie Gellar, “Don’t Worry Baby” moment. I’d truly believed that everyone got to experience one of those epically romantic moments once in their lives.
I had mine with Kline when he stood in his office—proving to me that he was every bit of the man I knew he was—and got down on one knee, asking me to spend the rest of my life with him. He’d lived up to the fantasy and then some. Sure, we’d had other amazing, swoony moments, but that one topped the rest by a landslide.
Damn, I miss my husband.
The flight had been long, and despite my valiant efforts to catch some shut-eye, I stayed wide-eyed and fidgety the whole way. After navigating my way out of baggage claim, I hopped in a cab and headed home.
I was nearly vibrating with excitement over surprising Kline.
The cab ride was short and sweet thanks to the time of morning, and with no rush-hour traffic or random construction delays to stop my progress, I was out of the cab and onto our elevator within 30 minutes.
I slipped in through the door, toeing off my heels and locking the dead bolt with a soft click. Leaving my suitcase and purse in the entry, I tiptoed down the dark hall and stopped at the doorway of our bedroom. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but when they did, it didn’t take long to find myself very, very confused by the number of figures lying in our bed. As I moved farther into the room, my night vision transitioned completely, and what I saw had me stopping dead in my tracks.
