It was almost an hour later before the front door opened and in walked Barrick with a bag of takeout from the local Mexican restaurant. Mia said they had the best tacos, and we were all in agreement that comfort food needed to be on the menu for the evening.
Behind him, carrying a second bag, limped Braxton. He was dressed in black dress pants, a white button-down that molded across his chest, with black combat boots to complete the outfit, and it took me a moment to pull my tongue from the roof of my mouth…because damn. His dark hair was cropped short, his dark eyes hauntingly beautiful with the longest, thickest eyelashes I’d ever seen on a guy. I wanted to spend uninterrupted hours while I just memorized the planes of his face.
How could someone so masculine be so fucking beautiful? It didn’t make sense, but the proof was right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t pull my gaze from him.
A whine drew my attention away from the Marine vet to see an older German shepherd walking slowly behind him. There was gray in her fur, and she moved like her entire body hurt. From the many phone conversations I’d had with Braxton in the last several months, I knew her name was Sasha and she was seventeen. I knew a lot about the dog, had even fallen in love with her just from the stories he’d told me about her.
But upon seeing her in person, I felt my heart instantly leap, and I found myself greeting her like an old friend. “Hello, sweet puppy,” I murmured as I crouched down in front of her, letting her sniff my hand.
I was rewarded with a soft lick to my palm, then one to my chin. I hugged her neck gently, afraid to hurt her. Sasha’s tail wagged happily, and she buried her snout in my neck, making me giggle.
“Sasha, easy,” Braxton’s deep voice commanded, surprising me with its closeness. Lifting my head, I found him standing beside us. Crouching, he smoothed his hand down the dog’s back. “She likes you,” he murmured. “She’s not normally all over people.”
“I’m not people,” I said, scratching her head. “I’m Sasha’s. Right, Sasha baby?” She whined as if agreeing with me, and I laughed. “See? She claimed me.”
“That’s because Sasha is a smart girl. Aren’t you, precious?” he cooed to the dog, stroking her fur.
“Hey, you two,” Mia called out. “Food’s getting cold. Come eat.”
Glancing around, I realized we were the only ones in the living room and Braxton was very, very close. Heat instantly filled my face, and I cleared my throat as I straightened, thankful I wasn’t spewing all the things in my head out into reality for him to hear. Like that I wanted him to brush his massive hands down my back like he was Sasha, or that I wanted him to claim me as his just as the dog had.
When he stood, he reached out, stroking the backs of his knuckles down my cheek. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said with a smile before walking into the kitchen.
I stood there, my heart pounding in my chest, and watched him walk away. “Me too,” I whispered, touching my fingers to my cheek where his had made contact.
Chapter 2
Braxton
It was snowing as I walked across campus. My first class of the day wasn’t for another hour, but Mia and Nevaeh each had one that was about to end. Thankfully, they were both in the same building.
“Hey, Braxton,” someone called out, and I didn’t even look to see who it was. I tossed up my hand in a salute and kept walking.
Opening the door, I walked into a wall of heat, and my muscles started to relax a little as I walked toward Nevaeh’s class first. Before I reached the thick, closed door, it opened and students started spilling out.
None of them was my kitten, though.
I waited impatiently for everyone to exit then walked in to find Nevaeh talking to the professor. Arguing was a better word for it.
“Look,” she said, frustration heavy in her voice as she waved her hand to the whiteboard where some crazy math equation took up the entire space. “You miscalculated here, and then again here.”
“How could you possibly know that just by looking at the equation, Miss Stevenson?” the professor, a man in his late forties, demanded in a tone that suggested Nevaeh couldn’t dream of knowing more than him.
“My brain is like a computer when it comes to math,” she said with a shrug as if it were no big deal. “I understand mistakes are part of life, but if you can’t correct yourself, how will you ever learn?”
“If you know so much, why are you even in this class?” he demanded. “Sounds like you think you already know more than me.”
She shrugged. “Probably. But apparently this class is required for my major.”
“Miss Stevenson—”
I quickly moved forward when I heard the coldness in his tone. Fuck no, he wasn’t going to talk to my little kitten like that. I would knock his damn teeth down his throat before I let him hurt her feelings. “Nevaeh, are you ready?”
She snapped her head around and smiled warmly, seeming to forget about the professor and his mistakes. I glanced at the board again, amusement making my lips twitch that she’d caught this dick in not one, but two mistakes when it looked like a foreign language to me.
“You didn’t have to come get me,” she said as she walked back to her desk and started packing up her things.
“I want to make sure you get to your next class with no issues,” I told her as I picked up her backpack.