Page 153 of The Storm

I snort out a laugh. “Because?”

He lets out a deep, forlorn sigh. “Because I demand it.”

“This was pathetic.”

“I know. You should feel sorry for me.”

I blow out a breath and shake my head. “Fine. Give me the puppy and go pack your suitcase.”

He hands Nova over. The puppy wiggles a bit but then settles in against my chest.

“See? You’re a natural.” He heads to his bedroom.

“I’m taking a really long lunch. I need to go get my stuff from my apartment if I’m staying the night,” I call after him.

He just laughs.

I graban overnight bag from my place and make it back to Callum’s right before he has to take off to make the team jet. He’s already running late, which apparently does nothing at all to discourage him from spending the next ten minutes crouched by the door, cuddling the puppy like he’s shipping off to war instead of boarding a private plane to a football game.

Eventually I have to physically shove him into the elevator.

“Text me updates,” he says while Nova gnaws happily on the sleeve of my hoodie.

“I will have no one to text those updates to if you don’t get out of here, will I?”

“I miss you already!” he yells dramatically just before the elevator doors close in front of him.

I’m left standing alone in Callum’s absurdly fancy entryway with Nova tucked against my chest.

The puppy blinks at me sleepily when I lift her higher.

“You really are adorable,” I tell her. “And no, I will not admit I said that to anybody.”

She licks my nose.

“A walk and dinner? I mean, it sounds like a pretty good date to me. God knows I haven’t had one of those in a long while.”

Nova responds by sneezing directly into my face.

I bury my nose in the back of her neck and breathe in the puppy smell before I go back inside the apartment.

I put her down on the floor where she starts sniffing around while I go through the bag Tina handed over with Nova and find a tiny harness. The second I pull it out of the bag, Nova loses her mind. I watch with amusement as she sprints circles around me, jumps, and barks excitedly, nails skittering against the polished hardwood floor.

“Oh my God.” I laugh. “Okay, come on now. You want to go outside? You’re gonna have to chill out for a second.”

Nova clearly takes that as encouragement and my very reasonable suggestion does absolutely nothing. A few minutes later, I’m on my knees on the floor, trying to wrestle an overexcited puppy into a harness when the door beeps and Nick walks in.

He stops dead in the doorway and blinks at the scene in front of him.

Nova takes the open doorway as her cue to seek freedom and sprints toward Nick’s legs.

“No, no, no, no, no, no—” I lunge after her and miss, and Nick keeps staring, doing nothing at all.

In the span of approximately half a second my brain produces about eight hundred catastrophic scenarios involving traffic, elevator shafts, kidnappers, predators, and me having to explain to Callum that I lost Nova.

“Oh fuck,” I gasp, scrambling to my feet. I slam straight into Nick in my haste to get out the door.

“Oof.” His arms wrap around me automatically to steady me before I can knock us both off our feet.