“No shit. And you left the peanut butter out last night—lid off, spoon still in the jar.”
“Oops …” I wrinkled my nose. “Sorry, I was starving when I got home last night.” After depositing my water bottle into the side pocket of my bag, I shoved my feet into my white sneakers sans socks.
“Surfing isn’t an excuse for leaving messes or being late for your first day of classes.”
“It’s my last year.” I grinned. “They can’t fail me now.”
Aubrey rolled her eyes while slicing veggies and fruit for juicing.
She was starting her junior year as a sociology major with no clue what she planned to do with that degree. I was a senior in political science—President Livy Knight … after law school, of course.
She acted thirty, making daily chores schedules for all four of us in the house while I played the part of a sixteen-year-old, putting surfing above all else.
She was responsible. I was fun.
We made it work.
Hooking my bag over my shoulder, I snatched my toast and winked at Aubrey. “Muah! Bye, bae. Have a great day at school. Don’t forget to take your teacher an apple.”
I didn’t have to glance over my shoulder to know she wore a scowl and secretly had fantasies about a shark devouring me. Responsible people hated fun people. They also got ulcers, died of heart attacks, and remained virgins well into their thirties. In all fairness, the two-story Mediterranean style house with a red roof, white paint, and teal arched front door belonged to her parents—ageless hipsters who worked for an animation studio but lived in a posher house in Santa Monica. They kept the house close to campus just so Aubrey had a place to live while going to school. I never fully understood the uber-wealthy, but if knowing them meant cheap rent, my own room, and a pool … then I wasn’t going to judge.
The second scowl of the morning came twenty minutes later when I arrived late to my first class. Two minutes … I wasn’t sure that truly counted as late, like less than five over the speed limit never resulted in a ticket. Professor Patel paused her opening statement, curling her pale lips around her veneered teeth as she waited for me to take a seat. Of course, all of the open seats were in the front row, but I’d have sat on some dude’s lap before I walked down several flights of stairs to the front row.
A nice, non-glaring student moved over one seat to let me sit on the end of the third row from the back. I stepped around the German shepherd perched at the end of the second to the last row to get to the open seat. After shrugging off my backpack, I made a quick glance over my shoulder while easing into my seat. The owner of the service dog eyed me, delivering the third scowl of my morning.
Turning back toward the professor, I begged with an apologetic smile for her to keep talking, diverting the room’s attention from me to her again. Once she started speaking, I stole another peek at the guy behind me.
Why did he seem so pissed off? Two minutes. I was two fucking minutes late. And why did he have a dog in a college lecture? If he were blind, he wouldn’t have seen me walk in late.
I tried my best to focus on Professor Patel and her overview of the snooze fest clean energy and technology course, but I caved to my curiosity, sneaking another glimpse at dog guy. He had to be new, a transfer, a drop out coming back.
It wasn’t that I knew everyone in my graduating class. However, sexy, scowling guy with a German shepherd would have snagged my attention long before my last year.
After class, I grabbed my backpack and turned to strike up conversation with dog guy and maybe to apologize for being two minutes late—and see if he’d let me love on his German shepherd.
“Where’d you go?” I mumbled to myself, lifting onto my toes before fighting my way up the stairs and through the crowd. There was no way he got away that quickly. He must have ditched class early which made him infinitely more mysterious and appealing.
“Way to show up late.” Karina elbowed me as we spilled out of the building with the rest of the herd.
“Hey.” I grinned while we navigated down the mountain of stone steps. “Two minutes.”
“Last year, bae … are you ready for this?”
I slid my arm through the other strap of my backpack. “Hey … did you see the guy with the dog?” My gaze continued to survey the area.
“Uh … yeah. He was the topic of whispered chatter from the moment he walked into the auditorium until class started … two minutes before you arrived.”
I rolled my eyes. “And?”
“Slade Wylder. He would have been a senior our freshman year, but he disappeared for a few years. Not sure why or where he went. Anyway … he’s back, and he lives across the street from you—maybe three or four houses east. Someone said he’s renting the firehouse that was condemned.”
“Dickerson’s?” My head whipped toward her.
“Yep.” Karina’s lips popped.
Patty Dickerson’s husband kidnapped a freshman girl the year before I started college. He kept her drugged in their dungeon for six months without Patty having a clue. Patty was in a wheelchair from some degenerative disease, so she never knew. There were some rumors that Patty didn’t even know they had a basement/dungeon—they weren’t exactly common in SoCal.
The one beneath the firehouse was small and sounded creepy as fuck: dark, windowless, and accessed by a trapdoor. A bunker for sick bastards to hide their victims. The girl managed to start a fire after Professor Dickerson—yep, he was a psychology professor, go figure—left a lit cigar near her.
The girl died. Patty got out. Professor Dickerson went to prison.
Someone bought the place and fixed the damage from the fire, but it had sat vacant with a For Rent sign out front ever since I’d lived on the street.
“How is it he has a dog in class? He’s not blind.”
“Someone said he’s deaf.”
I wrinkled my nose. That didn’t make sense.
“I suppose he reads lips.” She shrugged.
“Then he should sit in the front row, where he can actually see her lips.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s an emotional support dog.”
“When did they start allowing emotional support animals in classes?”
Karina laughed. “I don’t know anything about any of it. I’m just telling you what people were saying before class started. I’m this way.” She nodded to the right.
“Okay. I have an hour break.” I yawned.
“Nap?”
I nodded, still yawning.
“Set an alarm. See ya.”
I found my tree, but it wasn’t vacant on the east side in the sun. It was always vacant because … My. Tree.
Black tee.
Black jeans.
Black leather boots.
German shepherd.
Dog guy took my spot.
“I wouldn’t,” his deep, clipped warning prickled along my skin.
I liked it.
I liked the angle of his shadowed jaw and his prominent cheekbones—sharp like his tone.
I liked his deep brown hair trimmed close on the sides and long and messy as fuck on the top, as if he didn’t give it more than a quick comb through with his fingers before stumbling out the door.
My hand paused. I wasn’t petting the dog, just letting it smell me. And how did he know I was there? He mimicked a log, his head resting on his bag, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankles, hands interlaced on his chest.