Page 68 of Base Block

“No. Yes, maybe,” I said. I tilted my head to rest my face against his palm. “I hate the idea that I’m so weak and prey-able.”

“Are you talking about church? I didn’t know that you were religious.”

“No, I mean prey with an E, that I’m able to be preyed on. I hate that,” I answered.

“Why are you prey-able? I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “I want to know that I can protect myself. I don’t want to be a horse or a guinea pig, hiding and not showing pain because I have to be careful of predators.”

“You’re kind of losing me here,” he told me. “Horses must be terrible at hiding. They’re so big.”

“Never mind. I’m glad that you want to look out for me, Callum. I appreciate that,” I said. “I’ll think about what to do with Maverick.”

“Because we can’t have him knocking you down. I know you fell on your ass before and got hurt.”

“How did you know that?” I glanced over my shoulder and down at my butt. “Did you see—”

“No, I could tell by how you were walking. I’m not looking there.”

Of course not. I put my head back on his shoulder, sighing. But even now, when I felt pretty sad and pretty sorry about the state of affairs with Maverick, I was still aware of how glad I was to be here. Callum rubbed my back and I was so, so glad.

Chapter 14

“I’m sending that now. Right now.” I clicked. “You should have it.” Good, that was my last task of the day.

There was a pause. “Got it, thanks,” Jenae’s voice told me on the other end. Then she started talking to someone else and her words cut off midsentence, so the call was over. She’d thanked me this time, but I was becoming less and less happy about working with her, one of my Woodsmen Wags. She was what Anara called “peremptory, like a meerkat,” and I called “bossy, like a witch.”

She had been at my house for the Thanksgiving party with the other rookies and their families, but we rarely saw each other at games because she watched from a suite and she never waited for her boyfriend afterwards in the family lounge. But one time, we had run into each other and she had announced, “Oh, that’s Rainey. She works for me.” Which was true, yes, but we weren’t working at that moment! And—

Maverick strolled into the kitchen, my purse in his mouth. Again.

“No. No!” I told him, jumping up, and he thought it was the start of an exciting game. He took off and the condo wasn’t big, but it felt like we went about half a mile before I caught him and made him leave it. I had asked Beau if I could work from home for some of my hours, and one reason was to keep a better eye on the dog.

“If I’m around more, we’ll get more used to each other. He’ll accept me as an authority figure,” I had proclaimed.

“Uh huh.” Callum had looked extremely doubtful and later, I’d heard him having a discussion with Maverick about respecting me.

“You need to do better,” he had said very seriously. “I can’t have you acting up with Rainey. Pay attention to what she says and be a good boy.”

The dog had listened and wagged his tail. But since I’d set up a home office at our kitchen table, the two of us seemed to have regressed. He was acting worse, not better.

“You took him out of his routine with the daycare,” Anara had scolded. As she and I had talked, Maverick had lain quietly at her feet, totally peaceful and still. “He needs structure and stability. Consistency and firmness.”

I had remembered the woman from the animal shelter, the one who’d come to do our home visit, saying close to the same thing. “I know that. I’m trying to be consistent and everything,” I’d answered.

“But as long as he can sense—never mind,” my friend had said. “I’m going to work on with him on heeling.” He did great with that, as long as she gave the command.

She was also alone tonight because Demitrious was gone, and so was Callum. The offensive line coach had, for some unknown reason, gotten upset about a lack of effort that he thought he had spotted in the last game, the final one before the postseason started this weekend in California. The Woodsmen had lost that game but I wasn’t putting it on the backs of the offensive line.

“No way,” Anara had agreed. “It wasn’t their fault and they shouldn’t be punished for it.” We were both very convinced.

Unfortunately, the OL coach hadn’t asked for our opinions. He had brought the guys back to the same hotel where they usually spent the night before home games, in order to shake them up and force them to focus. They’d had intensive meetings and practices today, they would meet again tonight, and then they would finally come home after a regular day of workouts and practice tomorrow.

“This sucks,” Anara had said when we’d all heard this plan and she and I had been in agreement again. It did suck. Wasn’t Callum gone enough? Without him here, it would have been just me and Maverick, the purse eater, but I had other ideas.

“Want to go out?” I texted. Both Victoria and Anara answered that they did, and the dog fell for the cheese trick again. I got him into his kennel and left.

“Damn, it’s freezing!” Victoria said when I went to her house to pick her up. She seemed to have forgotten the issues with that old post of me, how awful and scary I looked in that picture. “Is this a new car? It’s nice.”