The Conundrum of Collies (Love & Pets #6) - A.G. Henley Page 0,24
people’s judgments about us.
I want to touch my friend, to reassure her, but instead I reach down and scratch Bean’s head. She looks at me and grins. Not really, but the patch of white around the underside of her jaw and up onto her muzzle makes her look like she’s smiling.
“At least she hasn’t chased Rosa’s chickens in a few weeks,” I say. “Full credit for that.”
“True. Thanks to the club and Emmy and Jude’s training.” Stevie brushes away something off her arm. “Oh, hey, what would you say to going out with Emmy, and Jude and me this weekend?”
Emmy . . . and Jude and me. I don’t like the sound of that. Like Emmy and I would be a pair, and Jude and Stevie would be another pair.
A couple of answers shoot through my brain, all with one response in common: no. Not unless the pairing is Stevie and me, and Emmy and Jude. Or Stevie and me, and anyone else.
But instead of that, I say yes while silently cursing my cowardice.
Chapter Eleven
Stevie
Friday afternoon I put the finishing touches on a website redesign that I’ve been working on all week for a local restaurant. I’m particularly proud of this one. The design is simple but fresh, the colors pop, and best of all, I managed to do most of it before midnight each day for the last week.
I’ve been inching my bedtime up by half an hour every day. Before this week, it wasn’t weird at all for me to still be working at dawn, so midnight is a major improvement. I decide to celebrate finishing the website and working hard to accomplish number four on my list, establish a healthy work-life balance, by cleaning my room.
Cleaning can’t be high on anyone’s list of ways to celebrate things, mine included. But I’m on a roll and tackling two items on my bucket list in one day is way too exciting a prospect to pass up.
I tackle my tangled bed first, starting with stripping my sheets and washing them, along with my comforter, something that doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should. Then, I move on to cleaning out my nightstands—how old are these lip balms??—and then my closet and chest of drawers. That’s not as much of a challenge, thanks to my skimpy wardrobe.
My desk, however, is another story.
I face it, hands on my head. I haven’t cleaned out my desk in . . . I don’t want to think about how long. The tabletop is about five feet wide with a hutch thingy on top and several drawers below. I have two file cabinets overflowing with contracts and other paperwork, and my Wall of Inspiration, a huge whiteboard that I use as a physical Pinterest of sorts, covered in drawings, snippets of magazines, and paper stuck on with magnets, is mounted on the wall over the file cabinets.
I often sketch out my ideas on the Wall of Inspiration before I do any computer work. Over the course of a few projects, it can get pretty crowded. I rarely take the time to really clean up the Wall or my desk, so things tend to stack up.
With a deep, settling breath, I take everything off my desk, including my MacBook Pro and printer, and pile it on my naked mattress. To the bed, I add my sketch pads, file folders, pens, pencils, markers, thinking yoyo, and, teetering on top, my plants. I have to have some green on my desk.
Next, I pull everything off my Wall and make a couple of neat piles. A lot of the piles can be recycled or go into my finished project file folders. This really shouldn’t take that long.
But. It’s like walking down a few months or even years’ worth of work memories.
Tam and I once dug out an old photo album at Mom and Lamar’s house, searching for a particular picture. We ended up on the floor hours later with about ten albums open around us, glasses of wine in hand, laughing and almost in tears. This is a little like that.
And that’s why Logan finds me, when he gets home from work, lying on my back on the floor with Bean, both of us surrounded by finished logos, sketches, invoices, magazine scraps, and manila folders. A glass of wine, thrice emptied, is on the nearest side table.
Logan’s wearing one of his cute little preppy collared shirts with a tie and slacks. His leather messenger bag is on his shoulder,