Home > Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(7)

Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(7)
Author: Abby Jimenez

* * *

 

It was almost 5:00 and I was sitting at the bar in the kitchen going over case work when someone knocked on my door. I opened it to find Becky.

With a dog.

“I called you like seven million times,” she said. “I thought you were dead. You always answer your phone.”

“Can we not talk about me being dead?” I asked, standing in the doorway. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s your dog?” She picked up its paw and waved it at me. “The one I told you I was getting you?”

I shook my head. “That’s not my dog.”

It was a—I don’t know what it was. A Chihuahua maybe? But it was ancient. It had short brown fur with a random bald spot on its chest, cloudy, bulging, watery eyes, and a tongue that hung an inch out of the side of its mouth. It looked like a caricature of itself.

“Uh, yeah. It is your dog,” she said, smacking her gum.

I crossed my arms. “No, my dog is a dog I can take running. My dog is a dog too big for me to carry.”

She scoffed. “You’re a hermit now, remember? I bring you a Weimaraner or something, you don’t take him out, and he destroys your apartment. Then you go deeper down your rabbit hole and I have to visit you in the psych ward and smuggle a cell phone to you in my underwear so you can keep working because heaven forbid you take a mental health day.” She blew a bubble. “This dog is a lifestyle match.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“You’re meticulous with time management and routine, he’s got three medications a day. You want to stay home, so does he. You have a fancy apartment, he’s not destructive. He doesn’t shed, his poop is the size of a Tootsie Roll. He uses pee pads so you don’t even have to walk him if you don’t feel like leaving the house. He’s perfect. If you don’t love him, bring him to work tomorrow and I’ll take him back or something.”

I let out a long sigh and looked at the little thing. “Does he even have teeth?”

“Nope. Which is good because he bites.”

I snorted.

She picked up her bag from the floor. “Let me in so I can show you his stuff.” She squeezed past me, and I closed the door behind her. “Hold him.” She held out the shivering dog. When I didn’t take him, she gave me crazy eyes and pushed him gently into my chest.

He growled.

She plunged her hands into the bag she had with her. “Okay, so he’s got arthritis and allergies and a skin infection, so he gets one of these every morning and this last one at night too.” She shook three bottles. “Put them in cream cheese. He’ll just swallow it. He can’t have dry food because of the no-teeth thing, so he’s got wet food here. He needs a medicated bath once a week for his dry skin. Here are his diapers—”

“Diapers?” I said. “It’s incontinent?”

She paused with her hands in the bag to scowl up at me. “He’s fourteen. That’s like a million years old in people years. Also, he has worms.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “They already treated him for it. He’s just gonna poop them out or something, so don’t freak out if you see a tapeworm in there. Only freak out if it’s moving. Then you need to take him back to the vet.”

“Jesus Christ, Becky.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re asking me to be a damn dog nurse.”

“Yup.” She stood and handed me the bag.

I let out a resigned puff of air. “What’s his name?” I mumbled, looking reluctantly at him.

“Harry Puppins.”

“Oh God.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“Even though my horoscope today says my life is about to change drastically?”

She shrugged. “Well, the way I see it, it can only change for the better.”

She popped her gum one more time and left.

 

 

CHAPTER 4

 

 

THIS STARTLING VIDEO

WILL HAVE YOU COVERING

YOUR EYES!

 


VANESSA

I was dabbing Carmex on the split in my lip when I heard talking in the hallway. I leaned on my fingertips to peer through the peephole. Adrian, with some girl who was holding a Chihuahua.

I could barely see him from that angle, but I had a full view of her.

She was pretty, which I guess wasn’t surprising. The man was a ten. He could probably date supermodels if he wanted to.

Adrian got closer to her to look at the dog, and he shifted into my line of sight. He was still in his suit from earlier, only he’d lost the jacket and tie. The top two buttons of his light-blue work shirt were undone and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbow.

God, he was sexy. You could make a calendar of the many looks of Adrian Copeland and raise enough money to fund the cure for cancer. Adrian, jogging shirtless. Adrian in a suit. Adrian, with my cranky niece on his chest.

He looked annoyed. He had his arms crossed. I couldn’t really hear what they were talking about.

My laptop chimed with an incoming Skype call.

Drake.

I left my post and sat down and answered.

Drake Lawless’s tan face popped up onto my screen. Judging by the palm trees behind him, he was someplace tropical. I was already jealous.

He had on his shark-tooth necklace, no shirt as usual, and his blond hair was wild. I could practically smell the coconut sunblock and ocean through my computer.

“’Sup, gorgeous.” He gave me one of his dazzling smiles. “Sooo…Jesus’s Abs?”

I snorted. “You have no idea. The man is God’s gift to all of us,” I said, poking around my desk for a nail file. “It was like Jesus’s Abs take the wheel over here.”

Too bad I’ll probably never see him again unless I look through a peephole.

Drake didn’t get a chance to reply because Laird walked naked across the back of the screen.

“Laird!” I shrieked, turning hard to the left. Both men laughed from my laptop.

“Hey, Nessa,” Laird called.

I huffed indignantly at my floor. “Laird, I’m still not speaking to you.”

“Oh, come on.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I peeked up at the screen. Laird stood grinning at me over Drake’s shoulder, a direct view of his crotch mercifully covered by Drake’s body.

I crossed my arms. “First you leave me for Drake and make me scramble to find a new cameraman, and now you’ve made me see your balls. Just when I thought my week couldn’t get worse.”

Both men laughed again and Laird walked off screen, penis swinging. I looked back at Drake. “Please buy your employee some pants, or give him a fig leaf or a loincloth or something?”

He chuckled good-naturedly.

Typical Drake. Zero decorum. Camp Lawless was like a hippie commune. Naked yoga and going on about chakras. I wouldn’t be surprised if a goat wearing a lei with a chicken riding its back wandered through next.

Drake tipped his head. “You need anything, butterfly? How’s motherhood?”

“Good. Great. It’s amazing how much it changes you. I find myself saying things like, ‘It’s just baby pee.’ Like that’s okay, like it’s superior to the regular kind so I should be fine that it’s on my goose-down comforter.”

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