My hooligans greeted me at the door to the garage. “Hey, puppers. Were you good dogs?” Mack, my Staffy, bounced around with a toy in his mouth grunting while circling my feet. Jet, my Australian Shepherd, pushed her head against my hand before circling to the back door.
I pulled it open and watched as they galloped into the backyard. They couldn’t be more different. Jet was all elegance and refined femininity until it was time to go to work—her command for it’s time to focus on her task. Be it obedience, rally, nose work, fly ball or agility, Jet was ready to kick ass and take names. And she loved to compete.
Mack, dork that he was, hit the step off the patio crooked and tumbled ass-over-head into the grass, where he proceeded to roll around snorting. Poor guy hadn’t always been so carefree. I wondered about his inauspicious start in life quite a lot.
The brand on his tummy read 12DA.
Mack had come to me through a rescue. He was a good-looking Staffordshire Bull Terrier—not a Pit Bull or Pocket Pit like people assumed. He sported cropped ears and a docked tail, too. That alone suggested he hadn’t been born in a mill either.
I preferred the floppy ears on bully breeds because I thought it made them appear softer, sillier, less intimidating. Some people liked that tough-dog look, and some breed standards required it as part of the dog’s history and/or original purpose.
Unlike CC, Mack had zero training. Which made me think the mill swindled him out of a decent, or maybe backyard, breeder.
He worked hard to become a good companion animal. His fear response was more than the rescue could handle. It paralyzed him. I’d taken him home to work with him and the goofball stole my heart so completely he never left.
He was my one and only foster fail. And I didn’t consider him a fail at all. I loved him too much to do that.
Mack Truck wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box, but he more than made up for it in smiles, kisses and disposition. He did agility, too, but Mack didn’t have the body or uptake to be as good as Jet. His command in the ring was ready to play? Because he wasn’t going to do what you asked him in the correct sequence, but he had a grand time trying. He was so much fun to watch. Both my dogs loved agility, but Jet was born to compete; Mack wasn’t. There was nothing wrong with that as long as they both had fun.
I gave my doofus the belly rub he was asking for then went back in. After fixing their dinner, I stripped off my clothes and turned on the hot water in the tub for a nice long shower.
What a day.
I wasn’t worried about Dick’s threats. I didn’t care if he cut me out of the will, or off, or whateverthefuck. I lived modestly, within my means. Originally, before my douchebag ex, Trey, cheated, we’d planned to buy a McMansion when he finished his residency. Then I caught him with his sidepiece and threw his shit out of our apartment. Using money I’d saved, I bought this place after I finished my master’s. Trey had harassed me for several years after the split, and he worked for the Bulldogs. Yet another reason to stay away from the Bulldogs altogether, as if Dick and my dad weren’t enough.
Billy Costello had indeed embraced the pro football lifestyle. I loved my daddy, dearly, but I remembered with absolute clarity the fights with my mom after he’d been on a road trip and she’d found the proverbial lipstick on the collar. How I’d lock myself in my room and listen as dad trashed the house, and then he wouldn’t come home for a few days. Or when he couldn’t get out of bed to come watch my soccer games.
Slicking my hair with shampoo, I lathered up. I wondered how long it would be before Brody flaked on the mill. I wanted to believe he’d come through like he’d promised, but the reality center of my brain told me he’d ghost.
Fickle.
The man was fickle. He had a short attention span. I think he’d had one relationship in his pro career. It was the only time period he’d been photographed with the same woman more than once.
My body’s reaction to Brody was also highly inconvenient. The few times where he and I chatted at some event or another were always...flirty. Eyes lingered too long on each other. Mouths would get dry while other parts of me ran slick from even the politest conversation. We focused too much on each other. Flowed too easy together. I’d even catch him eyeing me as I spoke with other guests. Yet, at the end of the evening, he always found someone else to leave with. Chemistry was a bitch when the man you wanted most was also the last one you’d sleep with.
Of course, in the past, we’d always been in public, and our flirts had stayed polite. On the up-and-up.
Until today.
Being alone with him in his apartment had set off all kinds of slippery slope warning bells in the back of my brain. Yet, when heat flooded his rich chocolate irises, I could have used a change of panties.
Turning, I let the hot cascade of water beat on my shoulders to loosen the knots in my neck. The fantasy suite scandal was still making headlines on the regular, too. I mean, the dude had been caught participating in a team orgy. I wasn’t judging. If that was his thing, more power to him, but it was something straight out of an episode of Ballers. I only knew what I’d seen in the news, but at least seven Bulldogs players had been identified in the pictures one of the women sneaked, and Brody was in the thick of things. On top of that, they’d trashed a $20,000-per-night presidential suite.
No matter how much I wanted to rub my naked self all over his naked self, Brody Shaw was look but don’t touch.
He was beyond pretty to look at, though.
I lathered my washcloth, letting the conditioner sit in my hair. God, that guy’s shoulders, and arms. His thighs and butt. The hair and jaw and scruff, the lips and... Gahhh!
Then there was the gaze when he fell in love with his dog—so soulful, with an unexpected softness and complexity from a guy who could snap a quarterback like a twig. His eyes were totally at odds with the easy-going facade. Brody Shaw had a lot more depth than he wanted people to see.
Then, there was the intensity on his face when I slipped through the doorway. I’d always wondered what he’d be like in bed. The whole football thing made me think he was likely all rough and raw. But those eyes...they spoke of slow and easy. Rocking back and forth while I straddled his hips, and Sunday mornings under the covers.
Of course, that was ridiculous. Sundays were for football.
That thought killed the fantasy fast. It was a good thing, too. Thinking about sleeping with Shaw would only make it harder for me to concentrate around him—coveting what I would never let myself have.
I considered my handheld showerhead snuggled into its spot below the regular one...sigh.
Flicking the water to cool, I rinsed my conditioner, and got out before I thought better of it. Mack had pushed the bathroom door open. He was curled up on my bath rug, little nub tail going in circles.
Mommy’s little monster, that was him.