ME: Now you’re just overplaying it.
NOAH: I am, aren’t I?
ME: Slightly. The time to use it was this morning on my mom and my aunt.
NOAH: Yeah, but it sounded a little too gratuitous. What was I supposed to do, say Hi, I’m Noah, the one who saved Reagan’s life and we’re going for lunch?
ME: …
ME: Yes, Noah. That’s exactly what you were supposed to say.
Silence.
He didn’t reply.
Was it something I said? I did have a tendency to be a little rude, but we were bantering, so…
I grabbed the remote for the new TV that my dad had installed in my room this afternoon and hit the button because yes, Netflix. Yes, I was still watching Friends, thank you very much.
I paid Netflix to give me unlimited streaming of my favorite TV shows, not judge me on the fact I was using that unlimited streaming in one sitting.
I was recovering from a fire! I could stream for four hours if I wanted to!
Yeah… I probably couldn’t use that line for Netflix if I’d spent two days complaining about being babied by my family.
Fine.
I paid for Netflix! I could stream for four hours if I wanted to!
There. Better.
My phone buzzed with a message five minutes into the show, and I sighed with relief when I saw Noah’s name.
NOAH: Sorry. My dog stole my underwear again.
ME: …Your dog steals your underwear?
NOAH: Yeah. She’s a weirdo. I blame my grandma.
ME: Why your grandma?
NOAH: She belonged to her until she died six months ago. I had to go to Maine to rescue Poosh.
ME: Your dog is called Poosh?
NOAH: Hold on. Let me see if the little thief will cooperate for a picture.
ME: Okay…
And wait I did.
For twenty minutes.
Was he taking a photo of a dog or a viper?
Noah’s name finally flashed on the screen, and I unlocked my phone to see the message.
And.
Oh.
My.
God.
It was a chihuahua. It was a picture of him holding a very pissed-off looking tan chihuahua with one white ear and a bright pink collar.
Dead.
I was dead.
Dead. Dead. Dead.
ME: OH MY GOD YOU HAVE A CHIHUAHUA
NOAH: I thought she was a Great Dane.
ME: YOU HAVE A CHIHUAHUA
NOAH: Yes.
ME: YOU HAVE A CHIHUAHUA!!!!!!!!!
NOAH: We’ve established that, Reagan.
ME: YOU HAVE A CHIHUAHUA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Noah was a hot firefighter.
With tattoos.
And for all intents and purposes, a rescue chihuahua.
I was so, so fucked.
CHAPTER NINE – NOAH
Bacon > Everything
Was Reagan broken?
Was ‘YOU HAVE A CHIHUAHUA’ all she was capable of saying? She was like an old record who was stuck on the same line, repeating it over and over.
I wasn’t an expert on stuck records, or women for that matter, but I think it meant she liked chihuahuas.
ME: Yes, I have a chihuahua. Yes, she is pissed off. I stole my underwear back. She costs me a damn fortune.
Poosh growled as if she knew what I was typing on my phone. She probably did. I swore she was possessed—probably with the ghost of my late grandma. It was the kind of thing Grandma would have done.
Found herself some witch doctor type to ensure her spirit went right for her dog to torment me for the next few years.
Yeah. That probably wasn’t read out when we heard her will.
REAGAN: Stop buying Calvin Klein then.
I raised an eyebrow as I text back.
ME: How do you know what underwear I wear?
Her reply was instant.
REAGAN: You bent over in the liquor store. I looked. I’m not ashamed.
Laughter burst out of me. Of course she’d looked. I really shouldn’t have been surprised—she’d walked behind me most of the time while we’d been walking the aisles of that store and I thought I’d caught her staring at my ass once or twice.
She was shameless.
I kinda liked it on her.
It fit her wildness. Anyone who had purple hair had to be a little bit wild. More than that, I could see it in her eyes. Especially when she laughed.
There was a glint in her blue eyes—a glint that hinted that there was more behind the shameless, sarcastic exterior.
The thing was, I thought both sides of Reagan would be wild.
She struck me as the kind of person who gave her all to everything she did, whether that was loving someone or hating them, working or playing.
I rubbed my hand across my face. I had no idea what I was doing, sitting here thinking about her like this. She’d given me absolutely no indication that she felt anything but gratitude and friendship toward me.
She was more excited about the fact I have a chihuahua than she was about me saving her life.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true, but she hadn’t sent me eight YOU SAVED MY LIFE!!!!!!!! text messages either, so it was definitely a point that was up for debate.
Still, she’d had a rough weekend, and the last thing she needed was some idiot with a chihuahua putting the moves on her.