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Now that he’s restrained and not more in my business than my gynecologist was yesterday, I bend down to give Tigger some scratches behind his big, floppy ears. “Happy to help.”
Landon comes back, looking decidedlylesshappy to help, but I got him here, so I’m calling it a win.
“Well, let me put this guy away and then we’ll get you guys started,” Melissa says, turning to take Tigger back to the row of cages lining the wall.
I lean closer to Landon. “Should I film you for your first LandonLifts episode?” I tease.
“So I can do bicep curls with a puppy in each hand and talk about pet shelter overpopulation and the importance of spaying and neutering?”
“See? You’re a natural.”
He shakes his head. “Too much talking for my liking. Film yourself. You’re the one who likes to lecture, Miss Future Professor.”
“Yeah, but I’d have a likability issue. If you do it, people will be like, ‘aw I love this.’ If I do it, they’ll be like, ‘why don’t you shut your stupid whore mouth and mind your own business, you self-righteous pain in the ass.’”
His eyebrows rise. “Wow. That’s a lot of contempt for someone just trying to slow down animal euthanasia.”
“Yep. Welcome to life as a woman.”
“Eh, fuck the haters. We don’t need ’em, anyway. I’ll always have more than enough money to fund whatever save the world project you’ve got in your head. If I need more, I have all the contacts I’ll ever need to make money without even doing much. When you have a lot of money, it’s easy to make more.”
“Funny, when you don’t have money, it’s hard to makeany. Must be nice to come into the world knowing you’ll never have to worry about such things.”
He shrugs. “I guess. Didn’t always love that my dad worked so much, though. After Mom… I didn’t care so much, but when I was younger, I always wished he would care less about work and more about spending time with us. Like he said the other night, in twelve years, he took us to Disney once. We could afford to go on a family vacation every goddamn month if we wanted to, but… we didn’t. He was always too busy.” He shrugs, tucking his hands into his pockets. “If I ever do the family thing, I’m not going to be too busy. I’d rather do shit with the people I love than spend every second of every day making money I’ll never need.”
I drift close and lean my head on his shoulder. “I like that,” I say softly. “I obviously grew up on a budget, so we have had vastly different experiences with money. When you don’t have enough, it’s stressful, but because of your dad, you do, and… I think it’s really healthy that you’re able to see when enough is enough, to be able to stop and let yourself actually enjoy it. I didn’t know your mom, but I bet she would be proud to hear you say that.”
His fingertips graze the side of my hand, then he grabs it, and my tummy flutters as he links our fingers together. Generally, he spends a lot of time smirking, but when his lips tug up this time, all I see is tenderness etched across his face.
Then he turns his head and drops the cutest little kiss on the tip of my nose.
My heart seems to free fall down an empty elevator shaft and a smile I can’t suppress steals across my face.
But before I can say or do anything, before I can respond at all, Melissa comes walking back over to us without the outgoing pup. She clasps her hands together and looks from Landon to me. “All right, are we ready to work?”
Reluctantly, I pick my head up off my shoulder and take a step away from him. “We sure are,” I say.
“You guys have any particular talents I can put to use?”
“She’s good at everything,” Landon says. “I’m pretty strong.”
Blushing, I mutter, “I am not good at everything.”
Melissa smiles. “How are you with computers?”
“I’m no coder, but I’d say I’m pretty good with them.”
“We could use some help updating the website if either of you are proficient at that sort of thing. We like to post our adoption numbers for the year, and currently we still have last year’s up. It’s just something I never seem to have time for. Of course, we keep the adoptable pets photolisting up to date since that’s the most important thing, but we do have a whole litter of puppies, a six-month-old female, and a senior male that need to be photographed and listed. They also need to be posted to socials. If you’re any good at filming videos, some of our volunteers will take videos and set them to like… Sarah McLachlan music to get the hearts engaged online.”
I chuckle. “I can do all that. I’m a pretty good writer, so I can write up their bios as well if you tell me a little bit about them.”
“That would be wonderful.” Since I have a bunch of tasks to get started on, she turns her attention to Landon. “Do you have any interest in dog walking? We have a German shepherd mix that pulls, so a lot of my girls won’t walk her, but you look like you could handle her.”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
“When you get back, can you hold the puppies while I take their pictures for the website?” I ask him. “If we can’t lure them in with Sarah McLachlan, maybe we can give them false hopes of meeting the muscled hunk snuggling the puppies in the pictures online.”
“You are ruthless,” Melissa says. “I love it.”
