The Pet Stylist and the Playboy Read online

  My phone pinged again.

  “Who is it this time?” Gus asked.

  “Hugh. He says he’s happy for us.”

  Gus chuckled. “He’s a good guy. You could do worse.”

  I looked up at him, surprised.

  “He told me the two of you went out,” Gus said.

  “Oh. Well, did he tell you we decided to only be friends?”

  “Yep.” He yawned and fixed the pillow under his head. “But sometimes the best relationships come out of friendship.”

  That made me think of Dante and FB-B. Was he doing the right thing marrying her after all? I remembered how his whole demeanor had changed when he’d been around all those rich people, and how right he’d looked in the Maserati. Maybe Dante had only been playing around by hanging out at the club. Maybe he really was meant to be a rich guy.

  “I’m just going to take a little nap,” Gus said with a sigh, and closed his eyes.

  “I might do the same,” I muttered. My eyes were heavy. It was only five o’clock; I could take a little nap before going to my place. Deirdre and Caleb would be okay. I sunk into sleep, my head cradled on my arms on the soft rug.

  My eyes came open sometime later, a little confused at the darkness outside the window. I blinked in the dim light coming from the kitchen. The room was cold, and I sat up, wondering how long I’d slept. I looked at my phone. Six-thirty. I should get home. I wondered if Gus might like me to light the fire before I went home. Angel and Butch sat near the couch. Butch whined and scratched the material.

  “Shh, buddy, don’t wake him up. You have to go out?” I got to my feet. When I approached the sofa, I stopped, every muscle in my body tensing.

  Gus still lay on the couch, shoes off and afghan covering him, but something about his face was wrong.

  My heart began to hammer as I took another step forward.

  “Gus?” I asked tentatively. His face was very pale, his eyes closed and lips parted. I leaned down and touched his cheek, instantly pulling my hand back when I felt how abnormally cold his skin was.

  “No,” I whispered. “No, not now. Not yet.”

  My knees gave out, and I sat on the coffee table, staring at my new father’s lifeless body, a sadness I never knew existed welling up inside me. I keened with it, Butch taking up the wail. Folding my arms and gripping them tightly, I rocked to and fro, tears spilling over. I squeezed my eyes shut and started sobbing.

  This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. Gus had just adopted me. That day. God, we hadn’t had any time!

  I took a shuddering breath. Covering my face, I wailed out my grief and despair at the unfairness of it all. Angel started barking. I almost didn’t hear my cell phone ringing from where it lay on the floor where I’d been napping.

  I dropped to my knees and reached for the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Isaac? Is something wrong?” Deirdre sounded alarmed. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at...Gus’s.”

  “Are you okay? You sound funny.”

  I sniffled and wiped my eyes, unable to pull my thoughts together. Gus was dead. What was I supposed to do?

  “Isaac?”

  “C-can you stay for a while, Deirdre? Put the dogs to bed and close up before you leave?” She’d done it before when I had to work late at Lux.

  “Sure. But are you okay? You sound...really upset.”

  I swallowed my tears. “I’m okay. I just need to take care of something. Thanks, Deirdre.” I hung up before she could ask me anything else. Grief pulled at the corners of my mouth, turning them down as I looked over at Gus.

  “God, why is this happening?” I crawled over to the couch and kneeled beside him. “Today was supposed to be a good day. We were going to have a long time together.”

  I don’t know how long I sat there like that, my head against Gus’s side. Finally, I picked up my phone and dialed a number.

  Three rings.

  “Hello?”

  I took a shaky breath. “Blaze.”

  “Swish?”

  I swallowed tears and turned my back from where Gus lay. “Yeah. I-I...are you busy? I r-really need s-someone right now.”

  “Are you okay?” Blaze sounded alarmed.

  I rubbed the tears from my eyes. “No,” I said. “I mean, I’m not hurt, but I’m not okay.”

  “Are you at home?”

  “At Gus’s. Please come.” I swallowed, a fresh bout of tears starting to fall. “If you can’t, I don’t know who I’m gonna call—” My voice broke.

  “Of course, I’ll come. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Sit tight.”

  He disconnected, and I got up to unlock the front door before coming back to Gus. Sitting on my heels, I took Gus’s cold hand in my own and held it. Blaze found me unmoved from that position forty-five minutes later.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dante

  The country club was overflowing. My parents had to have invited everyone they knew to my engagement party. My father had been smiling and shaking hands all evening, as if he was the one getting married instead of me. My mother sat primly with a group of her closest friends, drinking champagne and talking, and every once in a while she’d look for me in the crowd as though to make sure I was behaving in a way that suited her.

  Felicity wore a silver and white dress that accentuated her hips and bust. I’d told her how nice she looked, and she’d smiled and thanked me, but the whole thing struck me as awkward as hell. We were celebrating our engagement, and we barely knew how to talk to one another, for God’s sake.

  Compared to Foghorn and Cupcake’s recent engagement party that was held at the clubhouse, this bash was a fucking funeral. The cake we’d gotten Foghorn had been long and filled with Rocky Road ice cream, not six tiers of bland vanilla decorated with pearls like the one on the table in front of me. We’d played classic rock, not Mozart, and everyone had dressed casually, not in clothes meant to flaunt their designer labels. Most notably, the engaged couple had been happy and in love, looking into each other’s eyes with promises of a wonderful future, and here I could barely bring myself to hold Felicity’s hand, much less her gaze.

  The stress was getting to me. I was trying, I really was, but I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling I was being propelled toward my own death. And time had only made it worse, not better. I still got along with Felicity, but my cock remained stubbornly disinterested. Despite the fact we’d come to sort of an agreement in Aspen, every time Felicity and I were together, the air seemed to grow heavier between us, as though thick with impending rain.

  Or maybe I was imagining things. Felicity appeared content talking to our guests, and she was the type who would speak up if she had a problem with something. Maybe it was all me. I was a pressure cooker set to high and about to explode.

  Marta approached me, smiling. She was somewhere between my age and my mother’s, and attractive in a way, but I was never one to admire the look of lip injections and surgically narrowed noses. Not for the first time, I wondered how much my father paid her to be the receptionist. The bracelet she was wearing, gold with rows of glittering diamonds, had to have cost a fortune.

  “What are you doing over here by yourself?” Marta asked me.

  “Just taking a break from the excitement,” I said. I’m sure I didn’t sound excited at all and was sure I didn’t look it, but no one had seemed to notice. Maybe morose was the normal look for a groom-to-be in my parents’ set.

  “You’ve made your father so happy.” Marta smiled.

  I knew that was true; my father had been more pleasant to me in the past month than he had my entire life.

  When Felicity maneuvered her way through the crowd toward us, Marta excused herself and headed for the buffet. I set my champagne glass on the table. I’d imbibed a bit too much and was a little unsteady on my feet.

  “You look miserable,” Felicity said, softening the words with a smile.

  Thank you, finally someone notices. “Sorry.
I’ll try to do better.” I pasted a smile on my face.

  “Now you look like one of those monkeys with the cymbals,” she said. She took my arm and led me into a corner, away from everyone else. “Listen. I’ve been thinking. It isn’t too late to back out of this.”

  Surprised, I looked into her eyes. She was serious.

  “I know it would be a little embarrassing, but this is the rest of our lives we’re talking about.”

  “You don’t want to marry me?”

  Felicity grinned. “Sorry, did I burst your ego? No, I don’t really want to marry you. You’re hot and all, but I’m not eager to tie myself to someone who looks like he’s going to be sick whenever he’s with me. An arranged marriage is one thing, but people are going to think I’m holding a gun to your head.”

  I rubbed my hand down my face, feeling worse than I had a moment ago, and I wouldn’t have thought that possible. “God, I’m really sorry, Felicity. You don’t deserve this.”

  “No, I really don’t. But don’t worry about it. Thing is, I don’t think I’m ready to get married anytime soon. Uncle Jonas can just cool it.”

  I took her hand and squeezed it, heart lifting even as I realized what a stink we would make by calling it off. “They’re going to be so pissed.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, they will. But I don’t really care. We’re talking about our lives, not theirs. And Dante, don’t let your parents talk you into taking up with someone else right away, okay? You’re doing enough for them right now.”

  It was like I could suddenly breathe again. I followed Felicity to the buffet table, where she picked up a plate and started piling food on it.

  She cocked her head in consideration at the chocolate fountain. Hungry for the first time that night, I eyed the caviar and tiny, Russian buckwheat pancakes.

  “We’ll have to discuss how to tell them,” I said.

  Felicity grinned at me over her shoulder, a spoonful of dip hovering over her plate. “We’ll take our food somewhere private.”

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

  “Blaze, hey.” I balanced the phone between my ear and shoulder as I filled my plate. “I’m kinda in the middle of something right now.” I suddenly wanted to laugh. Yeah, I was in the middle of something—my fucking engagement party. Could things get any more surreal?

  Blaze sounded rushed, and the seriousness in his voice had me setting down my plate and gripping the phone.

  “Dante, I’m on my way to see Swish. Something’s the matter with him, man. I’m not kidding. I’ve never heard him sound like that. He was wrecked.”

  I froze, and Felicity shot me a curious look.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “He called me, asking me to come over. I’m on my way there.”

  “I’ll meet you.” I disconnected and turned to Felicity.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “A friend of mine needs help. I’ve got to go.” I turned toward the hall.

  “I’ll drive.” Felicity followed me, stopping at the coat check for our coats.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I’ll call a cab, then.” A cab wasn’t going to get me there half as fast as I wanted to.

  “Just let me drive you, will you do that for me, please? I don’t want to stay at this stuffy party any more than you do.”

  I stared at her a moment and shook my head. “You’re going to make some lucky guy a great wife someday. Okay, but what about...” I made a motion with my hand toward the crowded banquet room.

  “They’ll probably think we slipped away for a not-so-quickie. Come on.” She propelled me toward the front exit and down the wide staircase to the parking lot.

  Felicity drove her baby blue 718 Boxter S convertible Porche like a fucking race car driver, and in no time, we were on the road heading toward Henry. Blaze would get there before we did, but at this rate, we’d arrive not long after.

  I kept cracking my knuckles, anxiety crawling all over me as I ran through various scenarios of what could be going on with Isaac. If he’d been hurt, he would’ve called an ambulance, not Blaze. If there’d been a problem with one of the animals, he would have called Hugh. My mind went to Gus. He was an old man and not in the best of health. God, if something had happened to Gus, Isaac was going to be crushed. He loved that old guy.

  I was thankful Felicity didn’t try to make conversation. I don’t think I could have strung a coherent sentence together, I was so tense. Frustration rolled off me in waves as the expressway seemed to stretch out before us like a never-ending, gray ribbon, getting us nowhere.

  Felicity broke the silence. “Could you quit cracking your knuckles? You’ll wind up with arthritis before you’re forty.”

  “That’s an old wives’ tale.”

  “Yeah, and who better to know about arthritis than old wives? Just quit it; you’re making me nervous, and I’m driving.”

  I nodded, slipping my twitchy hands underneath my thighs.

  We exited the interstate and headed away from town into the country. Felicity slowed down as I directed her. Rain clouds covered the moon, making it very difficult to see on the dark country road, making us almost miss the entrance to Gus’s driveway. When we pulled up to the main house, I saw the club’s black SUV parked beneath the trees and told Felicity to park beside it. Isaac was at Gus’s. I made it to the front porch before Felicity. The front door was unlocked, and I walked in without knocking.

  “Blaze?” Why was the house so fucking dark? Had a storm knocked out the electricity? Felicity came in behind me and switched on the small lamp on the hall table, eliminating that possibility.

  “In here,” Blaze’s voice called from the living room. I hurried that way, halting when I saw Blaze with his arm around Isaac, who was slumped on the coffee table in front of the couch, his long hair hiding most of his face. He didn’t look up when I approached, his gaze focused in front of him.

  I quickly saw why. The old man was on his back, one hand resting on his chest and the other on the cushion beside him. He looked gray.

  “He’s dead,” Isaac said, startling me.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “God, I’m sorry, kid.”

  Felicity approached and touched my arm. “Has anyone called an ambulance?” she asked softly.

  “Not yet,” Blaze said, stroking Isaac’s back.

  I turned to her. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that?” I gestured toward the kitchen where Isaac wouldn’t have to hear the call. She nodded and walked that way.

  Blaze ran his hand through Isaac’s hair, and my fingers twitched with the need to be the one doing it.

  “He died happy. You made him happy,” Blaze told Isaac, and I nodded agreement, at a loss for words. What could I say to him? He probably didn’t even want me there, but I wasn’t leaving.

  Felicity returned. “They’re on their way. You want me to take these dogs out? They look like they need to go.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Isaac’s head came up. “God, I forgot. Please. Their leashes are by the front door.”

  She smiled at him and called to the dogs, which trotted after her.

  “I’ll help,” Blaze said, and, after patting Isaac’s shoulder, followed Felicity into the hall.

  Isaac looked at me for the first time since I’d arrived, eyes two dark holes in his pale face.

  “Gus adopted me today.”

  My heart dropped to my feet.

  “He wanted us to be family. He wanted me to be his son. He wanted me, Dante. No one’s ever wanted me before.” Isaac’s face crumpled, and I came around the couch and lifted him to his feet, wrapping my arms around him tightly, wanting to tell him I wanted him. He tried to fight me off at first but finally collapsed into my embrace. Heart breaking, I held him tightly while he cried.

  “That’s not true, baby, that’s not true.” I rocked him in my arms, pressing my mouth to the smooth, sweet-smelling hair at his
temple. “Lots of people love you. You’re important to us. You’re wanted. Don’t ever think that you aren’t.”

  His cries became great heaving sobs that racked his lithe frame. His tears wet the front of my shirt while he clutched at the back of it with desperate fingers.

  I closed my eyes. I don’t know how long we stood there before red and white lights outside the window cast eerie flashes across the living room. Any emergency had long passed, so the ambulance had skipped the siren, and I was grateful not to hear its keening wail. I didn’t let go of Isaac, who was crying more quietly. Felicity and Blaze brought the paramedics in with the stretcher, and I moved us so we were out of the way, while continuing to murmur reassuring words into Isaac’s hair. God, Gus had adopted him? That day? What a miserable sense of timing the universe had.

  “What’s his name?” one of the paramedics asked after examining Gus’s body and writing on a small clipboard. The other two paramedics lifted Gus onto the stretcher.

  “Gus Taylor,” I told him.

  “Know his doctor’s name?”

  I looked down at Isaac’s tear-stained face. He looked completely out of it. “Baby? Do you know the name of Gus’s doctor?”

  Isaac licked trembling lips. “Dr. Culbertson,” he croaked.

  The paramedic wrote the information down. “Any family members we need to call?”

  Isaac shook his head. “I’m his only family. He’s...my dad.” Isaac squeezed his eyes closed, pushing a freshet of tears down his cheeks.

  “Sorry for your loss,” the paramedic said gently. He handed me a card with the name and number of a funeral home. “That’s where we’re taking him.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” Blaze walked out with the paramedic.

  Isaac wiped his eyes with his sleeve. He was wearing a brown and navy checked button-down shirt and the chinos I’d bought him to wear to my birthday party.