Out of Love(3)

After class, I grabbed my backpack and turned to strike up conversation with dog guy and maybe to apologize for being two minutes late—and see if he’d let me love on his German shepherd.

“Where’d you go?” I mumbled to myself, lifting onto my toes before fighting my way up the stairs and through the crowd. There was no way he got away that quickly. He must have ditched class early which made him infinitely more mysterious and appealing.

“Way to show up late.” Karina elbowed me as we spilled out of the building with the rest of the herd.

“Hey.” I grinned while we navigated down the mountain of stone steps. “Two minutes.”

“Last year, bae … are you ready for this?”

I slid my arm through the other strap of my backpack. “Hey … did you see the guy with the dog?” My gaze continued to survey the area.

“Uh … yeah. He was the topic of whispered chatter from the moment he walked into the auditorium until class started … two minutes before you arrived.”

I rolled my eyes. “And?”

“Slade Wylder. He would have been a senior our freshman year, but he disappeared for a few years. Not sure why or where he went. Anyway … he’s back, and he lives across the street from you—maybe three or four houses east. Someone said he’s renting the firehouse that was condemned.”

“Dickerson’s?” My head whipped toward her.

“Yep.” Karina’s lips popped.

Patty Dickerson’s husband kidnapped a freshman girl the year before I started college. He kept her drugged in their dungeon for six months without Patty having a clue. Patty was in a wheelchair from some degenerative disease, so she never knew. There were some rumors that Patty didn’t even know they had a basement/dungeon—they weren’t exactly common in SoCal.

The one beneath the firehouse was small and sounded creepy as fuck: dark, windowless, and accessed by a trapdoor. A bunker for sick bastards to hide their victims. The girl managed to start a fire after Professor Dickerson—yep, he was a psychology professor, go figure—left a lit cigar near her.

The girl died. Patty got out. Professor Dickerson went to prison.

Someone bought the place and fixed the damage from the fire, but it had sat vacant with a For Rent sign out front ever since I’d lived on the street.

“How is it he has a dog in class? He’s not blind.”

“Someone said he’s deaf.”

I wrinkled my nose. That didn’t make sense.

“I suppose he reads lips.” She shrugged.

“Then he should sit in the front row, where he can actually see her lips.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s an emotional support dog.”

“When did they start allowing emotional support animals in classes?”

Karina laughed. “I don’t know anything about any of it. I’m just telling you what people were saying before class started. I’m this way.” She nodded to the right.

“Okay. I have an hour break.” I yawned.

“Nap?”

I nodded, still yawning.

“Set an alarm. See ya.”

I found my tree, but it wasn’t vacant on the east side in the sun. It was always vacant because … My. Tree.

Black tee.

Black jeans.

Black leather boots.

German shepherd.

Dog guy took my spot.

“I wouldn’t,” his deep, clipped warning prickled along my skin.

I liked it.

I liked the angle of his shadowed jaw and his prominent cheekbones—sharp like his tone.

I liked his deep brown hair trimmed close on the sides and long and messy as fuck on the top, as if he didn’t give it more than a quick comb through with his fingers before stumbling out the door.

My hand paused. I wasn’t petting the dog, just letting it smell me. And how did he know I was there? He mimicked a log, his head resting on his bag, legs stretched long and crossed at the ankles, hands interlaced on his chest.

Unmoving.

Eyes closed.

“Are you deaf?”

He didn’t move—not a flinch, a peek of one eye opening, a flutter of his long eyelashes.

I took that as a yes.

Then he must have seen me coming, felt my presence or the vibration of my footsteps.

Dropping my bag to the ground on the opposite and sunless side of the tree, I retrieved a pear from my backpack and took a bite while settling onto my side, resting my cheek on the bag. Something rustled behind me, and I glanced back. The German shepherd shifted to face me.

“Jericho,” Mr. Stole My Spot warned.

A couple girls veered off in our direction. “Oh my god! What a beautiful dog.” One leaned down to pet him, and he growled. The girls jumped back. “Whoa … okay.” They skittered off just as quickly as they’d detoured toward the tree.

Spot-stealer reached over and gave Jericho a scratch on his head as if to praise him for growling at the girls. However, Jericho’s gaze remained affixed to the pear in my hand.

I took another bite of pear and slid the chunk out of my mouth. Then I tossed it in front of Jericho.

“Leave it.”

I smirked at the gruff voice.

For a deaf person, he missed nothing. I peered in that direction again. Maybe he sat up and saw the piece of pear.