Page 34 of Puppy Love

At least, not without a cold shower first. An arctic one, in fact. A painful, plunging descent into numbness.

“Are we sure this is such a good idea?” Harrison asked, casting a careful look at first Bubbles and then his father. Bubbles was still too intrigued by the rubber chicken to notice she was about to be abandoned, but the realization would come soon enough—and so would the howls of betrayal. “He was only halfway kidding about that box thing. She’s going to cry.”

Sophie tilted her head and stared at them. “Of course she is. You just have to think of it like dropping a kid off at daycare.”

“Daycare?” his dad echoed.

“Yeah—you know. While the parents are watching, the kid acts like the world is going to end. Then, the second Mom and Dad finally tear themselves away in their guilt and despair, the kid shrugs it off and has a perfectly good time. Didn’t you ever have to leave Harrison with someone?”

Harrison could count the number of times his dad had willingly spoken of his childhood on one and a half hands. There weren’t many rules in their household, but two of them stood out loud and clear: Parks men didn’t discuss the past, and Parks men didn’t discuss the future. Theirs were lives lived in the moment. The past contained too many memories, and the future too many dreams—neither of which had any place in their terse, stoic existence.

In their experience, memories only caused pain. So did dreams.

“My sister used to help out a lot,” his dad said after only a brief struggle with himself. “When Harrison was little and I had to go work, I mean.”

Sophie had no idea the ground she’d just shattered, so she was perfectly serene as she asked, “And did he cry when you left?”

“Well, no.” His dad laughed. “He saved that for when I came back.”

“I did no such thing,” Harrison said through his teeth. If his dad was going to finally take a trip down memory lane, he could at least turn on the right road.

“What are you talking about?” his dad asked. “You wailed every time I walked in the door. The second I stepped in, you ran and clung to your aunt’s leg like I was going to feed you to a pack of wolves.”

“I wasn’t upset because you were home. I was upset because Aunt Caroline was leaving.”

“How is that different?” his dad demanded.

Harrison could have given him a thousand answers. His dad’s only sister was a Parks through and through. She was brusque and hardworking. She had a temper like a berserker on a bender. And she’d taken none of the attitude thrown her way by an eight-year-old boy who’d just been diagnosed with diabetes and was learning to live in a world without cookies.

But she’d also kissed him. Hugged him. Loved him, in her own bristly way.

In other words, she was the closest thing he’d had to a mom after his own had left.She’d packed up and gone without once visiting the hospital bed where Harrison had woken up from the coma that led to his diagnosis.

His aunt, however, had stationed herself firmly at his bedside and held his hand until that first—and only—bout of tears finally ended.

Forgive him for growing attached.

“She smelled better than you,” Harrison eventually said.

His dad laughed. “If that’s how you measure a person’s worth, then Sophie over here must be your goddamn queen.”

He tried not to look at her—he really did. Nothing good would come of turning his gaze in that direction and letting her see just how true that statement was. Sophie smelled amazing. She tasted even better.

He looked anyway. As if fully aware of what he was thinking—and how hard he was fighting it—her lips twitched even more. There was only one good way he could wipe that smirk off her face, and it involved making her mouth so exhausted she could do nothing more than moan his name. Repeatedly.

Which was why he did the one thing necessary to keep himself in check. He didn’t bother fumbling for the right words, and he didn’t sweep her into his arms.

Instead, he ran.

* * *

Sophie watched Harrison go, trying not to look as disheartened by his rapid departure as she felt.

He’d taken off down his drive at a brisk clip, his long legs eating up the distance as though it were nothing. One look at him in his track bottoms and tight-fitting shirt had been enough to set every feminine feeling she had fluttering. He was powerful without being aware of it, his movements graceful and easy.

In other words, he was as hard on the outside as he was on the inside.

His speed only confirmed it. As he loped away from the house, it was obvious he couldn’t get away fast enough—from Bubbles, from his father, fromher.