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“Asher would be happy to take you away,” Keaton teased, nudging her with his elbow. “Pretty sure his folks have a house in the Hamptons.”
August wrinkled her nose. For some reason, going to a big, fancy house in the Hamptons didnotappeal to her anywhere near as much as walking through the forest with a handsome man by her side and a dog at her feet. She’d always been a bit more of a “dirt under the fingernails” kind of gal than someone who wanted glamorous vacations and designer swimwear and an expensive vacation home.
“What’s with the face?” Trust eagle-eyed Keaton not to miss that detail.
“What face?”
“Don’t play innocent with me, Augie. I say Hamptons and you screw your face up like I suggested you take a vacation in a dumpster. What gives?”
“I don’t know, that’s just a bit...pretentious, isn’t it? Not my scene.” She shrugged. “Would make my parents happy, though. I finally found a man that’s the ‘right caliber’ to date. Ugh.”
For some reason, that made the idea of Asher sour a little bit in her mind. Her parents wouldlovehim.
“They still pushing you to chase the upper middle-class dream, eh?” Keaton said, raising an eyebrow. “Climb that next societal rung?”
“You know what they’re like. Everything is about status.”
Her parents had been obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses for as long as August could remember, always so worried about what people would think—was their car good enough? What about the brand of her mother’s purse? The place where she got her hair cut?
It was the reason they were so angry that August had defied their plan for her to become a doctor or a lawyer or something else worthy of bragging about to their friends. Apparently, dog grooming was a waste of her schooling, never mind that August hadn’t even wanted to go to that fancy-ass school in the first place.
“It’s like, they can’t even enjoy their lives because they’re so focused on what they don’t have.” August shook her head. “Every decision they make is about what’s going to impress their vapid friends and get them into the right circles. They only know how to want for more.”
“That’s a chronic disease in our world.” Keaton grunted.
August glanced up at him and was struck by how handsome he looked in that moment—without the suit, without the styled hair, without his usual walls. The light made his green eyes look almost otherworldly and picked up on the fine stubble dusting his chin where he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning.
“I find it sad,” she said. “That people waste their lives chasing such superficial things.”
“Me too.”
The way he said those two words hit something in her chest. It had been a long time since August felt truly understood by a man. The vast majority of her dates had been somewhere on the scale of wet blanket to raging dumpster fire because the guys only seemed interested in talking about what they wanted out of life, assuming that she would fall in line. Asher had been better where that was concerned, but he was also from a different world. The whole “his family has a house in the Hamptons” was indication of that.
But Keaton knew. He knew what it was like to make mistakes and to struggle and fight for what you wanted. He knew what it meant to make tough decisions. Maybe she felt like he understood her because hedid. They’d known each other since they were teens. They’d grown up together in a lot of ways.
She swallowed. There was something dangerous about him being here with her. Without all that custom Italian wool and leather for armor, he looked so much more touchable. So much more attainable.
Which was a lie, because Keaton Sax was about as far from attainable as a man could possibly get.
“Oh, look,” she said, pointing and hoping her voice didn’t sound as tight out loud as it did in her head. “There’s somewhere we can stop and work with Molly.”
Keaton might be the perfect guy in some ways, but she couldn’t forget that the man he was now wasn’t the same man she fell in love with all those years ago.
10
“I’m never going to get this,” Keaton groaned.
They’d been working for a solid forty minutes, trying to get Molly to jump over a plastic rod. August was convinced she knew how to do the trick, but whenever Keaton asked Molly to do anything, she went rogue.Ifshe did anything at all...
Which currently, she was not.
The husky lay on her side, flopped out as if she’d decided she couldn’t possibly work under such conditions and had fainted like an actress in a bad daytime soap opera. Only she hadn’t fainted, because he could feel her icy blue eyes on him the second she thought he’d turned away.
“This goddamn dog...” He let out a breath. “Do you knowIwas the one who suggested Leah get a dog? Great companionship, I said. Good for security, I said. People with dogs live longer, I said.”
August was doing her very best not to laugh, but her cheeks were pink from the effort.
“Don’t,” he said, holding up a hand. “I know you think I’m being as dramatic as she is—”
