“You did that the wrong way. In business you’re supposed to get as much money as possible. Plus, he’s a celebrity, which you seem to have forgotten. If I’d been you, I probably would have swiped something from his living room as a memento.”
“I think he would have noticed if I stuck his Golden Globe down my shirt.” She had a point about the money thing. I recognized that it didn’t make sense, but I hadn’t wanted to take his money.
Maybe it was because part of me didn’t want our relationship to be a purely professional one, no matter what I kept telling myself.
“I so needed this,” Shelby said and took another big bite of her ice cream. After she swallowed she added, “Because I went down to check the mailbox while you were gone, and guess what I found?”
She reached toward the middle of the table and put a magazine in front of me called California Architectural.
“Oh no . . . is this what I think it is?” I noticed a Post-it tagged to one of the pages and flipped to it.
Sure enough, there was Millicent Nabors standing in her newly renovated condo. She was an actress from a show on the CW network and had met Shelby through Allan and hired her. Shelby had done a fantastic job, given these pictures, but at the last minute Millicent had fired her and reneged on her final payment by claiming that Shelby had violated one of the terms of their agreement (which she totally did not do), leaving Shelby in a financial lurch.
And now in the article, Millicent was claiming credit for the design, saying she’d always “had a natural instinct for it.”
Allan had told us that, given their contract, there wasn’t anything Shelby could do about it.
“I was counting on this,” she said sadly. “I thought it was going to launch my career.”
“I’m so sorry. You didn’t need her and her tacky animal-print rugs. You’re going to be a huge success.” I sighed, not wanting to let her down but knowing that this information could bolster her spirits. “And something happened tonight that might make you feel better, although I don’t want to get your hopes up, especially considering how badly this Millicent Nabors thing went.”
“What?”
“Noah Douglas’s house is a wreck, so I gave him your card and recommended you. His place is like if some supervillain from the 1970s was put into a cryogenic sleep and woke up today with the sole intent of decorating Noah’s home badly with a seventies flair. I’m talking green shag carpeting and yellow appliances, my friend.”
“Oh no. That’s terrible.” Her face crumpled slightly but then immediately brightened. “But yay that he might call me! I know it’s a long shot, but hey, a long shot is sitting across from me right now.”
I took a big bite of my ice cream. She wasn’t wrong.
Shelby studied me and then announced, “I feel like there’s something else you aren’t telling me.”
She knew me too well, and there was no way I’d be able to hide it from her. “There is.” I set down my spoon, and she widened her eyes. That gesture meant I was serious and she’d immediately understood it. “He said that he would like to see me, in his words, in a ‘non–dog grooming capacity.’”
“Like . . . a date? He wants to go out with you?” she squealed, bouncing up and down in her chair.
“Those were his exact words. Feel free to interpret them however you’d like.”
“Oh, you don’t want to say that.” She had her hands clasped to her chest, and her eyes had a dreamy, faraway look. “Because he was very obviously saying he wants to spend the rest of his life with you and now our double wedding is going to be even more fabulous. Can you imagine the kind of celebrities we’ll be able to invite?”
I shook my head, giggling at her silliness. This was why we were close. I brought her back down to earth when she went off on one of her flights of fancy, and she urged me to lift my head up and not get so bogged down by the daily grind of real life. She reminded me that it was important to dream and to fly.
“I don’t want to be the one to burst your bubble here, but I told him I wasn’t interested.”
A look of pure horror crossed her face. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m not. I closed that door.”
“Having worked with so many doors in my profession, I can tell you this—that’s the thing about doors. Once you close them, they’re designed to be opened again.” When I didn’t respond, she got up and rinsed out her bowl, immediately putting it into the dishwasher. I’d have to remember to do the same with my own bowl or else she’d get upset with me for letting it languish in the sink.
“Are you really not interested in him at all?” she asked, and I heard that tone in her voice again, the one that let me know she understood something more was going on with my love life but that she wouldn’t press the issue. That she would wait until I was ready to tell her.
I didn’t think I’d ever be ready.
“Noah is . . . different.” It was the most truthful answer I could give her.
“Different how?”
I didn’t have the words to explain, so I just said, “I don’t know.”
She closed the dishwasher door. “Is it because he played Felix and Malec? Like you’re transferring your crush from them onto him?”
“No, it honestly has nothing to do with the characters he’s played. It’s him. He’s just different, and this is the first time I . . .” I couldn’t continue.
Thankfully she didn’t press me further. Another thing I loved about her—she always understood when to push and when to back down. “Well, I don’t think that’s the last you’ve heard of him.”
“How could it not be? I told him no thanks.”
She shrugged. “I just don’t think Noah Douglas is the kind of guy who gives up that easily.”
Her phone rang, and she went into the living room to grab it. I could tell from the sappy look on her face that it was Allan. Again, I felt that pang of envy that I didn’t have anyone in my life who made me feel the way Allan made Shelby feel.
Maybe you could.
It was dumb to think. Even dumber to hope for. I didn’t know how to get over my terrified-of-kissing issue. If it was just mind over matter . . . but it wasn’t. I wished it was, but I couldn’t just force myself to be fine and not have a panic attack every time I got close to a man.
The problem was, as Shelby had so often bragged, she was usually right. And she’d been right about everything so far.
That was what had me concerned.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It turned out to be a lot of worry over nothing. I didn’t hear from Noah again. My life continued on as it always had. I spent a lot of time going into different veterinarian’s offices to leave a stack of business cards with them, hoping somebody would pick one up and call me. I also went out on the few appointments I had for the week and groomed some gorgeous pooches. I hung out with Shelby a lot more than normal because Allan was working on a case that was demanding a lot of overtime, and I chatted with my mom a couple of times about her upcoming play. Ran some errands, ate some chocolate, watched some TV. Normal.
There were no restricted incoming phone calls.