by K. M. Scott
I looked in his cage and saw an old dog with sad eyes and scruffy brown and black fur staring down at the floor. He didn’t even react when we stopped in front of him.
“What’s wrong with him, Dawn?”
She shook her head sadly. “Nothing. He’s just old. He’s been here for so long I don’t think he knows anything else, Summer. After seeing what Ethan could do for Butterscotch, I’d love to see him try something cute for Trooper. He deserves to have someone see him as more than just an old mutt nobody wants. He could be a great dog for someone older. He’s calm and very patient. I think he’s just about given up on life, though, so if Ethan could take a few glamour shots of him, that would be great. Maybe someone would finally give him a place to lie his head for his final years.”
Crouching down in front of him, I opened his cage coaxed him out. “Trooper, you’re about to be famous, my friend. After we’re done with you, people are going to be begging to take you home.”
I walked that sad old dog out to the other room and positioned him on the white sheet on the floor. Looking around, I didn’t see Ethan anywhere, so I gave Trooper a little sweet talk while we waited and even got him to wag his tail once or twice.
The door to the outside opened and Ethan walked in, but I instantly saw something had changed. Staring at his phone, he frowned and then stuffed it into his pocket.
“I have to go.”
I looked up in shock. “We aren’t done yet. This dog has been here for so long he doesn’t know what life is outside a cage. Just take a few shots of him and if you need to go, then we can go.”
“I can’t, Summer. I have to go,” he said flatly like he didn’t hear a word I said about Trooper.
Standing up, I walked over to him as tears welled in my eyes. “It’s the same as before! You’re not really with me because there’s always that other person who’s more important. That’s why you were looking at your phone when you came in. They messaged, and now you have to leave. Why can’t they wait for a few minutes more? It will take only a few minutes to take a couple pictures of this dog. What’s a few minutes?”
But all he did was shake his head. “I have to go, Summer. I’m sorry.”
“Fine. Go!” I said, turning away from him as tears began to roll down my face. “I’ll find my own way back to the city.”
He silently began packing up his equipment as I grabbed Trooper and ran out of the room before he could see how much this hurt me. I’d believed in him when he promised me he wouldn’t make me regret telling him I loved him. He was wrong. I did regret it. I regretted ever thinking I could trust Ethan again.
Minutes later, I watched as he drove away, tearing out of the dirt parking lot like a bat out of hell. Whoever they were, he cared about them way more than he cared about me.
“What happened?” Dawn asked as I sat crying with old Trooper.
“Nothing’s changed. I thought he did, but the first time he had a chance to choose me, he didn’t.”
“What do you mean?” Dawn asked as she sat down beside me on the hard concrete floor.
“It’s the one secret part of him he won’t let me know. He gets these messages and no matter what we’re doing, he has to leave to go to that person, I guess. It’s probably some gorgeous model he sleeps with but can’t really be with. I’m just some poor girl he bides his time with. A nice girl he can present to the world.”
“That’s crazy, Summer. He’s obviously into you.”
I didn’t want to admit the truth to my sister, but it wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. We had started out that way, after all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ethan
I arrived back at my place to see Ilsa waiting at my door. After what happened with Summer, I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, including the beautiful woman who I knew hadn’t come by to talk about the weather. She stood there with a big smile on her face wearing a full-length black fur coat and holding a bottle of something out in front of me. The old Ethan would have taken advantage of the offer, knowing full well she more likely than not didn’t have a stitch of clothing on underneath that coat.
“God, Ethan. You’re a hard man to find, you know that?” she said with a giggle. “You should know I don’t wait for just any man.”
“It’s not a really good time, Ilsa. Sorry.”
She took a step toward me and opened her coat wide to show me her perfectly tanned and naked body. “Still think it’s not a good time?”
My cock had never been able to resist such temptation, but even he didn’t want any part of what Ilsa had to offer. I shook my head and forced a smile, hoping to avoid any drama.
“It’s a great offer, but I’ve had the day from hell. You know how it is.”
Running her hand down the front of my shirt, she tugged on my belt and licked her lips as she gave me her best seductive look. “I can make it all better, baby. You know that.”
The elevator doors opened and I turned just in time to see Summer step out into the hallway. She stopped dead when she saw Ilsa and me, and the look of pain on her face made my heart skip a beat. I looked back at Ilsa to see she hadn’t closed her fucking coat, making the entire scene look entirely something it wasn’t.
Turning back toward Summer, I started to explain, but before I got a single sentence out of my mouth, she ran back into the elevator. I ran toward it to catch her, but the doors were just closing as I reached it and all I saw was her standing there with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Ethan, where are you going? I’m sure your neighbor will be fine. She just didn’t expect to see us standing out here in the hallway like that. Now let’s go inside and have a good time like you know we always do,” Ilsa whined as I thought about how I could make it down to the lobby before the elevator did.
Ignoring her, I ran all the way down the hall to the stairs and raced down them, praying I didn’t miss Summer before she made it out of my building. Out of breath by the time I made it to the first floor, I burst through the metal door but didn’t see her.
I ran out to the street but she was nowhere in sight. Fuck. Now she’d never believe me that the texts weren’t from another woman I was sleeping with.
By the time I got back to my apartment, I was in no mood to deal with Ilsa and her offer of sex. She stood waiting like before, but this time I just shook my head as she described what kind of fun we could have. I didn’t want to have fun with her.
“I’m not interested, Ilsa. Go find someone else.”
“What’s happened to you, Ethan?” she asked, moping as she closed her coat. “You used to be such a good time. Now you’re all moody. Fine. I didn’t want to spend the night with you anyway. There are good times to be had in this city, sweetheart, and if you’re not going to give it to me, I’ll find it elsewhere.”
I didn’t bother to say another word to her and simply walked into my apartment before closing the door behind me. Whatever good times there were, they weren’t for me. I’d made sure of that.
The beer I’d hoped would make me forget only helped to make me remember things I didn’t want to think about. I didn’t want to feel what I felt either. So much for getting drunk. I couldn’t even do that without fucking it up.
I looked through the pictures of Summer and the animals from the shelter for the hundredth time that night, fully understanding that wasn’t the way to get over her. In some sick way, it made me feel better. Sort of like when you poke your fingernail hard into a mosquito bite. It hurt, but it was a good hurt.
Yeah, I was fucked up.
She looked so beautiful sitting there with those three black kittens climbing all over her. She hadn’t put on extra makeup or anything special that day thinking she’d be part of the shoot, and still she lit up every one of the pictures with her smile and her genuine concern for those animals.
I moved on to the shots of her and One-Eyed Jack with his eye patch and felt my chest get tight. She sat there nuzzling his face and telling him how cool he looked with his patc
h on. It looked like he understood her in the one where he pressed his forehead to hers as if to say, “Thanks for making me look good, Summer.”
The one of her and Butterscotch where she was sitting behind him and holding his cape out made me smile as I thought back to her cheering him on. “You got this, Butterscotch. Three legs are just as good as four. You watch. Once people see your picture as a superhero, you’re going to get a home faster than you can say fetch.”
I didn’t want to have to leave. I would have given anything to stay there for hours with her and those animals. If only I could have.
Like the last time, I wouldn’t call her. It was better this way. I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, so why call? Even worse, everything she’d feared had been on display when she got off that elevator, thanks to Ilsa being there.
Fuck.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen at work until that moment, but what did it matter? She’d never forgive me for doing this a second time anyway, and after seeing me standing there with a model wearing only a fur coat and obviously offering herself up to me, what could I say? If anything, she’d probably be avoiding me at work.
The only thing I couldn’t handle thinking about was seeing her with someone else. Seeing her and knowing we didn’t talk anymore was bad, but her with another man made me feel fucking sick.
When Tressa found out what happened, she’d have Summer set up with those douchebag guy friends of hers in a heartbeat. If I knew my sister, she’d make sure I found out in some horrible way, like at the next family dinner I attended. Even worse, I wouldn’t put it past her to invite the happy couple to dinner just to rub it in my face.
I closed my eyes as my imagination ran away with me and my mind conjured up scenes of me forced to endure Summer sitting inches away and in love with some dickhead friend of Tressa’s. Whatever. She had a right to be happy, even if it was with a douchebag with stubby hands.
The truth was I couldn’t be the kind of person she deserved. I’d made sure of that a long time ago. I could buy her virtually anything, take her anywhere in the world, and give her practically everything. The problem was she wanted something that wasn’t mine to give away.
For nearly two hours, I sat staring at those pictures I’d taken of her and the animals and wished things could be different. They couldn’t for Summer and me, but maybe they could be for those cats and dogs stuck in cages at the shelter.
I took a chance my father would be at the house and called, hoping I didn’t get my mother instead. Seeing her face-to-face and having to lie about why I wouldn’t be at her show wasn’t something I could handle tonight.
Thankfully, my father answered, and even though he looked surprised to see me, I had a feeling this call might do some good. At least I hoped it would.
“Hey, Dad. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
He nodded and didn’t answer for a long moment before he asked, “Are you okay, Ethan? I’m not used to you calling here, especially at nearly midnight.”
I hadn’t thought about the time. Damn. But my father never seemed to sleep much anyway as long as I’d known him.
“Sorry about that. This won’t take long if you’re going to bed.”
“No, I’m not. I’m thinking you know your mother isn’t up, though. Is that why you’re calling at this time of night?” he asked, leveling his gaze on me.
“I’m not trying to avoid her. Honest. I just don’t think I can handle going to her show the way I feel now.”
My father sighed. “Okay. You said you wanted to talk to me. Is this about work?”
“God, no. I have nothing to say about work that I haven’t said before. This is about shelter animals.”
A look of confusion settled into my father’s face, and he narrowed his eyes to a squint. “Shelter animals?”
“Yeah. I was wondering if you’d be willing to give Andrew Mason a call and ask him if he’d consider running a piece on the Mended Paws Rescue and Shelter in Devon, Pennsylvania. They could use some help getting the word out about what they do there and getting people to adopt the animals. They have no budget to speak of, but they take in as many animals as they can. I just figured since Andrew has that newspaper of his in that part of Pennsylvania that maybe if you let him know about the shelter that he might send a reporter out there. I’ve got pictures of some of the animals I’d be happy to release to them for an article.”
“You were at an animal shelter taking pictures?” my father asked, still clearly confused.
“I went out there a couple times as a favor for Summer. Her sister works there and Summer thought if I could take some pictures of the animals for their website that people would be more interested in adopting them. She calls them glamour shots.”
That made my father’s eyes light up, and he chuckled like I’d said something funny. “Glamour shots, huh?”
“So will you talk to Andrew about it? I’d do it myself, but I don’t know how much of what Julia Carmon’s been spreading around has reached the Philly area,” I admitted with more than a hint of shame, knowing how much my father disapproved of my getting fired from Belle.
“I didn’t even realize you liked animals. You never liked Shaggy.”
“He didn’t like me either, so the feeling wasn’t one sided. He was Tressa and Diana’s dog, not mine.”
My father leaned in toward the screen and whispered, “Between you and me, I never liked him either. He didn’t like males. He only liked your mother and your sisters. Every time he passed by me, he growled.”
That my father and I had secretly disliked my sisters’ dog all those years made me smile. Other than looking like him, I rarely felt like we had much in common. This wasn’t anything important, but for some reason, it made me happy.
“I never thought I liked animals, but the ones at the shelter are great and they deserve to have homes of their own, so I was happy to help them get noticed. Taking pictures of humans was way easier, I have to admit, but taking animals’ pictures is more rewarding, strangely. Three black kittens I took shots of last weekend already found a home because of the pictures I took.”
My father’s eyes filled with that look of pride for me I rarely saw. “Really? Those must be some pictures.”
Shrugging, I said, “All it takes is the right subject and some good lighting. The shelter had some pretty lame pictures of the cats and dogs before, so anything would have been an improvement.”
“Don’t downplay your talent, Ethan. You did something good there. I’ll call Andrew in the morning and see what I can do to get him interested in that shelter. Message me the name and address so I have it for him when I call tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Dad. I appreciate it. I’d love to see them get some publicity and hopefully then people would give the animals a chance.”
“So you and Summer are getting along again?” he asked with a hopefulness in his dark eyes I hated to crush.
I shook my head and sighed. “No. We were, but I had to leave early to get back to Diana because she messaged me this afternoon. That made Summer upset because I won’t tell her why I have to go and then…” I didn’t finish my thought about Ilsa because my father didn’t need to know I’d screwed up there too.
“It’s probably not going to happen between us.”
Hope turned to pain in my father’s expression, and he frowned in that sad way he always did when we talked about my sister. “I don’t think you’d be betraying Diana if you told Summer the truth. Is that why you two broke up a few months ago?”
“Yeah. Diana made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone about her. It wouldn’t be right to do that to her. If she ever met Summer, she’d know and I can only imagine how hurt she’d be. She’s not ready for that kind of thing.”
“You can’t let what happened do this to your life, son. Nobody would blame you if you let yourself be happy with someone. If that someone is Summer, then don’t ruin it. Diana has all of us to help her. It’s not all on you.”
&n
bsp; I shook my head but said nothing. I’d heard this from my parents for years. It didn’t matter what they said. I couldn’t tell Summer about why I needed to go to my sister when she messaged me without telling her about Diana, and I wouldn’t do that to my sister. Not after I promised her I wouldn’t.
“Ethan, you made a mistake. You don’t have to punish yourself for the rest of your life for it.”
“I’m not going to be into work Monday, Dad. I have something I need to handle. I hope you understand. Tell Mom I love her and I hope her show goes great.”
My father frowned but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what he was unhappy about. My not going to work? Or maybe my not going to my mother’s show. That frown might even have been for my past misdeeds since I’d done so much to earn that frown a hundred times over.
“Night, Ethan. I’ll let you know what Andrew says after I call him in the morning.”
The screen went dark, and I sat back wondering if he’d ever not wear that frown when he looked at me. Maybe not tonight, but someday I hoped to see that hint of pride I sometimes saw in his eyes again.
* * *
As I stood waiting for someone to answer the door, an icy breeze whipped past me and I chastised myself for not calling first. Surprising people sometimes went well, but what was I thinking driving up to the shelter first thing on a Monday morning without even asking what hours they were open? The damn sun had barely come up over the horizon, for God’s sake.
I definitely should have called. I knocked a second time and waited, hearing the dogs inside barking at the noise.
From behind me, I heard a voice say, “Ethan? Is that you?”
Turning around, I saw Dawn walking toward me. “Hey. I drove out on the off chance that I’d be able to pick up where I left off the other day.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Sure! I’m just surprised you came out this early. You must have started out before five.” She stopped talking and looked over toward my car. Disappointed, she turned back and quietly said, “I thought maybe Summer was with you. I guess you guys didn’t make up after the other day?”
