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“Ready?”
“Yes.”
He stands from the bed, offers me his hand, and links our fingers together. Hand in hand, we head out to the garage. He offers to stop for breakfast, but I’m cutting it close on time, so I decline.
“I should be home around five or a little after.”
He leans over the console and kisses me sweetly. “Have a good day, baby.”
Butterflies swarm my belly. “You too.” I wave awkwardly and climb out of his SUV. He doesn’t move until I’m in the house. Not able to resist, I peek out the blinds and watch him drive away. I pinch my leg and jump from the pain. I had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming that this is real, that this is really my life. With a smile on my face, I rush to the shower and get ready for work.
I’ve just released the dogs so they can run as my stomach grumbles. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I see it’s just after ten. I should have taken the time to at least grab a granola bar this morning. Oh, well, I’ll just have to deal until I can run out for lunch. I rushed out of the house this morning without packing anything. Being hungry is worth not running late. I usually hate to have to rush, and it puts my entire day off-kilter, but somehow, today that’s not the case. Well, unless you count my stomach’s angry growl. I guess waking up with Landon makes all the difference.
Heading back inside, I find Aubrey in our shared office. “Hey, what are you looking at so hard?” I ask, watching her stare at her laptop.
“Just going over the details for the adoption fair this weekend.”
“What can I do? We’re all set, right?”
“Yes. We have plenty of volunteers, but I’m just worried about the attendance. Our fairs here at the shelter don’t do nearly as well as the ones when we hold them at the mall or other shopping centers. We’re at capacity and I’m hoping we can find some of our animals forever homes.”
“Okay. So what do we do? We’ve got social media ads going. We’ve passed out over five hundred flyers. We have posters hanging all around town. What are we missing?” Before she can answer, the chime sounds, letting us know we have a visitor. There are no volunteers on the schedule until this afternoon. Standing from my desk, I start for the door, but before I can make it to the threshold, Landon is there.
“Hey.” He leans in for a quick kiss. “I assumed you didn’t take the time to eat. I know how much you hate to run late, so I stopped at the Seaside Café and bought you your favorite.” He holds up the bag from the café as his proof.
“Best bo— guy ever,” I stumble over my words.
He leans in close, placing his lips next to my ear. “Boyfriend, Em. You had it right the first time.” His lips press against mine, and that’s all it takes for me to get lost in him.
“This is new.” Aubrey chuckles, pulling us out of our trance.
Landon smiles down at me, hands me the bag from the café, and turns his attention to Aubrey. “Landon Barker, boyfriend to Emma Deaton.” He smirks, holding his hand out for Aubrey to shake.
“Stop.” I pull on his arm, bringing it back to his side. He takes that as an opportunity to lace his fingers with mine.
“Looks like I missed a lot last night from Harvey’s until now.”
“You could say that,” I confess.
“What I want to know is why am I just now hearing about it?” Her smile is wide as her eyes give me a knowing look.
“I was running late, and came in and got straight to work. I was going to tell you, but you looked like someone just kicked your puppy and we started talking about the adoption event on Saturday and well, this guy decided to show up and started throwing around titles.” I bump my shoulder into Landon’s.
“Hey, I earned that title. I’m all about throwing it around.”
Aubrey sighs. “Sorry, I’m just worried about this event.”
“What event?” Landon asks.
“We schedule several adoption events each year. Keeps the public informed and reminds them we’re here. We’re at capacity for the animals, and Aubrey’s concerned we’re not going to have a good turnout. Usually we go to a shopping mall or a pet store, something like that, and transport a few of the dogs and cats, but since we have Buckwheat and we’re so full, we thought we would schedule the event here. We won’t have the same traffic as the shopping centers.”
“When is the event?”
“Saturday.”
He nods. “What time?”
“One o’clock.”
“I was hoping you might say that.” We stand by and watch as he pulls his phone out of his back pocket and his fingers fly across the screen. “There.” He looks proud of himself as he turns his phone to show me the screen.
