The weather wasn’t as warm as Bea would like, but she wasn’t a wimp, she could handle a little cold during a run. Even if it made her lungs ache a little with each cold breath. Ada needed to be out and running too; the puppy wasn’t really puppy-sized anymore, and where Tipsy could stay inside their place for hours or even days and not need more exercise than the space afforded, Ada couldn’t do the same thing. She was too big. Almost big enough for Bea to believe that she’d make a decent guard dog, and finally after months her manners were acceptable.
Running helped to clear her head too. She’d heard details from Vienna about what had happened with Leah, and she tried to ignore the little twinge of knowledge in the back of her head that told her she hadn’t spoken to the other woman in a while. She wasn’t deluded enough either to think it didn’t have anything to do with the time she’d been spending with Leah’s brother.
She knew Brandon’s reputation, she wasn’t an idiot. As much as she wanted to know where she stood with him too, she couldn’t even tell herself that she knew where her head was at when it really came to Brandon Stone.
But lucky for her she was pulled from her own thoughts; thoughts that had drifted through her head more often that she’d like, by the figure of a dog bounding her way. She had Ada on a leash for ease of keeping the dog near her side, but it was clear that the one headed directly for them wasn’t on one. It only took a minute to place the animal too.
Brandon’s dog, Cin.
Just as soon as the name popped into her head she heard Brandon’s muffled holler and her stride faltered a beat as she tried to search out the man to go with the voice.
“Leash your fucking dog,” she retorted before her brain had caught up with her mouth, and she stopped closer to the building, bending at the waist to catch her breath. “You’re damn lucky Ada isn’t territorial the way your dog came our way.” She’d tried to train that out of Cin the minute she’d taken to growling at Ty. She wasn’t going to have a dog that did shit like that.
Except, she had the worse luck, since the one thing –person- she wanted to get out of her head was standing less than ten feet from her, and she’d never admit she stayed bent over a couple minutes longer than she needed to just to avoid having to really look at him. God, it would all be easier if she could have just fucked him and gotten him out of her system. But on top of all the murkiness, he hadn’t tried anything. Hadn’t even given her an opening to think that the possibility of casual sex was on the table. It was fucking exhausting just flirting without knowing what the hell was going on.
“Why the fuck are you over here anyways?” It wasn’t really the preferred area for the canine owners to let their dogs run, at least not in her experience.