Page 5 of Mating of Convenience
Even if I was a little scared of who I might run into, other than my family.
3
Nathan
Ishould have been happy. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I was out walking five of the cutest dogs in Oceanport. So why wasn’t I smiling? The answer was simple. It was all in the company I kept.
I would have been fine if I’d been alone with the dogs: Sandwich, the cleverest Jack Russel terrier you’ll ever meet, Biscuit, a gentle Border Collie lady whose cuteness was only rivaled by Miss Floofy, the poodle walking beside her, and then there was Sir Barksalot, a Boston Terrier whose name told you pretty much all you needed to know about him. And walking right beside me was my own dog, Michel, a Labrador who was getting on in age but who wasn’t going to let anyone notice.
They were the best companions anyone could wish for, even if they did force me to stop all the time so they could sniff lamp posts and/or each other’s butts.
The problem was the human walking to my left. Aaron Mason. He was a dog-trainer--and the person who’d gotten me this job in the first place. He was my friend, normally. When he wasn’t endlessly nagging me about my ex who’d just come back to town merely a week ago.
Seriously, if there was one thing I didn’t want to talk about...
“Oceanport is tiny, Nate,” he started up again. “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen him around yet.”
“Of course I’ve seen him around,” I said, tugging on Miss Floofy’s leash. She was sniffing at something that might have been a chocolate bar once before it was discarded by the side of the road and run over. “Yuck,” I told her. She didn’t seem convinced, and now all the other dogs were taking notice too. Great.
Aaron only laughed at my predicament. Fine dog-trainer he was. “I’m off the clock,” he said when I shot him a look.
“Then why are you here?” I demanded, trying to tear the dogs away from the demolished candy remains.
“To annoy you, obviously.”
“You’re doing a great job of that.”
“Why, thank you.” Aaron gave me a smile, and finally got a tissue out of his pocket to scoop the offending chocolate up and out of reach of the dogs. “Now back to our conversation...”
I almost rolled my eyes at him, but then I remembered that I was twenty-five, not twelve. “I already told you, I’ve seen him. Are you happy now?” Aaron was right. With Oceanport being the small town that it was, it was nearly impossible to avoid people. Not that I wanted toavoidRaphael. I just didn’t know how to act around him anymore, or what to say.
When I’d spotted him in the check-out line at the supermarket the day before, I’d unceremoniously dropped the bottle of water I was going to buy. It was only my luck that it had rolled behind a stack of cans that had been carefully arranged in the shape of a pyramid, so when I chased it, no one standing in line could see me. At least not until I accidentally nudged the bottle with my foot, it crashed into the lower cans, and the whole construct came tumbling down, clattering to the floor.
At that point, I’d done the only thing Icoulddo--I’d dropped my other groceries and fled the store like the grown-up alpha I was.
I’d probably have to shop out of town for the next two weeks or so.
“So did you two talk?” Aaron asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Not really. I’m not sure he even noticed me.” I kind of hoped he hadn’t. He’d never let me live it down if he’d spotted me running from the store.
“Don’t youwantto talk to him?”
I gave Aaron a shrug because I didn’t know what to say. Of course I wanted to talk to Raph. I wanted everything back the way it was before he dumped me, but that wasn’t going to happen and I wasn’t going to grovel at his feet to take me back. What did it matter that my heart still skipped a beat when I saw him? We were over.
“You’re not even going to try?” Aaron asked.
“No, I’m not. Just back off, okay? I don’t know why this matters so much to you, anyway.” Raphael and I had been broken up for over a year. Enough time for my friend to get used to the idea.
“I’m your friend and I want you to be happy,” Aaron claimed. “If you were over Raph, I’d support you all the way but you haven’t been on a single date since he left town. I mean, I get that you didn’t want to do the long-distance thing, but he’s back now so--“
“We didn’t break up because of his move,” I said, continuing down the road with the dogs rather than paying any more attention to Aaron.
“But that’s what you told me.”
“I told you that because I didn’t want to talk about it!” My tone turned sharp and I hoped he would finally get the hint.
“Okay, okay,” he said, catching up with me. “Fine, you don’t want to talk about it. But think about this, if you can’t tell your best friend, who can you tell?”
