No Fooling Around: Lennox Brothers Romantic Comedy Page 9

  “Very hard. But the worst part was—” The door opened and Gloria shut her lips over whatever she’d been going to say.

  Ruff’s paws clacked on the hard floors. His tail wagged when he saw me, and his jowls swung as he lumbered over.

  “Hey, boy.” I rubbed his ears the way he liked. “You’re okay. I’m here.”

  Asher was right behind Ruff. He’d clearly been thinking about something while he was gone, because he started talking while he was still approaching. “I haven’t paid you for the portrait I asked you to paint. Most commission pieces are paid for up front, so it’s only fair I do the same. I’ll arrange it immediately.”

  It was a tempting offer, but I didn’t want charity. It felt too much like Benedict’s financial prison.

  “I don’t need an upfront payment. If you want to buy a painting, you should get to see it first.”

  “But—”

  I held up a hand. “Thank you. I appreciate your kindness, but I’ll be okay. I only want you to pay for a painting if you like it.”

  “Iola, I’d expect to pay upfront if I were commissioning any kind of—”

  “No, please. I realize I’m being weird about this, but you can thank Benedict for that.” I gave him a weak, apologetic smile. “Even though you’re nothing like my ex, he’s given me a kind of phobia. I can’t accept any money until I can give you the painting.”

  I’d survive without a handout, because I couldn‘t do anything else. And if only Ruff and I didn’t need to eat, maybe we really would be okay.

  Chapter Ten

  Iola

  My lack of qualifications meant getting a job that paid enough for me and Ruff to live on wouldn’t be easy. Art was all I knew, but my paintings took time to create, and I was running low on dog food.

  After getting up early on Monday morning to check the job ads, I managed to convince Asher I’d be okay on my own for a few hours if I promised to keep the door locked and my phone right beside me with his number on speed-dial. He’d slept on my couch again last night, but hadn’t so much as kissed me, and now I was more confused than ever. I wanted to ask where things stood, but didn’t want it to be embarrassing or awkward. Especially seeing as I was a lot less worried about Benedict with Asher sleeping over, and didn’t want him to stop.

  I spent the day working a new painting while trying not to worry about the financial pressure I was under. After finishing in the afternoon, I was looking for Ruff’s leash when Asher came back.

  “Just checking in,” he said when I answered the door. “Everything okay?”

  “No sign of Benedict.” I opened the door wider. “I’m about to take Ruff to the dog park. He needs some exercise.” Beside me, Ruff wagged his tail harder, recognizing the words.

  When Asher stepped inside, I moved back to give him room, trying to pretend I was cool with our hands-off status. I hoped by putting extra distance between us, I’d be less affected by his sexy cologne, devastating good looks, and magnetic presence.

  Only, nope.

  “I’ll come to the dog park with you,” he said.

  “Um.” With difficulty, I swallowed what was about to be a totally inappropriate joke about staying in and doing it doggy style instead.

  “You shouldn’t go alone,” he said. “Your ex might be trying to catch you out of the house to approach you again.”

  I was only half listening, busy frowning down at the area past the hem of his T-shirt, trying to work out what was bulging out of the front pocket of his jeans. “Um,” I said again. “Is that Ruff’s rubber chicken, or are you really pleased to see me?”

  His eyes creased as he tugged it free of his pocket. “I found it in my living room.”

  “Again?” I handed it to Ruff who bit down on it, making it squeak loudly.

  “I found these too.” He pulled some silky fabric out of his other front pocket. “They were in my bedroom.”

  Grimacing, I took my panties from him. “Three pairs? I swear, every window is latched. Every door is locked. What more can I do to keep Nemesis out?”

  “And this.” Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out Ruff’s leash.

  I gaped at it for a moment, then clenched my jaw. I’d just wasted twenty minutes searching for it. “I’m sorry Asher, but if I catch your cat in here again, I’ll have to…” I trailed off because I couldn’t think of anything I could do other than scold her, and that hadn’t exactly been working for me so far.

  Asher cleared his throat, his lips twitching. “You do know she’s over there, right?”

  “What?” I swung around. Sure enough, Nemesis was curled up in the middle of Ruff’s oversized dog bed beside the living room couch. She looked like she was asleep, until one eye cracked open and she stared at me for a second. Then she closed it dismissively.

  I huffed out an outraged breath, turning to Ruff. “A cat’s asleep in your bed. Are you going to put up with that?”

  His eyebrows drooped mournfully as he gazed back up at me. The rubber chicken squeaked in his mouth.

  Asher pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh. “Want me to see if I can get her out of here? Not that she listens to me, but I can try.” He clearly hadn’t received any memo about keeping his distance, because he moved disconcertingly close to me. One whiff of his cologne and I had to hold myself back from burying my face in his neck.

  I swallowed hard. “No, leave her. At least while she’s sleeping, she’s not stealing. Let’s go to the dog park.”

  “I should drop into my father’s place to check on him,” Asher said. “Would you mind if we stopped on the way?”

  “I don’t mind.” In fact, I was intensely curious about other people’s families, and I wanted to know everything about Asher’s. If Asher and Kade were any indication, their father would be a handsome silver fox. He’d no doubt be dignified, funny, highly intelligent, and charismatic. I couldn’t wait to meet him.

  We crammed Ruff into the back seat of Asher’s car, and had barely turned onto Calle Colina when I spotted a huge flock of birds hovering low in the sky, acting strangely. They were diving down and wheeling back up, the flock only a few blocks away from us. And as we drove closer, I could hear them screeching.

  “That’s odd.” I craned my neck to watch them.

  “Mmm.” Asher sounded thoughtful.

  We turned the corner onto a quiet residential street, and the full flock came into view.

  They were seagulls. Hundreds of gulls. They’d completely covered a house, flapping around it while they squawked and quarreled, squabbling with each other the way they did when they were fighting over food.

  “That’s Dad’s house.” Asher sounded perfectly calm, like he wasn’t shocked at all. He pulled the car over a short distance away, out of range of the birds.

  My jaw was slack. “It’s like a Hitchcock movie.”

  “More like a cartoon.” He pointed out a small woman wearing a bright yellow raincoat with a matching yellow safety helmet jammed over her long gray hair, and high rubber boots. She was holding a pump action water gun that was bigger than she was. With her feet planted wide, she was leaning back to fire it, her body braced as though it were a rocket launcher.

  The woman looked like she was laughing maniacally as she shot liquid over Asher’s father’s house, but with the windows up and the gulls screeching, I couldn’t hear her. I could hear her dog though. A Bassett Hound was bounding around her with his tail wagging, happily barking at all the birds.

  Ruff barked in response, his mouth so close to my ear he all but deafened me. “Shhh,” I told him. “Quiet. Good boy.”

  “That’s Trixie Watson,” said Asher. “She’s Dad’s neighbor. And her dog’s name is Xul the Destroyer.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Shooting something onto Dad’s roof that the birds like to eat. Can’t be birdseed, it’d cause blockages in the water gun’s firing mechanism.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Could be fish paste dissolved in water. The smel
l would definitely attract gulls.”

  He was as matter-of-fact as ever, and it made the whole thing more surreal. Was it actually happening, or some kind of weird hallucination?

  “Why?” My head was spinning.

  “Seagulls like fish.”

  “No, why would she do that?”

  The small woman strode over to a large bucket of slushy liquid to reload her weapon, though there was already a disturbing amount of bird poo splattered around the house. No wonder she was wearing a raincoat and helmet.

  “My father’s been feuding with Trixie for years,” said Asher. “Believe me, this is nothing. You should have seen the yard wars a few years ago.”

  “Yard wars?”

  “Remind me to tell you about it later.” His brow creased. “The only strange thing is that Dad’s not—”

  A pot-bellied, gray-haired man with enormous hairy eyebrows came bursting from inside the house onto the front porch. He was wearing a long trench coat and carrying the most enormous water gun I’d ever seen. Even bigger than Trixie’s.

  “Ah,” said Asher. “There he is. That’s my father. And he’s carrying the Soakinator Gargantuan 2000.” A hint of admiration leaked into his voice. “I always wanted one when I was younger. They were easily the best on the market, but too expensive for me and my brothers.”

  His dad let out a war cry so loud I could hear it over the barking of the dog and the squawking of gulls. He leaned back and fired his water cannon from the waist, like Rambo spraying an entire army with a machine gun. A long, hard jet of purple liquid sprayed out. It shot into Trixie’s face, drenching her. She shrieked, lifting her own gun to shoot him back. But before the stream reached him, he ducked behind the porch rails, bending and running like a much younger man.

  Trixie ran sideways, still firing. She was aiming at Asher’s father now instead of at his house. Asher’s father dodged, jumping out from behind his porch rails to fire back.

  I craned forward, wanting to see what would happen when Asher’s father got wet. Would his hairy eyebrows flatten over his eyes like a curtain?

  Incredibly, Asher was relaxed behind the wheel. He didn’t even look as interested as Ruff, who was panting excitedly. After telling him to be quiet he wouldn’t bark again, but his eyes flicked between the dog and the two senior citizens.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” I asked.

  Asher shook his head. “The exercise is good for Dad. The doctor told him to get out more, and this is the most active I’ve seen him in a while.”

  “But—?” I gasped as Trixie scored a direct hit, and Asher’s dad spluttered out fishy liquid. Incredibly, his eyebrows barely sagged.

  “You didn’t have your heart set on meeting my father today, did you?” asked Asher. “Better to come back another time.”

  “You’re really not going to stop them?”

  “Why disturb them when they’re having fun?”

  I opened my car window, gazing with open-mouthed wonder at the scene in front of me. As soon as the window came down, everything was louder. The birds screeched, the dog barked, and I could hear the insults Trixie was yelling.

  “Take that, you cretinous old coot!” she shouted. “You rotten pit of maggot larvae!”

  The small woman’s raincoat and helmet were dripping purple liquid. The grass and sidewalk were also splashed with purple, and a purple river was running into the gutter.

  “Is your father shooting paint?” I asked.

  “Food coloring. Dad wouldn’t shoot paint onto his own grass.”

  With the window down, a strong fish smell was drifting in. Asher’s father was drenched with the liquid and the gulls were starting to dive-bomb him. He cursed and yelled insults back at Trixie.

  “How d’ya like being purple, you broken-down bag of nuts?”

  Trixie landed another direct hit to his face and even though his hair was slicked against his head, somehow his eyebrows still refused to droop.

  “Seen enough?” Asher started the car. He pulled away from the curb and I craned around to watch his father and Trixie disappear as we rounded the corner.

  “That was the weirdest thing I’ve seen in a while.” I settled back in my seat.

  “Dad likes things that way. He’s easily bored.”

  A familiar ache had started in my chest. But now I’d seen Asher’s eccentric father and bonded with his charming twin brother, how could I not be jealous?

  “Your family’s amazing.” I didn’t bother to keep the envy out of my voice.

  He shot me a sideways look. “That’s not most people’s reaction to my father.”

  “I wish I had a close family who did kooky things.”

  “Kooky’s the word you’ve chosen to describe Dad?” His tone was dry. “Your restraint is admirable.”

  “You were going to tell me about his yard wars?”

  “Oh yes.” He stopped at a traffic light and turned to face me. “Trixie planted a large topiary in her front yard and cut it into a rude shape aimed in Dad’s direction. A giant hand with its middle finger extended. An impressive feat. She must have taken a topiary shaping class.”

  I snorted a laugh, picturing the plant. “What did your dad do? Dig it out?”

  “He planted one in his own yard to return the favor, though his shaping wasn’t as good. Rudimentary, but still recognizable. Then Trixie got more plants, and so did Dad. For a while they had dozens of matching topiaries in their yards, all flipping each other off.”

  I sighed wistfully. He was so lucky to have a father like his.

  “What happened to the plants?” I asked.

  “Someone made a complaint and they were forced to pull them out.”

  “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “I have a photo. Remind me to show you.”

  The light turned green and he went through the intersection, heading toward the park.

  “How come your father and his neighbor hate each other so much?” I asked.

  “Hate each other?” He tilted his head. “I’m not sure they do. It’s closer to love, but they don’t want to admit it.”

  “Love?” I gaped at him. “You really think they love each other?”

  “It’s only people in love who make each other that crazy.”

  “You’re serious? You really think that’s what love looks like for them?”

  “That’s what love does to most people. I’ve seen it over and over. First with my father and mother, then my father and Trixie. And Kade and Natalie. Even Mason and Carlotta.”

  “Mason’s your older brother, right?”

  He nodded. “Carlotta was in trouble, so Mason did something dangerous. He risked his life for her.”

  I fell silent, digesting what he’d said, trying to think of couples I knew who were in love. But I didn’t know many couples who were actually happy. Benedict’s friends had mostly married for money or status. Or in Benedict’s case, because he’d wanted to mold a vulnerable girl into an obedient wife.

  “You know what love looks like to me?” I said after a few minutes. “Like my parents before they died. They were really happy.” My memories of them were all loving, and the memories had buoyed me for years, helping me get through the hard times.

  “You were never in love with Benedict?”

  My laugh was bitter. “Maybe at first, when he was pretending to be attentive and thoughtful, instead of controlling and selfish.”

  “Love makes people do things they wouldn’t if they were thinking more clearly.”

  “Like marrying a guy whose birth certificate should be an apology letter from the condom factory?”

  His eyes crinkled. “Exactly.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  “No, and I never want to be.”

  “Never?” I frowned, taken aback. “Not ever?”

  “I’d never be able to trust someone that much.” He gave me a sideways look. “You of all people should understand that.”

  “Hmm,” I said distracted
ly. When it came to Benedict, I’d definitely been too trusting. But was that a reason to completely give up on love?

  He pulled over and I realized we were at the park. But I was so busy thinking about what he’d said, I got Ruff out of the car in a daze. Was that why Asher didn’t want to kiss me? I hadn’t thought to ask Gloria if Asher had dated much, because how could a man with his looks not be in hot demand? But if he was that serious about never falling in love, maybe he didn’t date at all.

  When he realized we were at his favorite place, Ruff surged forward, distracting me from my thoughts. He was too well trained to yank hard on his leash, which was a good thing seeing as a dog of his size could pull me right over. But he managed to convey his excitement as he led Asher and me through the big park, past the gazebo, to the fenced, off-leash area for dogs at the far end.

  I’d brought a ball along for him and when I threw it in the off-leash area, Ruff bounded after it with his jowls swinging. One problem with his obedience training, it had been designed to make him a winner at dog shows and hadn’t included any kind of play. Ruff had no idea he was supposed to bring the ball back to me and I didn’t want to make it less fun for him by ordering him to come. So I spent a lot of time chasing him to pull the ball from his jaws, and he seemed to think running away was the best part of the game.

  “Help!” I laughed, calling to Asher as Ruff kept evading me. “We need to corner him.”

  “Stay there. I’ll shepherd him toward you.”

  Sure enough, when he ran at Ruff, the dog came thundering straight at me. I launched myself at him and Ruff dodged to the side. Drops of dog saliva spattered from his jaws, hitting my arms as I dove into a tackle.

  Unfortunately, when the dust cleared, I was on the ground and Ruff still had the ball. Asher stood over me, stretching down a hand to pull me up. And as I reached up to grab it, Asher’s lips stretched into a wide, real smile.

  My body went weak.

  The small hints of smiles he’d had given me before didn’t begin to compare. This smile didn’t just break the attractiveness scale, it laughed in its face. And like how soft drugs are supposed to be a gateway to harder ones, I knew right away I was a goner. Getting Asher to dazzle me with more real smiles would be my new compulsion. From now on, I’d have to trail him like a junkie, desperately cracking jokes until he gave me what I needed.