by Kristy Marie
I nod. I’m not one to pry, even though her family history intrigues me.
The driveway is gravel and about a mile long when we pull in. It’s quaint and doesn’t look like a shelter at all. “Wait,” I say, throwing my Jeep in park. “Is this where your uncle lives too?”
She opens her door and gets out. “Yeah. He keeps the dogs here.”
Oh. Okay. Well, that changes things.
“Why do you look like you’re about to be sick?”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not about to be sick. I just didn’t realize your uncle would be here. You just said he owned it.”
Her brows furrow as she looks at me, blinking several times. “Did you think he was never here?”
I wave her comment away and get out too. “I just thought he owned it. I didn’t know he’d be here and I’d like—” I’d have to meet him. “Never mind. It’s fine. Just took me off guard for a moment.” I reach into the back. “I’ll grab our stuff.”
Vee nods slowly. “Okay. I’ll let him know we’re here.”
I grab the bags and follow her up the front porch steps of an old farmhouse. She raps on the screen door, which I can see straight through.
“Uncle Mason!” She yells with no answer. She turns to me and tips her chin. “He’s probably around back. Come on.”
My heart beats erratically. “Don’t you think you should call him first before we just go around the back?”
Is this not how her horror movies start?
“Don’t be silly. He doesn’t mind.”
I find it hard to believe that a Marine doesn’t mind if his niece, or whatever she is to him, traipses through his house with a strange guy in tow. Yeah, cue the credits because this movie is going to be over before it begins.
Vee opens the screen door and motions for me to follow. “Did you text Brick the address?”
“Yeah. He’s on his way.” My focus is everywhere but on the conversation.
Vee’s uncle’s place is spacious and rustic, much like you’d think a cabin in the woods would be. But where you would think it would have deer heads hung on the wall, there’s black and white framed pictures with who I assume is her uncle and a blonde-haired woman. In most of the pictures, they have this German Shepherd dog with them that’s always staring up at the woman like, he too, loves her.
“That’s Killer,” Vee says, noticing me staring at the photos. “She was my Uncle Mason’s service dog. She died a few years after I was born.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
Vee smiles. “She was the reason my uncle opened this place. Her death was devastating for him.”
“I can only imagine,” I tell her, taking once last look at the photo. “I’ve never had a pet before. My sister was—”
“Allergic?”
I nod. “Something like that.”
Vee doesn’t pry, and I’m grateful. She already knows more than I would like her to know about my past.
“Come on. Let me introduce you to the dogs.” She’s excited. The pep in her voice gives it away.
“Alright.” I motion for her to lead the way and then I wipe my palms on my jeans. For some reason, I feel fucking nervous. It could be that we aren’t at a pet store and these aren’t puppies like Vee makes them out to be. Or it could be that Vee and I, out on a semi-adventure, feels a lot like old times. Either way, my anxiety is high.
Once out of her uncle’s house, I relax. Maybe it wasn’t the dogs or the adventure. Maybe my ass didn’t want to get thrown to the ground in a choke hold. Vee leads us out to a barn where barking starts the minute we get close.
“They know we’re out here,” she says with a smile.
“Super.”
I hope they don’t attack strangers or men with Vee. She tends to bring the crazy out in people.
“Who’s excited to see fresh meat?” she calls out as she punches the keypad.
“What?”
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“Relax, you big sissy. They won’t hurt you.”
I flash her a bored look, so she knows I’m not amused with her shitty jokes.
“I’m serious,” she tells me. “Here, hold my hand. I’ll protect you.”
She thinks she’s being fucking cute by making fun of me, but honestly, her hand feels nice, so I’ll play her game for a few minutes. At least until I can get a better read on the dogs and their temperament.
The door slides open, and I’m hit with cool air and a view of a huge open space with obstacles and dog toys strewn all around. “The barn has air?”
Vee nods. “Yeah. Do you like to work out in the heat?”
I go to answer her, but the minute the door is opened far enough, something barrels into Vee, which sends both of us to the ground.
“Whoa! Hey, girl,” Vee says, after taking a second to catch her breath. The giant dog gives her a few licks and then moves to me, but instead of licking me, she sniffs as if she’s trying to determine, just by my smell, if I’m cool to enter her playground.
“Dogs are a great judge of character,” Vee says, as I lay stock still, not even breathing. “Scarlett, here, once took out an entire house of terrorists. She was shot taking down the leader who had her partner at gunpoint.”
“Scarlett sounds like a badass,” I whisper, hoping my speaking doesn’t trigger her to attack. If what Vee says is true and Scarlett is a good judge of character, she might eat my face.
“She is a badass, and she’s secretly my favorite.”
Scarlett finally puts me out of my misery and licks my face in one slippery lick.
Vee hums. “Maybe she isn’t such a great judge of character after all.”
I sit up and rub the furry head in front of me. “Or maybe she is.”
Vee smiles. “Maybe.”
Scarlett flops down and pins me to the ground with one of her massive paws.
“I’ll give you two some space and check on the other dogs.”
Scarlett swipes a slobbery kiss over my cheek, and I laugh. “Alright. I hope they all aren’t as brutal as this one.”
Vee stands and grins down at me. “She usually isn’t this friendly with strangers.”
I look at the beast lying on top of me. She looks calm, like she’s never seen war a day in her life. I scratch behind her ears and shrug. “Maybe she’s just having an off day or—” I roll my eyes dramatically, “—maybe my Midol threw her off?”
Vee belts out a laugh that isn’t very dainty. “I bet that’s it.”
“Of course,” I agree.
Two hours into Vee’s shift, and Scarlett and I decided to let her continue running around and entertaining the other dogs—seven in total.
“Are you sure you don’t want to put the suit on again?” she teases, tossing a frisbee for one of the dogs who darts after it.
“I’m sure,” I return. “I may never get the feeling back in my arm after the last time.”
It was Vee’s idea to put me in the K9 tactical bite suit. I knew it was her payback for me acting like such a dick last night after our dance video. So I took my punishment like the good team player I am. Besides, I don’t want to piss her off too much. Otherwise, she might decide she doesn’t give a fuck about this competition and go save the frogs with Vance.
Vance and I are friends, somewhat. We don’t hang out or anything, but he’s connected to the mayor, therefore Maverick likes to keep him in his pocket, meaning I can’t be too much of an asshole and scare him off.
But I can tell you that Vance cannot handle the likes of Valentina Lambros. She has way too much personality for him. Vance seems like he could use a soft-spoken woman who will rub his shoulders after a long day and then finish him off with a delicate hand job.
Valentina will push a shot of moonshine across the island and force you to down a couple, before tagging along while you blackmail a guy for Maverick and sneak into the girl’s locker room to get the footage you needed to do it. I don’t know if she would have offered me a hand job because
we didn’t get that far, but I’m thinking she would have been a lot more exciting than Vance’s hope for a sweet, under the cover tug.
“Have you heard from Brick?” she calls, tugging the frisbee from the same dog’s mouth. I forgot his name. Seems like she said it was something like Turner, but maybe that’s the tan one.
“Yeah,” I tell her, stroking Scarlett’s back. “He’s in the driveway. I told him to stay put until we’re ready for him.” The fucker can sit in the heat with his piece of shit car that broke down a couple of days ago when he was supposed to be filming mine and Vee’s date.
She cocks her head to the side. “Why wouldn’t you just let him come on back?”
Uh, because I didn’t want him to think he needed to have a seat and talk or interrupt my time with Scarlett. Okay, and with Vee, but more so Scarlett. And bad employees deserve to be punished.
“He’s fine.”
She levels me with a look. “Text him to come back.”
Ugh. Reluctantly, I pull out my phone. Scarlett looks at me with half-open eyes.
“I know,” I tell her. “He’s going to make things awkward.” And annoying.
“No, he won’t.” Vee laughs, coming to sit with me and Scarlett on the grass. “We need to shoot anyway. My uncle said he and his wife would be home in a couple of hours. They were meeting a new dog.”
I rub Scarlett again and her eyes close. “The dogs seem really happy here,” I muse.
“They are.”
Vee nuzzles one of the dogs who comes up and flops down in her lap. “It’s good therapy, right?”
I cock my head to the side. “Therapy?”
“Yeah.” She kisses the top of the dog’s head. “When my mind is messed up and all chaotic, I can come here and somehow everything just becomes so still.”
She looks up and her mouth tips down into a frown. “After… you know, what happened between us, this was the only place I felt…welcome.”
Her eyes flick up at me, and I feel this ache in my chest that spreads out, weaving its pain around my ribs.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel like you didn’t belong at your own home,” I admit.
“You didn’t,” she clarifies. “I mean, sure, the hateful looks you gave me when I passed you in the parking lot were tense, but I did it to myself. I think I was ashamed.”
She was ashamed.
Wow.
“Why would you feel ashamed? We were playing a game.” I shrug like her last prank was no big deal. “We had a prank war. You won. There’s no reason to feel ashamed.”
She lowers her gaze back to the dog in her lap. “I took it too far.”
Heaven help me. “I deserved it.”
It’s the truth. I did deserve it. I forced her into one-upping me over and over again. I challenged her wits every day until she showed me just how brilliant she was. Even if she pissed me off and shit all over our entire relationship, she has no reason to be ashamed.
“You did deserve it,” she finally agrees with a grin. “But I still shouldn’t have done that to you. It was wrong.”
I shrug. I don’t know that I would classify what she did as wrong. Maybe a little devious, but that’s how you win a prank war.
“Oh look, there’s Brick,” she says, moving the dog and standing, still holding its collar. “Hold Scarlett while I get the others.”
I look down at Scarlett as she cracks an eyelid. “Brick’s an easy target,” I tell her. “You won’t have any trouble getting him down should he get on your nerves.”
Scarlett acts like she understands me and closes her eyes, ignoring the six other barking dogs. I knew she was the cool one. She isn’t threatened at all by the Ed Sheeran looking filmmaker.
“I’m going to give Brick a tour around the grounds,” Vee says. “You going to be okay here?”
I nod, and then glare at Brick. “But I’m getting hungry so try not to shoot the grass and the tubs of dog food.”
Vee rolls her eyes. “Your Midol wore off I see.”
I could argue and say Brick puts me in a shitty ass mood, but I don’t, because that would show spending the day with Vee didn’t put me in a shitty mood and that’s a big fucking problem.
University CamFlix Competition Submission
Entry Number: 75
Sebastian and Valentina
Second Interview Continued, or that time I counted the gray hairs on Tom’s head
“Sweetie, I think you aren’t remembering correctly. I think I was trying to give you a science lesson and you clearly misunderstood me.”
Vee smiles and shakes her head. “I feel pretty certain you told me you loved me that night when I changed your clothes and tucked you into bed.”
Okay. So I vaguely remember saying that part but, again, I was completely and utterly trashed. I offer Tom a tense grin. “As you can see, Vee and I go way back. It’s actually kind of hard to determine when exactly we realized we were in love.”
“It still doesn’t look right,” she whines, moving the pillow under my head. “It looks staged.”
I grunt when she snatches the pillow—the one she still hasn’t given back. My head falls against the mattress. “It looks like it’s staged because it is.” I lean up enough to see her eye roll.
“I think you’re just stalling. It doesn’t matter if we’re up against the wall or in a bed, our fans just want to see us kiss.”
Last night when Vee came over to watch a movie in her chair on my back patio, we scrolled through the comments of the video at the dog rescue her uncle owns. Brick managed to get a clip of me arguing with Vee that Scarlett was nothing but a lap dog at this point. To prove it, I scooped up a squealing Vee, pretending to kidnap her, while Scarlett watched on, unamused. It was all fun and games until Turner (I was right. He was the tan one) caught up to me and took me and Vee down with one well-placed jump.
Vee was on the ground. I was laughing, hovered above her, while we both tried to calm Turner down. It was a mess, but apparently, our viewers went crazy and commented with the likes of: “Kiss her already!” “I wish he would kidnap me.” “Some guys have all the luck.” “Kiss her!” “Kiss her!”
“Kiss her already!”
You get the point. Our viewers had spoken, and if we want to keep them voting by liking our videos, we have to give them what they want. And what they want is for me to suck Vee’s face.
“I’m not stalling,” she says, huffing so hard that a piece of hair flutters over her face.
“I disagree. When you’ve set this pillow up eight different ways, only to make me move to the sofa and back again, I’d say you’re stalling.”
I can see the determination set in when she narrows her gaze on my face.
“I promise, I’ve brushed my teeth.”
“Shut up.” She sits down on the bed and hands me the remote to her camera, which is set up on the tripod. We opted not to let Brick film this one since it would be difficult for the two of us to relax enough to kiss. Clearly, that was a good decision.
“Let’s just do it really quick.”
She leans in and purses her lips like a kid would do, all while squeezing her eyes shut as if it’s painful to get this close to me.
“You’re going to have to kiss me,” I tell her. “Sitting here acting like you’re about to vomit is just slowing us down.” I blew off a night of poker at Gigi’s for this. Not that I expected a big payout, but it’s extra money, nonetheless.
Vee throws her head back, her dark, satin hair falling off her shoulders like a curtain. “Gah! I wish we could find some stock videos to insert into this clip.”
I don’t let her lack of excitement dampen my mood. Really, just seeing her suffer perks me up more than shoving my tongue down her throat again. The last time I was too pissed to enjoy her discomfort.
“Such a shame, but the last time I checked, the angry tomboy clips were all sold out.” I shrug, back to being a shit. “They probably make around one a year. I think that look died in the 90’s.”
<
br /> “I will stab you,” she threatens, easing her head up and leveling me with a look that I think might be a real threat.
“I hope you’ll at least film it when you do. My mother would like to be proud of me one day, even if it’s just seeing my corpse on Dateline.”
My cheek twitches as my comment hits a little too close to the truth.
“You’re sick,” she says, twisting her hair up and piling it on top of her head before letting it go. “Why is it so hot in here?” she groans.
I refrain from stating the obvious cliché. I think she might actually hit me, and I get turned on by a slap just as much as the next man but not today. I’d rather we get this torture over with quickly so she can take her sweet-smelling self next door and give me some damn space. Being with her every day this past week has not been the highlight of my college experience. I mean, sure, she’s hot, but she’s argumentative and the enemy. I haven’t forgotten that part.
“We could open a window,” I suggest for the both of us. It’ll keep my room from smelling like her. It probably won’t cool her down with the high humidity, but the breeze might help a little.
She eyes my window, where I watch her seven days out of the week, and tips her chin. “Fine. It’s gotta be better than sweating my butt off while we do this.”
She gags once more and I roll my eyes. Really. She’s not that great of an actress. She’s not disgusted by me. I know because we’ve kissed before, and she was the one who initiated it.
I get up and go to the window and push it up halfway, before walking back to the bed and flopping down next to her.
I nod to the remote in her hand. “No more bullshit. Let’s get this over with.”
With an extreme sigh that our other neighbors can probably hear, Vee nods and presses the record button. I almost forget what I’m supposed to do, but then she leans forward and her hand comes to my cheek.
I don’t know if it’s instinct, lust, or plain old want, but my hand goes to the back of her head, my fingers knotting in her soft tresses, and I yank. She yips but doesn’t speak. Last time we did this, she surprised me by pressing her lips to mine. This time, I’m the one in charge.
