the screen facing her boss as she turned it off. But then because she was so fucking happy, she found herself mouthing, “A million and one.”
Heidi grinned.
Stef slid her cell back into her pocket.
Then she let her life happy bleed into her work happy . . . and found herself happy happy for the first time in a long time.
She was driving to doggy day care when Ben called her.
“Hello?” she answered via her car’s Bluetooth.
“You done with work?”
“Just finished.” She glanced over her shoulder, checked for traffic as she changed lanes.
“Come to my place.”
Four husky words and her legs pressed together, her brain struggled to focus on the traffic clogging the freeway. “I have to go get Fred.”
“Get Fred. Then come to my place.”
Signaling again, she forced her way into the next lane, one step closer to the exit. “You have a white rug.”
Silence.
Then, “Yes, I do.”
“Right,” she said, half-distracted as she crammed her car into a tiny opening and managed to navigate onto the off-ramp. Fucking California traffic was the worst.
“I’m not understanding your obsession with my white rug.”
She thought it was rather obvious. “It can get dirty.”
Another pause, shorter this time. “Isn’t that what rugs do?”
Okay, he had her there. But still, it was a white rug and Fred was Fred. He’d get into something, and the white rug wouldn’t be white and—
“Stef?”
She turned right at the signal. “Yeah?”
“It’s just a rug.”
He also had her there. Except, “It’s probably an expensive rug, and you haven’t seen what kind of damage a golden retriever can do to expensive and white household objects. He’ll ruin it, and it’s probably not washable, and I certainly can’t afford to buy you a new one and—”
“Baby?”
The endearment had her heart fluttering up into her throat. “Yeah?” she managed to push out for a second time.
“Come to my place. Bring Fred.”
Her protests welled again, but he just hung up.
Well, that was one way to end a conversation, and she found that she wasn’t even mad that he’d just disconnected. It was bossy and a little annoying but also a whole lot sexy, and . . . he wanted her to bring Fred.
That had her smiling and staring out the windshield.
A knock on the window had her jumping, clamping her hand to her chest. She hadn’t realized that she’d made it into the drive-through pickup for day care, and Fred was there, a handler holding his leash.
She scrambled to unlock the doors, made small talk as Fred was buckled into his seat belt.
Just before she was going to pull away from the curb, her phone buzzed.
With a text from Ben.
Then again with another.
The first was a pin for her to navigate to the proper entrance of the parking garage. The second was a QR code for her to show the security office.
A final buzz told her to park in spot PH-3.
Stef stared blankly at her screen for a few minutes before Fred whined. That snapped her out of it, and she drove forward, pulling out of the lot and heading back for the freeway. She’d still need to stop at her place to feed Fred. He might be happy to see Sweetheart, but he wouldn’t be thrilled for his dinner to be late—meaning arriving later than five minutes after she walked through the door at home.
Her phone rang again.
“Yes?” she said, seeing that it was Ben.
“I have food for Fred.”
The signal turned red, and she slid to a stop, struggling to find the words. The directions. The gate pass. The parking spot. Food for Fred. It was too much. She didn’t know what to say.
And Ben seemed to understand that.
“Hope you had a good day, baby,” he said, right as the light turned green.
She waited as the cars in front of her moved then slowly accelerated, heading north on 101 to make her way into the city. But even though she drove carefully, checked traffic, and made her way through the on-ramp and merging, her heart was pounding. Why was he doing all of this?
I’m just going to show you that I’m not going anywhere.
Remembering his words didn’t slow her pulse. They only made her grip the steering wheel a little tighter.
“Stef?”
She swallowed hard, cleared her throat. “Yeah?”
“Did you have a good day?”
She was a smart woman. Some might even say smarter than average, but it took her much longer than average to process those words. But as though he’d sensed that, Ben waited patiently for her to answer. “I did.” She cleared her