Page 63 of Sidelined By Love

An image of my dad yelling at his quarterback flashes across my mind’s eye.

Grant towering over my dad’s beet-red face, that vein in his forehead on full display.

No.

Dad won’t yell directly at Grant. An underling will take the brunt of it.

Great. That’s another person’s misery on my conscience.

Way to go, Zoe.

Maybe—just maybe—I’ll get a chance to begin to make things right in Knight’s film. Maybe I can show them all that I am not that person.

A gust of a wind whips down the sidewalk, and I snuggle deeper into my puffy red coat, pulling it closed at my neck a second too late. The chill rushes through me, sending goosebumps across every inch of my skin.

“Come on, dude.” With my toe, I give Bronco a little nudge to his rear end, but he’s obsessed with the greenery in the hedgerow. His brown nose fully disappears into it at the exact moment the homeowner of the quaint white house opens the front door and sticks her head out.

I jerk my black ball cap a bit lower over my face, a futile attempt to be less conspicuous.

Yeah, I pretty much blew that when I picked out this coat, which is basically the equivalent of an all-points bulletin.

“Everything all right there?” the woman calls, her hooded gaze narrowing even more on me. She clutches a blue cardigan under her chin, keeping watch as I stand on her stretch of sidewalk.

Holding up the leash to the dog she probably can’t see from that angle, I nod. “Fine. He’s just interested in your shrubs.”

“You better not let him poop in my yard.”

The premature accusation in her voice makes me laugh out loud, which draws a deep scowl.

“I’m not joking. I have the cops on speed dial.”

Well, wouldn’t that just give the paps a field day? First Marissa slapping me. Then Grant carrying me. Then me in handcuffs.

“We’re moving along. I promise.” I tug. Bronco lays down on the sidewalk. “Come on,” I whisper-shout.

Nothing.

The lady with the head of gray curls steps onto her stoop. “You look familiar. Have you been snooping around here before?”

My gaze whips toward her before I tuck my chin into my coat and move to scoop up my disobedient companion. Grant made this look easy, but carrying this hunk of dead weight threatens to topple me. Especially when he begins to wriggle.

“I know I’ve seen you before.” The disgruntled homeowner is marching toward me now, waving an old-school cordless phone in her hand.

I used the same model in an indie movie I did a few years ago that was set in the ’90s.

But now is not the time to reminisce about that movie. Or where she might know me from. Instead, I try to run, basset ears flopping against my arm as I begin wheezing.

Stupid altitude. Shouldn’t I be used to this by now?

The woman is still yelling at me, threatening me with her phone, jabbing the antenna in my general direction. But I can’t run another step.

Embarrassing.

I blame Bronco.

Mostly.

Gasping for another breath, I set him back on all fours. Maybe he recognizes danger. Or maybe he’s just ornery. Either way, he immediately begins his best waddle, towing me over the sidewalk cracked by hundred-year-old tree roots.

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