Page 54 of A Lick and A Promise
“It’ll only take half an hour. Can you wait half an hour?” he asked.
I could wait eternity for him, which was the problem.
“It’s gonna take you that long to get up the stairs,” I noted.
“If you don’t want me to try to prove you wrong, don’t issue a challenge.”
God, he was a pain.
I rolled a hand. “Take your time but get on with it. I came here before going home to Jacques, and we both know he’s a very good boy, but it’s not nice to make him wait.”
Knox continued up the stairs, saying, “If I gotta be home, you should bring him over in the morning. I’ll look after him. Once I get more mobile, I can take him for walks, and he can use my backyard in the meantime.”
I turned to the windows that pretty much made up his back wall.
The woodwork around them was painted black. It looked good with the rest of the space.
As mentioned, although the development Knox bought into had no personality, the inside did. I’d been uber impressed the first time I’d walked in.
He had super good taste.
The gray cupboards of his kitchen, with the black metal open shelves on the back wall and black industrial lighting over the bar. The big dark-gray tweed sectional (he even had toss pillows!). The wood accent walls. The small but totally pimp backyard with its built-in outdoor kitchen and its also-small pool, which had one of those things on it that you could turn on and it shoved water at you so you could do laps, even if you didn’t get anywhere.
We’d had sex in that pool (without that water thing going).
And once we established I’d be spending the night every night, Jacques had been with me.
He’d missed his Uncle Knox when he was gone.
It would be awesome if my furry baby had company all day.
What are you thinking!? My brain screamed.
And…
Yeah.
Sure, friends looked after friends’ dogs, and it would probably be helpful for Knox to have company while he was cooped up at home recovering. Not to mention, a good excuse (not that he’d need it) to take regular walks.
But Jacques totally missed Knox when he was gone.
And this would be temporary.
I couldn’t do that to my dog again.
While Knox showered, I killed time replying to our Angels text string (it seemed all were in favor of feeling out Byron, not to mention my reprieve to talk about Chambers Family Business was going to last until Saturday, because Gemma was pulling together a karaoke night for Friday, and that totally worked for me—not karaoke, which I detested, but delaying our official Angels confab).
“Babe! You’re up!” Knox shouted from upstairs.
“Do you have everything I need up there?” I shouted back.
“Yeah!” Another shout.
I walked up the stairs.
I stopped dead in his doorway when I saw him shirtless, wearing loose workout shorts that were long in the leg, but he’d tucked one up on one side. He was sitting on the side of his bed, his wounds exposed.
My head went woozy, and I had to wrap my fingers around the doorframe to stay standing.
