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“No. I mean, I don’t really understand why you think you need one, but if that’s what all the kids are doing today...”
She snorted. “You make it sound like you’resomuch older than me. Two years is nothing.”
It wasn’t his age that made him feel that way. It was the fact that he’d lived an entire life’s worth of pain in his thirty-two years. While she, on the cusp of thirty, was still hopeful and eager and naive. It felt like an ocean between them.
“Why did you want to see a matchmaker?” he asked. “I’m genuinely curious.”
“I’m sure you have no idea what this feels like, but...” She glanced out of the window, as if trying to hide herself away from him. “Dating is scary. You don’t know if the guy is going to be a creeper or if he’s going to assume your only purpose in life is to pop out children or if he’s going to think you need to lose weight to deserve him.”
“I don’t know which one of those things pisses me off more.” Keaton frowned. “You’ve seriously had a guy tell you to lose weight?”
“Not directly,” she said. “But you get the meaning behind the words. He was overly concerned about my health when there’s nothing at all wrong with me. I’m healthy as a horse, according to my doctor. But he kept making comments about how being overweight leads to all kinds of problems.”
August was a full-figured woman. He wasn’t sure how you were supposed to describe that these days—curvy, plus-size or something else. All he knew was that he found her attractive and the idea that someone would think she needed to change her body to be “worth” their attention...
Oh boy. It made his blood boil like lava.
“People are assholes,” Keaton grumbled. “You look great just as you are. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you to change.”
“You think I look great?” There was a hint of amusement in her voice, almost like she didn’t believe him. Like he was pulling her leg.
He didn’t want to do his usual joking thing now and brush off what he’d said, because it might make her feel bad about herself and she didn’t deserve that. But if he backed the statement up...
Shit.
Why did he have to dig himself into these holes?
“Oh come on, August,” he scoffed. “You know you’re an attractive woman. Asher Benson clearly thinks so.”
There, direct it back to the guy she’s dating. Much safer.
“He does, and I feel the same about him.” It sounded like she was trying to draw some barriers, too.
“You know they used to call him Egg Head in the bullpen, right?” He chuckled. “All that forehead and blond hair...”
“Stop it.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you must know, we’ve had three dates so far and they all went well. I’m planning to see him after we get back.”
For some reason, that made Keaton’s skin crawl. She could dosomuch better.
It’s none of your business. Stay out of it.
He’d do his best to keep his mouth shut, but the first hint he got that Egg Head wasn’t treating her right, he would show up on that guy’s doorstep to teach him a lesson.
What the hell was going on with Keaton? He was acting so weird lately.
After his persistent probing about the matchmaker, August changed the topic of conversation back to the activities that lay ahead of them—three days of competition, where entrants would be eliminated round by round until Paws in the City had their winner and newest client. She wanted Keaton to have his game face on, because this wouldnotbe an easy competition.
She’d spoken with Isla earlier to let her know that she was coming along to help out her best friend, while also promising that she would keep her mouth shut about the grooming business so she didn’t piss of the documentary producer. Isla was delighted, since she’d wanted to include August from the beginning, but of course there would be no favorites played. She could never accept special treatment.
Molly would be standing on her own four paws...especially since she was likely to get minimal help from Keaton. And Isla had hinted that they had some amazing contestants to be excited about.
It would be stiff competition.
August glanced over her shoulder to check on the dog, who was happily snoozing in the back seat, secured with a harness. Then she glanced at Keaton, whose eyes were fixed on the road ahead. He was impossibly handsome. Sharp jawed and green eyed and a smile that—on the rare occasion it was genuine—could power a hemisphere. She knew he hid himself behind layers and layers of self-defenses. He had ever since he was a teenager. Leah could be the same way.
Truthfully, so could August.
The misfit trio had been broken by things that’d happened in the past. For Keaton, it was the period of time where he went off the rails and lost his grip on who he was. For Leah, it was watching her mother fall apart after Keaton got sent away. For August, it was knowing that for her parents, she would never be enough.
