Dear Roomie (Rookie Rebels #5) - Kate Meader Page 0,21

French endearments to the dog? To her?

“Where would Bucky sleep?”

He stood, stretching to his full height. She was impressed with the whole man package in her immediate sightline. Walking away, even more so.

He barked over his shoulder. “Are you coming?”

Never mind. That rudeness was a vat of ice to her genitals.

She followed him further into the bowels of hell the apartment. He stopped at the entrance to one room and stepped back so she could peer inside.

The master bedroom.

“I have his bed there so he can be close to me when he sleeps.” A dog bed lay beside the nightstand. “But if he needs to sleep on the bed with me, then he can. I won’t have rules for that.”

Spoken as if rules were important—or important enough that an infraction, even by a dog, would have to be pre-approved, if only in Reid’s brain. Some people lived rule-bound lives, so it was probably a big deal if this guy was considering breaking one or two.

“And when you’re not here?”

“He can sleep anywhere but if he bonds with me, he might like to be in here. Perhaps he’ll smell me on the sheets.”

He sounded so earnest and her heart melted all over again. Kind of like Data in Star Trek striving to attain humanity. “Is he house-trained?”

A rather adorable sheepishness came over him. “He might need some help there.”

In other words, there had already been accidents but Reid had cleaned up. The house smelled lemony fresh. In fact, it looked pin-neat with not a hair out of place except for that cardboard box.

The only objection she could make was the potential for hurting this dog further. If Reid couldn’t be a more permanent, loving influence in his life, then Bucky might be harmed, though how could it be any worse than what he’d already endured? Reid wanted to try and he had a good point about the shelter—it wasn’t much better.

She looked down to find Bucky standing between them. He trotted in and sat in the dog bed.

“When you’re in the living room, he’d probably like being there with you, too,” she said. “If you don’t mind moving the bed around. Or you could buy two.”

“That’s a good idea. Between the pet store purchases and the vet visit, I’ve already dropped six hundred bucks on this guy. What’s another fifty?”

What, indeed? She kept her smile hidden. Reid’s affection for the dog was so stinkin’ cute.

“If I was here for a few days, where would I sleep?” Not in the master bedroom. Unlike Bucky, she wouldn’t want to get accustomed to the smell of Hot Jerk on his sheets.

“There’s a guest room here.” He walked further down the corridor and opened the door, gesturing with a hand inside.

She stayed where she was so as not to betray her excitement. A bed was a luxury, especially when you didn’t have ready access to one.

“What do you say?” He closed the gap, looming over her. “Will you help me, Kennedy?”

Saying her name should not have affected her, yet her heart sped up. That should have been a warning right there.

“How much does it pay?”

“Name your price.”

“Oh, you’ve gone and done it now.”

“You’re my only option. Either that or the shelter. I can’t leave him alone so you have all the power.” He moved past her, close enough to get a scent of him in her nostrils—something clean and woodsy—then went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. Bucky nudged his legs and Reid lifted him into his lap, murmuring soothing dog-babble. The dog shivered before relaxing in his arms.

Bucky wouldn’t do well at a shelter. He needed full-time care and these two had already bonded.

Kennedy had all the power, and for someone who had lately felt powerless, that was about as good a reason as any to say yes.

“Let’s talk about my fee.”

8

Reid might have made a mistake.

He lived a life constricted by rules. What to eat. How much to practice. When to sleep. His entire life was organized this way so he could be the best at what he did. Henri Durand expected it, so Reid expected it of himself.

When he was five, his stepfather took him onto the ice for the first time. Bastian was there as well, only three years old, and Reid remembered a hollow ache of disappointment that it wasn’t just him and Henri. That his baby of a brother was being introduced to the family business at the same time as Reid. Henri wanted to train them